MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Cincinnati answered every West Virginia tying score with a go-ahead score of its own on Saturday, Oct. 17 — until the last one. Jack Cassidy kicked a 35-yard field goal as the clock expired to lift the Mountaineers past the Bearcats 45-42 at Milan Puskar Stadium, West Virginia’s only lead of the game and its first walk-off winner since 2022.
The Bearcats (4-2, 1-2 Big 12) finished with 622 total yards, their highest output against an FBS opponent since last season’s game against Kansas. Quarterback JC French IV threw for a career-high 389 yards, completing 22 of 30 passes for three touchdowns and adding a rushing score, and running back Cole Tabb ran for 118 yards with 54 receiving yards and three touchdowns — two rushing and one receiving — in his third three-touchdown game of the season.
Cincinnati led 21-14 at halftime behind two French touchdown passes, including a 51-yard shovel-pass score to Isaiah Johnson, and a 28-yard Tabb touchdown run. West Virginia tied the game three more times in the second half, and each time the Bearcats responded — a French quarterback sneak for 28-21, an 11-yard French-to-Tabb touchdown for 35-28, and a 6-yard Tabb run, set up by a 59-yard Malachi Henry reception, for 42-35 with 5:35 left.
West Virginia quarterback Michael Hawkins Jr. was the counterweight all afternoon, throwing for a career-best 464 yards and three touchdowns. His 40-yard touchdown pass to Cam Cook tied the game 42-42 with 3:44 remaining — the fifth tie of the day — after Cincinnati’s defense had slowed the Big 12’s leading rushing attack, holding the Mountaineers to 134 rushing yards and Cook to 40 on the ground. Fifth-year linebacker Jonathan Thompson led that effort with a career-high 15 tackles.
The ending turned on a punt that was almost perfect. After Cincinnati went three-and-out, Max Fletcher’s 66-yard punt rolled to the West Virginia 1-yard line with 2:05 left. Backed up to his own 2 on third-and-9, Hawkins found Prince Strachan for 41 yards, then hit Strachan again for 39 yards two plays later, and the Mountaineers bled the clock down to set up Cassidy’s winner. “We were anticipating a back-and-forth game, and you have to get a stop,” head coach Scott Satterfield said. “We kept scoring, and we needed to get a stop.”
The loss also cost Cincinnati a starter. Defensive lineman Josh Hough, a 335-pound sixth-year player, was helped off with an apparent left leg injury in the second quarter and ruled out — and, in a bizarre moment on the TNT broadcast, the injury cart carrying him appeared to back into a wall, drawing a visible pain reaction. It was not clear whether the collision added to the injury.
Cincinnati has now lost two straight, with a bye week between the losses, and the schedule does not ease up. The Bearcats return home for back-to-back games against ranked opponents, hosting No. 10 Texas Tech on Oct. 24 for the program’s 100th Homecoming game and No. 11 Utah on Oct. 31. A kickoff time and TV designation for the Texas Tech game will be announced Sunday, Oct. 18.