Who is the underdog? Both the Cincinnati Bearcats and Alabama Crimson Tide claim to be in the CFP semi-finals.

Cincinnati players and coaches downplayed the role of underdog on Monday in the Bearcats ’highly favored Alabama in the College Football playoff semifinals at the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic in Arlington, Texas on Friday.

Crimson Tide is a 13½ point favorite against the Bearcats, who won 13-0 this season and have won 23 of their previous 24 matches until the end of the 2019 campaign. Cincinnati’s only loss during that period was a 24-21 loss to Georgia in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, which settled the 2020 season with a 53-yard goal after three seconds.

While Bama is a clear favorite in the starting game, Tide star Will Anderson said he believes his team can also claim underdog status in the CFP semi-finals.

“I feel like we’re an underdog in this game,” he told reporters on Monday. “We’ve been despised all year.”

The comment came just 10 days after teammate and defending lineman Phil Mathis made similar claims that Tide changed his mindset to adopt an “underdog mentality” against the Bearcats.

On the other hand, Cincinnati offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock said he has not sensed that the Bearcats are being fed any additional motivation.

“Every child is going to have their own little motivational thing,” Denbrock said. “I think as a football team we feel like we’ve earned our way here. We feel and know we belong here, so we need outside motivation to get these guys ready to roll. The challenge that stands in front of us. It deserves our full attention and gets our full attention.

“I think the thing some people forget about this senior group and especially this football team is that they did everything people asked them to do to get to this point. They have succeeded 13 times in a row after they have done on the field and the opportunity before us. to play next, we are well aware of how difficult it will be, how much struggle and struggle it will be, but for which our players are ready. “

As Desmond Ridder, Bearcats senior, the country’s most winning quarterback in a career of 44-5, added: “We are excited to be here to play Alabama and show not only ourselves but everyone in the country what we can do against a top team.”

Very few semi-finals in the CFP era have been close; eleven of the 14 have been solved with two numbers. Cincinnati is the first team in the fifth group to survive the playoffs.

“I’m not worried about what kind of concentration we have,” Dylan O’Quinn, Bearcats ’junior offensive lineman, said. “We’ve heard a lot about this David vs. Goliath speech, but the fact is, everyone puts their pants on in the same way. Everyone plays football, so we just want to go out and be us.”

Junior runner Jerome Ford, who began his career in Alabama before moving to Cincinnati, said the Bearcats don’t need to do anything “extra” just because they’ve decided on underdogers.

“Just be almost us, and I feel like we’re enough to prove we belong here and we should be here,” Ford said.

Cincinnati won their previous four races by 88 points after three games against Navy, Tulane and Tulsa, where the Bearcats did not play their best football.