A look back at the history of the rivalry between the Tigers and Bearcats
Memphis, Tennessee:
The Memphis Tigers will return home to face the Cincinnati Bearcats for a second straight week, this time a championship is at stake. Memphis got the best out of the Bearcats 34-24 on Saturday night to clinch the home-field advantage in the AAC championship game.
Saturday's game will be the Tigers third straight AAC Championship game and the third straight year of a rematch of a team they played in the regular season. The previous two championship games were rematches with the UCF Knights.
The Tigers were co-champions in 2014 and 1971. In 2014 the Tigers split the AAC with Cincinnati and UCF.
In 1971 the Tigers were members of the Missouri Valley Conference and split with North Texas State.
The last outright conference championship for the Tigers came back in 1969 when Memphis State was a proud member of the Missouri Valley Conference. Coached by Billy J. Murphy, the Tigers went 8-2 on the season, including a 52-6 win over Cincinnati. The Tigers only lost two games that season, and both were to SEC rivals, the Ole Miss Rebels and Tennessee.
The Bearcats are no strangers to conference champions with the latest coming in 2014, where they split with UCF and Memphis. The last outright championship for the Bearcats came back in 2009, where they won the Big East and then went on to lose the Sugar Bowl to Florida 51-24.
Saturday's matchup between the Bearcats and Tigers will be 34th meeting between the two schools with Memphis leading the all-time series 22-12 and 4-1 within AAC play.
These two teams first met in 1966 and have formed quite the rivalry game across all sports. The rivalry between the Tigers and Bearcats has been all Memphis as of late, with the Tigers winners of the last four games.
Memphis enters the game 14-5 at home against the Bearcats. With the latest win for the Bearcats win at the Liberty Bowl coming in 2013.
Saturday's AAC championship game will have a lot on the line as the Tigers look to secure a spot in the Cotton Bowl. With this much at stake, Saturday's game will only add to the legends of this rivalry game.
Memphis and Cincinnati will kickoff at 2:30 from Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium on ABC.