Cincinnati, UAB add Alabama A&M to Future Football Schedules

By Kevin Kelley -

Alabama A&MThe Cincinnati Bearcats and the UAB Blazers have each added the Alabama A&M Bulldogs to their future football schedules.

Alabama A&M director of athletics Bryan Hicks announced the two games last night at their annual Signing Day “Recruiting Bash.”

UAB will host Alabama A&M at Legion Field in Birmingham on a date to be announced in 2014. The game will be the first meeting ever between the two schools, which are separated by just over 100 miles.

The Cincinnati Bearcats will host Alabama A&M at Nippert Stadium on Sept. 5, 2015, FBSchedules.com confirmed with the UC athletic department. A&M and Cincinnati have also never met on the gridiron.

The addition of these two games is part of a move by Alabama A&M to strengthen their future schedules.

“We want to play games like this where we can identify where our program is,” A&M director of athletics Bryan Hicks said. “This is a different era in Division I football. We have to step our game up. Major. We see a lot of conference realigning so it’s becoming the haves and have-nots. At Alabama A&M, as long as I’m here, we want to be with the haves.

“As part of that I want to schedule aggressively. Obviously Coach (Anthony) Jones is in my ear making sure we’re in good position to be successful. And we are.”

UAB now has three non-conference games scheduled for the 2014 season. The Blazers are also set to host Troy on Aug. 30 and travel to Mississippi State on Sept. 6.

Cincinnati also has three non-conference games set for 2015. After opening against Alabama A&M, the Bearcats travel to face rival Miami (OH) on Sept. 19 and then BYU on Oct. 24.

Previously scheduled games in 2015 at home against Air Force (Sept. 12) and at Miami, FL (Oct. 3) have or are in the process of being cancelled, according to UC athletics. This also includes a game at Air Force on Sept. 2, 2017.

The possibility of the Air Force-Cincinnati series cancellation was first reported by Gazette.com last July.

Football Schedules

Comments (11)

Perhaps UAB should drop their football team. No fan support. No booster support. No athletic dept. support. They’re playing @ legion field which is falling apart. What’s the point of even having a team?

UAT will NEVER schedule UAB because they are afraid of what the ramifications would be IF they lost.

I think they should do exactly as they want to without criticism. Let Alabama go 3-9 a couple of years and see the bandwagon fans disperse.