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Narrowing Down Cincinnati's Bowl Options

The Bearcats have long since been bowl eligible, the only question at this point is where will the Bearcats be bowling, and who will they be playing. We don't know any of this yet, and we won't know until tomorrow, but you can start to narrow down the options.

By Matt Opper
Mike DiNovo-USA TODAY Sports

Here are the AAC's bowl tie ins.

  • Miami Beach Bowl - December 22nd, 1 PM
  • BITCOIN St. Petersburg Bowl -- December 26th, 8 PM
  • Military Bowl presented by Northrup Grumman -- December 27th, 1 PM
  • Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl -- January 2nd, Noon
  • Birmingham Bowl -- January 3rd, 1 PM

Tommy Tuberville has stated very publicly his desire to not have to play in one of the earlier time slots. He wants to have next week for his staff to get out and recruit, if the Bearcats were the choice for the Miami Beach Bowl they would not be able to hit the road next week and would have to begin bowl prep immediately. The other reason Tubs wants a later slot, to give the guys a chance to rest. This season more than any other has been a grind for the Bearcats, the lack of off weeks has made this season even more of a grind than usual. UC has played 12 games in 13 weeks which is ridiculous, a week off would be welcome.

Still, due to the unique way the AAC works the schools don't get much of a say in this, The conference simply offers up all the bowl eligible teams and allows the bowl officials to select whoever they want. Unlike other conferences there is no pecking order. With all that in mind I think there are a couple of likely locations for the Bearcats.

First on the list is the Military Bowl which is being played at Navy Marine Corps Stadium in Annapolis Maryland against an ACC foe, likely to be Virginia Tech. The other would be the St. Pete Bowl which is another game pitting the AAC and the ACC. Surprisingly here the team to watch is the Miami Hurricanes who were thought to be headed to St. Pete earlier in the week. Which would rule out UC for that game. The bowls tend to work hard to avoid rematches of regular season games, not at all costs, but if at all possible. But as of this moment the Hurricanes are probably headed to Shreveport, which puts St. Pete in play.

At this particular point in time I would be shocked if the Bearcats wound up somewhere other than Annapolis or the Tampa Bay area. But I have been shocked before by AAC decisions.

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