The 1970s
A Field of The Future
1970 - 1979
When the Cincinnati Bengals completed their two-year stay at Nippert following the 1969 season, they packed up and moved down the hill to the newly constructed Riverfront Stadium, a 60,000-seat flying saucer on the Ohio River, complete with the latest in futuristic playing surface technology: AstroTurf.
Back in Clifton, the Bearcats were again empty nesters and feeling the need to spruce up the place, so they eyed AstroTurf themselves, aiming to have it in the ground for the first season of the new decade.
UC’s 36-20 loss to Miami on November 22, 1969, is, to this day, the last home game the Bearcats have played on natural grass. (Though Nippert did get temporary sod in 2019 to accommodate the USMNT’s tune-up against Venezuela.)
The desire for turf was more than looking towards the future of sports technology or a desire to keep up with the Joneses. Bearcats football attendance had eroded at the end of the 1960s, seeing a 27% drop between 1968 and 1969, dragging gate numbers back to where they were before the post-war boom. Basketball had become the university’s cash cow, and revenue generated at neighboring Armory Fieldhouse was helping prop up the football program.
The university may have sent the team to play permanently at Riverfront if given the opportunity, but the Bengals and Reds were the two primary tenants, so the athletic department looked for more creative revenue-generating and cost-saving solutions. Parking was seen as one opportunity to increase cash flow, but officials also felt an artificial playing surface would be a worthy investment, cutting down on field maintenance costs incurred from the toll both varsity and intramural sports placed on Carson Field’s grass. The cost estimate for AstroTurf was between $200,000 and $300,000, and fundraisers got to work.
By January 1970, UC was optimistic. “This is our number one priority in the athletic department right now,” said associate athletic director Dr. William Schwarberg in a meeting with UC boosters. That year’s spring game, scheduled for May 9, was canceled due to field conditions.
“The field is so chewed up,” said athletic director George Smith, “We’ll have to consider Saturday’s action our spring game.”
In mid-July, just two months before the start of the season, UC had the funds––all $300,000 of it, privately sourced––and proceeded with the work.
While Nippert’s new field was buttoned up, the football team opened the 1970 home slate at Riverfront Stadium with a 13-7 win over Dayton on September 19––UC’s first home game played outside of Clifton since the 1910s.
The 1970 Bearcats made their Nippert debut on Friday, October 2 (under the lights, of course) against Tulane. The first 10,000 fans through the gate received a free swatch of pristine AstroTurf to commemorate the occasion. 11,324 showed up. The Bearcats fell 6-3.
The Nippert playing surface was replaced again in 1978.
Independence
Cincinnati announced in March 1969 that they’d be leaving the Missouri Valley Conference after the 1969-70 athletic year. Similar to when UC had departed the MAC, and the Buckeye before that, the reasoning was complex. UC had seen a lot of success (winning seven basketball titles in 13 seasons), but the prestige Cincinnati dreamed of never really materialized. And with budgets tightening, traveling out to the middle of the country became untenable.
Cincinnati wanted to build a football winner––one that would compete closer to home. Rumors swirled of a new conference consisting of other independent teams from the region like West Virginia and Pittsburgh, but that never materialized. Neither did speculation that the university would rejoin the MAC. Instead, UC football hit the 1970s as an independent yet again.
The results were mixed. Ray Callahan managed a pair of 7-4 seasons to open the decade, but they came and went with little excitement, as fan support at Nippert never materialized. The floor fell out, and the team went 2-9 in 1972, spurring a coaching change.
In came Tony Mason, a nine-year Big Ten assistant at Michigan and Purdue. Mason steadied the ship to a 17-16 record through his first three seasons.
“If we win three games, I should be voted coach of the year,” Tony Mason reportedly said before a 1976 campaign that would go down as one of the great anomalies in UC football history. Buoyed by a stout defense (anchored by Hall of Famer Mike Woods), the Bearcats just kept winning.
A 21-14 win at Tulane opened the season. The team lost 7-3 at Southwestern Louisiana (now Louisiana) the following week before opening the home slate with a 17-0 Victory Bell win over Miami. The news got better after it was revealed the Ragin’ Cajuns used an ineligible punter in Week 2. The school forfeited the game on September 30, and the Bearcats were awarded the win.
After victories at Southern Miss (28-21) and Arizona State (14-0), the Bearcats were 5-0 for the first time since 1954. Playing under the lights at Nippert on October 16, and in the shadow of Game 1 of the World Series at Riverfront, UC welcomed heavily favored Tulsa, ranked 18th in the UPI coaches’ poll. The team managed just 127 yards of offense, but efficient scoring and timely turnovers did the trick, and Cincinnati marched to 6-0 with a 16-7 win.
In the October 26 AP Poll, the Bearcats appeared at #20––the last spot at the time. It would prove to be the program’s lone appearance in the national rankings between 1954 and 2007 because they traveled to 7th-ranked Georgia the following week (a 31-17 loss) and 6th-ranked Maryland the next (a 21-0 defeat).
Cincinnati closed out the campaign with a trio of decisive home wins over Ohio, Vanderbilt, and Louisville, and Tony Mason was manning the Arizona Wildcats two weeks later, becoming the first coach since Sid Gillman to parlay Cincinnati success into a more lucrative opportunity. The Bearcats’ 9-2 mark was their best since 1953.
Ralph Staub, a Cincinnati native and former Bearcats assistant, took the head gig and closed the decade with a 12-19-2 record.
The Lou Saban Era
Amid the whirlwind 1976 season, the Bearcats hired a new athletic director—Lou Saban, who had resigned as head coach of the Buffalo Bills on October 15. Two weeks later, he was head man in Cincinnati. “I’ve been searching for a position like this for the last three years,” he said at his introductory press conference. His “four- or five-year contract” at UC was reported to be in the neighborhood of $30-35,000—a steep pay cut from NFL money. But Saban was “a little soured on” the pros following a dispute with the Bills’ owner over the re-signing of OJ Simpson, and was undeterred by the perceived step down.
But less than three weeks later, Saban was gone again. A News Record report claimed Saban made up his mind 13 days after being hired and learning that UC football would never be able to turn a profit at Nippert Stadium. The department’s official reason for his resignation––made official on November 19––was “personal reasons.”
Whatever it was, Saban found a new job the following month, coaching the Miami Hurricanes for a reported $375,000 salary. (Saban, a “distant relative” of the former Alabama coach, went on to coach football at various levels until the 2002, including stops at Army and UCF.)
