The Battle For Route 81 to Route 80 to Route 71 Rages On

Remember when you started applying to colleges and every time you got a new brochure in the mail, for the next 24 hours you somehow convinced yourself that this was the school for you and you started imagining yourself already there, rooting for their sports teams and wearing their colors?

No?  Was this just me?

The first school brochure I ever got was from Cincinnati and for the next two days, I was 100% positive that was where I was going to school.  I'd never been to Ohio, let alone Cincinnati, but that didn't matter.  Until I got the brochure from Delaware.  Go Hens! 

You wouldn't know it but Cincy and SU have a nice little rivalry building.  Sure, it's devoid of any emotional attachment, especially in football, and the Bearcats have won the last three, but the overall series is tied 4-4.  And we're not including any kind of weird 1896 results where SU beat Cincy amongst a field of gillyflowers in a high-scoring 6-3 affair.  The first-ever meeting was 1993 (SU 24, Cincy 21). 

Throw in the fact that, for some unknown reason, Cincy and SU are now "last game of the season" dance partners.  This will be the fourth straight season we end  Big East play against each other.  While that doesn't seem to add too much value to the rivalry, it does seem to spice things up whenever bowl berths and, like this year, Big East titles are on the line.

SU won the first three meetings and four of the first five.  Aside from 1998's 63-21 drubbing and last year's 52-31 Cincy shootout win, they've all been relatively close games.  In 2005, Cincy won in Syracuse for the first time.  But SU did have one moral victory that day...Otto's hate-crime against the Bearcat, who happens to be wearing the gayest hat I've ever seen:

Otto Vs. Cincinnati Bearcat (via Pawprint29)

The 2006 affair, a 17-3 win by Cincy, is the site of one of my favorite SU-related YouTube videos of all time. I demand that "Dad" is present for any and all SU games I attend moving forward so I can pick his brain the entire time while he buys me peanuts and soda.

Football weekend (via catnap40)

If last year's game wasn't close, at least it was exciting.  83 total points scored and Andrew Robinson ended the season with a solid performance than proved to SU fans he was the man to lead us back to glory in 2008.  Ahem.

Mike Williams TD, SU vs. Cincinnati (via jbren)

Robinson to Williams.  Remember when they were going to rewrite SU football history books together?  Me either...

For the first time since 2004, the outcome of the game has a significant effect on the Big East title.  Cincy wins, the conference is theirs and so is most likely an unwatchable Orange Bowl.  We already know the SU players aren't going to mail it in.  But did SU use up all of its magic last week to make a dent this time around?  The smary money says yes but still...Cincy will be without All-Big East senior CB Mike Mickens.  And they're coming off three straight "biggest games in school history," prime time for a letdown. Crazier things, so I hear, have happened...