The 1990s
Revival, Renovation, and Resilience
1990 - 1999
As the calendar flipped to the 1990s in Cincinnati, the entire program hung in the balance. From 1982-88, UC football played 20 home games at Riverfront Stadium while fighting for I-A eligibility and navigating a crumbling stadium in Clifton. A young Tim Murphy took the reins of Cincinnati football in 1989, at a time when a plan for the future was desperately needed, but amid dwindling revenues, and in the wake of a huge construction project in the Shoemaker Center tying up funding resources, a path forward was hard to envision.
A Fateful Decision
In January 1990, ignoring the beckoning, cost-saving call of Riverfront, AD Rick Taylor and Cincinnati decided to stick with Nippert, saving the site that the Bearcats had called home for nearly the entirety of the 20th century.
In the end, UC officials determined the complete demolition and reconstruction of the stadium would be too expensive and leave the football program homeless until 1993. By remodeling the existing stadium––fixing structural issues while expanding 1954’s Shank Pavilion––the university could return home in time for the 1991 season.
While no doubt faithful alumni supported the decision to maintain the program’s heart and soul and go all-in on cozy, on-campus confines, the move was met with mockery, even locally. “Can’t you just see Joe All-America Recruit standing on the 50-yard line at Nippert romantically envisioning the nonstop screaming and cheering by 35,000?” wrote the Cincinnati Post’s Mike Bass.
The privately funded project, costing $13.5 million, would start in the spring of 1990. In addition to the expansion of the pavilion, the renovation would add seating in the north end zone, a new scoreboard, more fan amenities, a new lighting system, fresh turf, and a three-tiered press box.
By the time work began, funding was already an issue. At June’s board of trustees meeting, they decided to borrow from the university’s general fund to service debt on a construction loan, to be paid back as donations came in, a move that didn’t sit well with university faculty.
The team played the entirety of the 1990 season at Riverfront, but scheduling conflicts with the Bengals and Reds meant the slate included just three home games. The season opener was played on a Sunday to avoid conflicts with the Bengals and high school football. (The Bearcats averaged 11,644 fans in 1989. UC hoped for 10,000 at 1990’s opener, but 6,563 showed up.) Thanks to a friendly rental agreement and a host of buy games on the road, Taylor saw the season as a moneymaker at a time when UC needed it. The ‘Cats got $200,000 for a trip to Iowa (a 63-10 loss), $125,000 from Florida State (a 70-21 loss), $125,000 from Alabama (a 45-7 loss), and $100,000 from West Virginia (a 28-20 loss).
The team struggled to a 1-10 mark, the program’s worst in 53 years. It brought Murphy’s two-year record in Cincinnati to 2-19-1.
Home For Good
The Bearcats played the 1991 season in a partially completed Nippert, with a capacity of 20,000. A trio of road games, including an 81-0 loss at Penn State, began the season, giving workers some extra time to button up renovations.
The Battle for the Victory Bell welcomed fans back to Clifton for the first time since November 1989. The Bearcats fell in a 22-9 defeat in front of a near-capacity crowd of 18,261, but fans were mostly just happy to be back. Yet the return to campus did little for attendance, at least initially. Nippert hosted an average of 12,876 fans that season, as the team improved to a 4-7 mark.
When the stadium fully opened for the 1992 season, the Bearcats welcomed eighth-ranked Penn State to town. The Bearcats, 26-point underdogs, hoped to avenge 1991’s embarrassment with a repeat of 1983’s miracle, and they nearly pulled it off. In front of 29,099 fans, a late UC touchdown made it a one-possession game but an onside kick attempt was recovered by the Nittany Lions for a 24-20 PSU win.
It would be another long season for Murphy’s Bearcats, punctuated by rivalry losses to Miami and Louisville. UC entered November 1-7 before a pair of late-season wins at Nippert over Rutgers and Kentucky (the latter in front of a Nippert-record crowd of better than 30,000) salvaged a 3-8 year. More importantly, an average attendance of 18,155 fans represented a clear upward trajectory in support for the first time in years.
Unlike the great anomaly of 1976, before which head coach Tony Mason said “If we win three games, I should be voted coach of the year,” Murphy called his shot in 1993. The Bearcats had suffered 10 consecutive losing years, but their head coach said they’d turned the page. “I firmly believe we’re going to have a winning season,” he told the Enquirer that August.
Cincinnati opened beating Austin Peay, 42-10, in front of 10,949 at Nippert. It was the Bearcats’ first win in a season opener since 1986. After a loss at Bowling Green, UC returned home to reclaim the Victory Bell for the first time since 1989 with a 30-23 win over Miami in front of 24,337. The team nearly upended 12th-ranked Syracuse in the Carrier Dome a week later, before a win at Tulsa and a loss at Vanderbilt. UC returned home 3-3.
The end of the 1993 season was a run to remember. The team beat Ball State (44-12), Toledo (31-24), Memphis State (23-20), Houston (41-17), and East Carolina (34-14) to close the year on a five-game win streak. The 8-3 mark was UC’s best since Mason’s ’76 campaign, and yet the winning wasn’t enough to get the Bearcats into a bowl game or to lure fans to Nippert. Despite the undefeated home record, an average of just 16,345 showed up to watch that year, including a disappointing 20,229 on Senior Day. “I’m surprised the crowd was that small and I’m disappointed for the kids,” said a dejected Murphy after the game. “Coming from the East, I thought Ohio meant rabid football fans. Maybe it’s not like that in this town.”
Maybe there was a reason Murphy felt free to voice his dissatisfaction. For the better part of a month, rumors had been swirling that UC’s head coach was on his way out of town. He’d managed to quiet the noise and keep the team on its winning track, but the Cincinnati Post had gone as far as reporting that Murphy had accepted the job at Harvard ahead of UC’s season finale. University president Joseph Steger openly discussed the possibility of Murphy’s departure and added that he was also in discussions with Duke.
Following the season, Murphy continued to reiterate that he did not have an agreement with Harvard, and said he was awaiting an offer on a new contract with Cincinnati, adding that “odds are that we’re going to work something out.”
Sources told the Enquirer on December 3rd that Murphy, despite a second interview with Duke, had finalized things with Harvard, spurning a reported five-year offer from Cincinnati. The Crimson made it official the following week: Murphy would take a “40 percent pay cut” to return to his native Boston, where he remained as head coach until retiring following the 2023 season.
The Modernization of UC Football
The early interview process for Murphy’s replacement featured some big names: Tom Rossley, SMU head coach and former UC star, Jim Tressel, Youngstown State head coach, and Nick Saban, Cleveland Browns defensive coordinator. Saban backed out quickly, Tressel backed out later, and Taylor went with a left-field candidate who had started to grow on him.
On December 18, 1993, the Bearcats announced their new head coach: Notre Dame defensive coordinator Rick Minter. Minter, 39 years old, didn’t have the head coaching experience or the Ohio ties Taylor said he wanted in his next football coach, but the Texas native, buoyed by a referral from his ND boss Lou Holtz, won Taylor over in the interview process. “I made no bones about it,” Minter said. “I came after it.”
Minter took his lumps early. His 1994 squad went 2-8-1, but fan support began to turn around, to the tune of an average attendance of 18,392. The 1995 team opened with a trio of games against power-conference opponents and, after a narrow loss to top-25 Kansas State, Minter’s group went to Blacksburg and dominated Virginia Tech, 16-0. The win––UC’s biggest in more than a decade––marked VT’s first scoreless game at home since 1981. Much like the 1993 team, the Bearcats took lessons learned early in the season to win games in October and November, as UC finished 5-1. And, much like the 1993 team, the attendance never reflected the Bearcats’ late-season heroics. Crowds dipped six percent in Minter’s first winning season in Cincinnati.
But 1996 brought a sea change to Clifton as UC joined the newly formed Conference USA. For Bearcats basketball, it marked the third conference in six seasons, but in C-USA the football program found a league to call home for the first time since departing the Missouri Valley following the 1969 season. The move figured to give UC two things it desperately needed in the modern college football landscape: TV exposure and access to bowl games.
Minter’s Bearcats scrounged up another 6-5 record, going 2-3 in their C-USA debut––all three losses in one-score games. The Bearcats had consecutive winning seasons for the first time since 1981-82. The senior class graduated with a 22-21-1 record, the first winning class since 1978. Perhaps most importantly, the fans bought in. For August’s home opener, 26,493 showed up, the best home crowd since 1992. The Bearcats would crack 30,000 twice that fall for an average attendance of 24,255.
Media talked about the 1997 campaign as if it were the opportunity for the Bearcats to reach a turning point. “Anyone noticed UC’s a winner?” read the title of an August 1997 Bill Koch column in the Cincinnati Post. The Bearcats were looking for a third-straight winning season for the first time since 1976, and a bowl appearance for the first time since 1950. Most unbelievably, both things seemed possible. Sustained modern success was uncharted waters for the Bearcats.
A Week 2 setback against Tulane sewed doubt, but Cincinnati’s September 20 Nippert at Night affair against Kansas sent a message. Robert Cooper rushed for a first-quarter TD and Chad Plummer accounted for a pair of scores in the second. The game was never in question. The Bearcats held the Jayhawks to minus-46 yards rushing––and just 55 yards overall––while tallying nearly 400 offensive yards of their own. The 34-7 victory was a stunner.
The Bearcats followed it up a week later, traveling to Chestnut Hill to take on Boston College in a game televised on ESPN2. Trailing 6-0 in the fourth quarter, an Artrell Hawkins pick-six sparked a 24-0 run to stun the Eagles. “Some day,” wrote the Enquirer’s Tom Groeschen, “it could become known as the night the University of Cincinnati football program truly came of age.”
The Bearcats, despite continuing to struggle against C-USA foes, finished 8-4 in a year capped by a victory over Utah State in the Humanitarian Bowl––UC’s first postseason trophy since the ’40s. “A bowl to build on,” read a Cincinnati Post headline.
But success in Cincinnati proved as fleeting as it always had. Defensive coordinator Rex Ryan left for the same job with the Oklahoma Sooners, taking with him the defensive tenacity that helped the ’97 team torture big-name opponents. The 1998 Bearcats allowed 41.5 points per game, dead last in I-A football. The results followed. Minter’s team went 2-8, including eight-straight losses to open the year.
The 1999 Bearcats went just 3-8, including a Week 2 loss to I-AA Troy State at Nippert, which only made September 18 more of a strange, miraculous thrill.
The Wisconsin Game
The Badgers came to town fresh off resounding wins over Murray State and Ball State, ranked eighth in the nation, and bringing with them Heisman-hopeful running back Ron Dayne. “The Badgers do not just beat you,” wrote Mike DeCourcy in his game preview. “They hurt you.”
“We’re not going to sit around and be scared,” said Minter, whose team was a 26-point underdog.
Wisconsin opened the scoring in front of 27,721 with a first-quarter field goal, but the Bearcats faithful received their first clue that something big was brewing early in the second quarter when UC landed a haymaker in the form of a 51-yard Cooper rushing TD.
Cincinnati stretched a slim 7-6 halftime lead to 14-6 with ten minutes remaining in the third quarter as Deontey Kenner ran one in from five yards out. Dayne answered with a rushing score of his own, but a failed two-point conversion left the score 14-12 in UC’s favor.
“Both sides spent the fourth quarter in apparent search of the most wrenching way to lose,” summarized the Enquirer. Tinker Keck nearly intercepted a third-down pass and then muffed the ensuing punt inside the UC ten-yard line. Two plays later, Dayne coughed the ball up with the chance to give his team the lead. After the Bearcats offense was unable to get anything going, it was Wisconsin’s turn to muff a punt, which Cincinnati recovered deep in Badger territory. Yet the UC offense didn’t gain a single yard on the following drive, settling for a Jonathan Ruffin field goal to make it 17-12 with five minutes left.
The Badgers worked the ball down inside the Bearcats red zone in the final minute. UW quarterback Scott Kavanaugh found Lee Evans for the apparent go-ahead score with 11 seconds remaining, but the play was nullified by a penalty.
The ensuing fourth-down pass sailed harmlessly through the back of the end zone, and six seconds later Carson Field was blanketed with fans and the goalposts were being torn down.
“Is this an upset? Well, we’re not upset,” said Minter after the game. “You’d have to ask someone else if it’s an upset.”
The Badgers finished the season 10-2, Rose Bowl champions and winners of the Big Ten. Dayne won the Heisman. Wisconsin’s only loss outside of fourth-ranked Michigan came at Nippert Stadium.
The Bearcats opened the decade with an 81-0 loss in Happy Valley and closed it with the biggest upset in Nippert history, a perfect summary of the unpredictable nature of UC football, but a clear preview of the potential in Cincinnati.
