GRAPEVINE, Texas – Game week for the 2021 College Football Playoff Semifinal at the 86th Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic officially began on Sunday afternoon as the No. 4 Cincinnati Bearcats arrived in North Texas and checked in at their team hotel.
The Bearcats (13-0, 8-0 American Athletic Conference) will take on the No. 1 Alabama Crimson Tide (12-1, 7-1 Southeastern Conference) on New Year's Eve in a 2:30 p.m. kickoff at AT&T Stadium.
The Bearcats practiced for 90 minutes at their practice facility on the UC campus on Sunday morning before departing for Dallas in the afternoon. Cincinnati touched down at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport at 4:10 p.m. before traveling to the hotel and conducting a brief news conference featuring head coach Luke Fickell. Later Sunday evening, the Bearcats settled in for an official party dinner event while the team gathered for a team meeting after dinner.
"This is my actual first Cotton Bowl," Fickell said. "I played here, obviously, in the National Championship in 2014, but I don't know that it was legitimately the Cotton Bowl. And obviously, a little bit different, I think you come in for two days or whatever it is. So, I want these guys to experience I know it's going to be a little bit different with some of the things that we are not able to do maybe because of, you know, the situation.
"But the reality is that they've worked their tails off for this. They've put themselves in the position. They have been challenged all year. They stepped up to the challenge all year. In everything they've been asked to do. Like all teams, it's not always the prettiest. But I think the key in all the things we're doing is we've got to not forget who we are. We got to continue to be us."
No. 4 Cincinnati became the first non-Power 5 team to make the College Football Playoff after finishing as the nation's only undefeated team and beating Houston to win a second straight AAC Championship. This will be Cincinnati's fourth New Year's Six Bowl appearance (2009 Orange Bowl, 2010 Sugar Bowl and the 2021 Peach Bowl) following a close loss to Georgia, 24-21, in Atlanta last year.
The Bearcats are making their second consecutive New Year's Six bowl appearance. Fickell is one of only five current Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) coaches to lead his teams to bowl games in each of his first nine seasons as a head coach (three at Vanderbilt and six at Cincinnati).
"I think last year's bowl game gives us an opportunity to understand the magnitude of, you know, the teams that you're playing, a team that we're playing," Fickell said. "So, I think all those things added together, I think our guys are really excited and embracing the opportunity and the challenge that's ahead of us."
This season, Fickell earned nearly every national Coach of the Year honor – the Home Depot National Coach of the Year honor, the Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year and The Sporting News Coach of the Year.
This matchup marks the fifth meeting between Alabama and Cincinnati and the first since 1990 when the Crimson Tide defeated the Bearcats, 45-7, in Birmingham, Ala. The Tide is undefeated all-time against Cincinnati. Alabama is the first No. 1 team to play in the Classic since Texas in 1978. All-time, the Crimson Tide is the sixth No. 1 team to play in the Goodyear Cotton Bowl.
The 2021 College Football Playoff Semifinal at the 86th Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic is Friday, Dec. 31 at 2:30 p.m. CST on ESPN and ESPN Radio. Kickoff is slated for 2:40 p.m.
This year's Classic is a part of the ESPN bowl lineup for the eighth straight year. Sean McDonough and Todd Blackledge are set to the call the action from the booth with Molly McGrath and Laura Rutledge reporting from the sidelines.
ESPN Radio returns as the Classic's national radio partner for the eighth consecutive year with Sean Kelley and Barrett Jones in the booth and Ian Fitzsimmons on the sidelines to describe all the action from AT&T Stadium.
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