When Desmond Ridder announced he was returning to the University of Cincinnati football team for the 2021 season, he said there was still unfinished business after losing to Georgia in the Peach Bowl.
Fast forward 11 months and he’s exactly where he hoped to be. The Bearcats will face top-ranked Alabama in a College Football Playoff semifinal next week, an achievement that seemed impossible for the program when Ridder became the school’s starting quarterback in 2018.
Ridder, who is 44-5 in his collegiate career, hasn’t run as often as he did earlier in his career, but that’s an aspect of his game that has Alabama’s defense on alert.