Cincinnati Stuns No. 8 Texas Tech 37-24 for First Home Top-10 Win Since 2006

The last time Cincinnati beat a top-10 team at Nippert Stadium, people were still burning mix CDs. It was Nov. 18, 2006, against No. 7 Rutgers. Twenty years later, on the university's 100th Homecoming, the Bearcats did it again, and this time the opponent was a Texas Tech team that came to town 6-0 and had won 18 of its previous 20 games going back to the start of last season.

Cincinnati did not just survive No. 8 Texas Tech. It pushed the Red Raiders around for most of a Saturday afternoon and won 37-24. JC French IV threw a career-high four touchdown passes, Cole Tabb ran for a career-high 173 yards, and the students made sure the field was theirs by the end of it.

The subplot nobody would admit to

You could not talk about this game in the week leading up to it without saying Brendan Sorsby's name. The former Cincinnati quarterback's planned move to Lubbock fell apart after he admitted to betting on college football, and the bad blood between the two programs did not disappear just because the transfer did. Bearcats fans chanted his name at points on Saturday.

Joey McGuire insisted his locker room ignored all of it. "We didn't talk about it at all," the Texas Tech coach said. "We made it about football and the football wasn't good enough today."

A slow start, then a 21-point second quarter

For 15 minutes, Texas Tech looked like the better team and still could not take control. The Bearcats set the tone on the first possession, when MJ Cannon knocked the ball loose from Will Hammond on a fourth-and-1 keeper and Antwan Peek Jr. recovered. Stephen Rusnak turned that into a 47-yard field goal.

Tech's response was a pair of long drives that stalled in field goal range. On the first, Damaine Wilson's pressure forced Hammond into an intentional grounding penalty, and Stone Harrington tied it from 32. Harrington added a 48-yarder with 58 seconds left in the quarter, and Tech led 6-3. Cincinnati, which walked in averaging 231 rushing yards, had minus-6 on the ground.

Then the second quarter happened. French capped a 10-play, 85-yard drive by rolling out on a bootleg and finding Tabb for a 4-yard touchdown. It was Tabb's 11th touchdown of the season. Patrick Bauer sacked Hammond back to the Tech 6 on the next series, and the Bearcats got the ball back and went 55 yards in 11 plays, finishing with a 5-yard score to Malachi Henry with 1:37 left in the half.

Cannon then picked off Hammond on Tech's next possession, and Cincinnati covered 75 yards in five plays and under half a minute. Tabb ripped off a 51-yard run, French scrambled for 22, and tight end Lyviel Waters caught a 2-yard touchdown with five seconds on the clock. It was 24-6 at the break.

The turning point that almost turned the other way

Harrington's third field goal made it 24-9. Moments later, on third-and-6 from the Cincinnati 40, French threw for Isaiah Johnson, and safety Peyton Morgan picked it off and went 53 yards the other way. Officials flagged the Red Raiders for targeting on the play, which would have wiped out the return. Replay overturned the call, the touchdown stood, and the two-point try failed. Suddenly it was 24-15, and an 18-point cushion was down to nine.

French threw another interception on the very next possession. A lot of teams fold there. Cincinnati's defense held, and Tech missed a field goal.

The answer was the drive of the game. French led the Bearcats 80 yards in nine plays and hit Larenzo Fenner for a 17-yard touchdown with 50 seconds left in the third quarter. That was his career-high fourth touchdown pass, and it made it 31-15.

Harrington hit his fourth field goal with 7:42 left to make it 31-18. On the very next drive, Tabb broke loose for 58 yards for a touchdown with 6:06 to play. That was the ballgame. Quinten Joyner's 3-yard run with 59 seconds left only made the final look closer than it felt. Texas Tech's onside kick rolled out of bounds, and French took two knees.

Tabb, French and a defense that bent without breaking

Tabb finished with 173 yards on 16 carries, his second straight 100-yard game, and his 58-yard run was the longest of his career. Satterfield summed it up in a way only a head coach can. "Cole Tabb had a Cole Tabb day," he said. "He's been doing it week in and week out."

French's line, 19-of-30 for 172 yards with four touchdowns and two interceptions, is not pretty in every column. But he added 46 yards on 12 carries and bounced back from two second-half picks without blinking. That last part matters more than the yardage.

The defense was the quiet hero. Texas Tech gained 400 yards and managed one offensive touchdown, with under a minute left. Cannon forced a fumble and grabbed an interception, and the Bearcats kept making Harrington do the work.

Left guard Evan Tengesdahl explained the mindset up front. "Those guys are ranked, they feel like they can't be beat," he said. "They also have not been run on. That was our biggest motivation."

The numbers that tell it

Cincinnati ran for 252 yards at 6.1 per carry against a defense that, by Satterfield's count, had not allowed a rushing touchdown all season. It gave up one in the fourth quarter on a 58-yard sprint.

Texas Tech's issues were self-inflicted. "We've been one of the least penalized teams in the country and we had 12 penalties today," McGuire said. "We also had three turnovers that led to points." The Red Raiders converted just 3 of 15 third downs, and Hammond's 227 passing yards on 24-of-37 came with a lost fumble and an interception.

Total yards were close, 427 to 400 for Cincinnati, and this was not a fluke built on one weird play. You can dig through the full box score (opens in a new tab), the Cincinnati recap (opens in a new tab) and the Texas Tech recap (opens in a new tab) for the rest.

What it means

For Cincinnati, now 5-2 and 2-2 in the Big 12, this is a season-changer. The Bearcats had lost two straight on the road, at Arizona and in a 45-42 shootout at West Virginia. Now they own the kind of win that changes how a program is talked about. It is just the third top-10 win in Nippert history and the fourth win over an AP top-10 team in the last 45 seasons. There was no time to exhale, either. Next on the schedule was a Halloween home game against a top-10 Utah team at Nippert.

Texas Tech is 6-1 and 3-1 in the league, so the Big 12 race is very much alive. It is the first time since 2013 the Red Raiders failed to start 7-0. Last year's team started 6-0, lost at Arizona State and then won out to a Big 12 title and a playoff berth. McGuire knows the math. "For us to get where we want to get, we're going to have to win out," McGuire said. "I felt the exact same way last year." Tech slid to No. 13 after the loss, and next on the schedule was a home game against No. 22 Arizona in Lubbock.

The last word

McGuire did not hide how this one felt. "I'm as frustrated as I've ever been in my 32 years of coaching," he said. "I'm really searching for words."

Satterfield did not need to search at all. "We just beat the No. 8 team in the country," he said. "That team played in the playoffs last year. I'm really proud of our program. This is one of the greatest wins I've been a part of."

Cincinnati waited 20 years for another afternoon like this at home. It got one on the 100th Homecoming, against an opponent it had circled for weeks.

Sources: Cincinnati Athletics recap and box score, Texas Tech Athletics, The Associated Press, FOX Sports, ESPN and ClutchPoints. More college football coverage on Undrafted.

Photos: Texas Tech Athletics.