CINCINNATI — The Bearcats are 4-0.

That sentence has not appeared very often around Cincinnati football in recent years, and after Saturday night’s 31-26 victory over Kansas State, it deserves some attention.

Cincinnati overcame a 17-10 halftime deficit, scored 21 points after the break and held off a late Kansas State rally to open Big 12 play with a win. For the second consecutive week, the Bearcats were much better after halftime than they were before it.

That gives us a fairly obvious theme.

Let’s take a look at the good, the bad and the ugly from Cincinnati’s victory over Kansas State.

The Good: Fast Starts

For all the recent frustration surrounding how Cincinnati has started individual games, the Bearcats have done one thing exceptionally well this season: They have started the season 4-0.

That is rarer than it sounds.

Cincinnati had not opened a season with four consecutive victories since 2021, when the Bearcats eventually finished the regular season undefeated and reached the College Football Playoff. This year’s start also represents a positive change from Scott Satterfield’s first three seasons at Cincinnati, none of which began 4-0.

The 2026 version has not always made it look easy. Cincinnati needed a massive second-half comeback against Miami last week, then found itself trailing Kansas State at halftime Saturday before taking control in the third quarter.

But however the Bearcats have gotten there, they have gotten there.

Four games. Four wins.  That's all that matters.

The Bad: Slow Starts

Cincinnati has started the season fast while starting games slowly.

That has become a legitimate concern over the last two weeks. The Bearcats trailed Miami 21-0 at halftime before storming back for a 35-31 victory, and Saturday night followed a similar script. Kansas State led 17-10 at the break after Cincinnati struggled to sustain offense for much of the first half.

The Bearcats did not take their first lead Saturday until Cole Tabb broke a 30-yard touchdown run midway through the third quarter. By then, Cincinnati had already spent another night playing catch-up.

The second-half adjustments have been excellent. Cincinnati has shown resilience, composure and an ability to respond when things go wrong. Those are good traits, especially for a team trying to establish itself in the Big 12.

But eventually, digging a hole every Saturday is going to become expensive. Good teams can recover from slow starts. Great teams stop having them.

The Ugly: Sloppy Play

For a team sitting at 4-0, Cincinnati still has an impressive ability to make things harder on itself.

The Bearcats spent much of Saturday fighting Kansas State and their own mistakes. A 42-yard completion in the first quarter disappeared because of offensive pass interference, questionable though it may have been. False starts and holding penalties repeatedly put the offense behind schedule, while mistakes on special teams cost Cincinnati valuable field position.

The defense joined the fun with multiple pass-interference penalties, including one that helped Kansas State move quickly down the field during its late fourth-quarter touchdown drive.

Then there was the turnover.

Late in the third quarter, Cincinnati converted a third-and-13 with a 64-yard completion that moved the ball from its own 19-yard line to the Kansas State 17. One play later, Zion Johnson fumbled and the Wildcats recovered, wasting what should have been another scoring opportunity.

The Bearcats were good enough to overcome all of it Saturday. Against better teams, that will eventually not be the case.

There is plenty to like about a 4-0 football team, especially one that has already demonstrated an ability to respond when things go wrong. But penalties, wasted possessions and avoidable mistakes have a way of turning comfortable wins into fourth-quarter adventures and/or losses.

Cincinnati has proven it knows how to finish games.  Now they have to prove they know how to start, and maintain them.