IRVING, Texas – As college football’s postseason evolved from disconnected bowls to the current four-team playoff, it never truly embraced the underdog the way basketball does each March.
The upstarts occasionally got a chance to play a blue blood in a big bowl game, but they never entered the postseason with a legitimate opportunity to win a national championship.
Well, college football finally has its first Cinderella team: Cincinnati has broken the glass ceiling.
The Bearcats will play Alabama in the Cotton Bowl on New Year’s Eve after being selected to the College Football Playoff on Sunday. Michigan will face Georgia in the Orange Bowl semifinal on Dec. 31, and the winners will play for the national championship on Jan. 10 in Indianapolis.
Fourth-seeded Cincinnati is the first team to reach the CFP from a Group of Five conference in the eight-year history of this postseason format; to this point, the only participants had been members of Power Five conferences and powerful independent Notre Dame. The Bearcats (13-0) won the American Athletic Conference and head into the postseason as the only unbeaten team remaining this season in the Football Bowl Subdivision.