Ever since Bearcats football scheduled a home-and-home series with Marshall in 2017 and 2019, we have known that some kind of change was coming to the 2019 Cincinnati non-conference schedule. Adding the return trip to Huntington to visit the Thundering Herd meant that UC had contracts to play five non-league games that season – obviously impossible, since 8 of 12 regular season games each season are reserved for conference play.
Something had to give. And even worse, that 2019 schedule looked to be murderer’s row. UC was scheduled to host UCLA at Nippert, then play three road non-league games: at OSU-Columbus, Miami (OH), and Boise State.