The Bearcats are the football team of the University of Cincinnati in Ohio. They compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision of the NCAA and play in the American Athletic Conference (AAC), although they will be joining the Big 12 in 2023.
Cincinnati has won 16 conference titles in the program's history, with 7 of those coming since 2005 when the team underwent a resurgence after joining the Big East Conference. Realignments led to the end of the Big East as a football conference in 2013, and the football-playing colleges who had been members until that point joined with other schools to form the American Athletic Conference. Cincinnati was among these, and the Bearcats have won 3 conference titles since 2013.
In 2021, the Bearcats went undefeated throughout the entire regular season, even beating Notre Dame in a road game. Cincinnati won the AAC Championship title against Houston and qualified for the College Football Playoff, becoming the first ever team from a "Group of Five" college to achieve the feat.
The team maintains longstanding rivalries with Miami (Ohio), Louisville, and Pittsburgh. The Bearcats play their home games at Nippert Stadium.