By Bill Koch
A few days after UC announced in December 2016 that Ohio State defensive coordinator Luke Fickell would be the Bearcats’ next head coach, I set out to write a story for UC’s athletics website, ‘gobearcats.com,’ about the process that UC athletic director Mike Bohn used to make that decision.
Bohn told me that he interviewed Fickell, with his entire family on hand, in his suburban Columbus home on Dec. 8, 2016. That was two days before Fickell was announced as UC’s head coach, replacing Tommy Tuberville, who lasted four years in the job before he was caught on video telling a UC fan after a game at Nippert Stadium to “Go to hell” and “Get a job.” After that faux pas, Tuberville and Bohn both agreed it was time for Tuberville to go. In a strange career twist, he’s now a U.S. Senator from Alabama.
While Tuberville was campaigning for the Senate last fall, Fickell was leading the Bearcats to a 9-1 record, an American Athletic Conference championship, and a No. 8 ranking in both the College Football Playoff rankings and the Associated Press poll. The Bearcats, who lost to Georgia in the Peach Bowl on a late field goal, are 31-6 over the past three seasons under Fickell.
Before Bohn interviewed Fickell, he and his staff had done extensive research on him, supplemented by the use of data analytics to vet all 12 of the candidates on his original list, something Bohn said he had never done before.
A computer simulation on each candidate, assuming the personnel on UC’s roster at the time, was run 100,000 times to produce a four-year projection of how the team would perform under each coach on the list. The computer analysis projected UC’s win-loss record, points for and against, and where the Bearcats would finish in conference play based on what was currently known about its schedules during the next four years. (Of course, not even the computer could know that Fickell would have to coach during a pandemic during his fourth season at UC.) The computer concluded that Fickell would give the Bearcats their best chance (80 percent) over a four-year period to win a conference championship.
To learn more about Fickell, Bohn talked to sources across the country, including former UC coach Mark Dantonio, then the head coach at Michigan State; and Urban Meyer, then the head coach at Ohio State.
Dantonio’s opinion was especially meaningful because of his past relationship with both UC and Ohio State. Dantonio had worked with Fickell on the OSU staff in 2002 and 2003 and they had remained close friends.
“He came in as a linebackers coach,” Dantonio said when I called to ask him about Fickell. "He was very engaging, a great recruiter, an outstanding coach. He’s got great relationships with the players. I think he has a plan. I told him that UC is a great place. I think you can win there.”
It was Dantoino who advised Fickell about UC and helped him get involved in the Bearcats’ search.
“He always loved this place,” Fickell said. “He loved it for his family. He loved the kids while he was here. He loved the community here. He loved the schools here. He had nothing but great things to say about it.”
Bohn was also impressed by Fickell’s Ohio ties. The Columbus DeSales High School graduate played nose guard at Ohio State in addition to coaching on the Buckeyes’ staff, where he served as interim head coach at his alma mater in 2011.
“A lot of people referred to him as Mr. Ohio,” Bohn said. “He knows where players have been. He knows the coaches they played for. He knows who their brothers are.”
Prior to Fickell, UC had had trouble keeping football coaches for longer than three or four years, but Bohn said he did not require Fickell to make a long-term commitment to the school, although he did agree to a six-year contract.
“Our discussion was, ‘We want you to be our football coach and if you do great things here and you go on to the be the head coach somewhere else, then go for it,’” Bohn said. “’We’re going to support you 100 percent.’ We’re not worried about the timeline because I think we have the ability every time to get better. It’s nice to have longevity, but it’s nice when the program is elevated and on a trajectory towards wins, graduation rates, performance that excites us.”
As it turned out, Fickell outlasted Bohn, who left UC in November 2019 to become the AD at Southern California.
I covered UC football for UC’s website for one year under Fickell. I found him to be bright, hard working, sincere, and driven to succeed. He was good with the media and it was obvious that he had a close relationship with his players. I’d like to say I predicted that the Bearcats would achieve the heights they have under him, but that would be a lie. Perhaps jaded by the departure of so many other UC football coaches, I wouldn’t have predicted that he’d still be at UC entering his fifth year in 2021 or that UC would be the preeminent Group of Five program in the country.
I should have paid more attention to what Fickell told me in his office during an interview shortly after he was hired.
“My number one thing when I talked to my wife was, if we ever go to be a head coach, I want it to be a place where we feel we can take our family and raise them there for 10 years,” Fickell said. “Are you going to go someplace and say, hey, in two or three years we’ve got to win and we’ve got to go (to another school) because that’s what you do at some other schools and some other leagues? We didn’t want to do that. My family’s too important to me. My kids are too important.
“Now if things happen, things happen, but that wasn’t what our plan was. People always say, don’t go someplace where you can’t win. Well, if you’re a great coach and you believe in what you do, I think you can win anywhere, right? I’ve got confidence in what I do. I’ve got confidence in how I’m going to recruit. I’ve got confidence in how I’m going to develop players.”
We know now that Fickell had good reason to be so confident.
A few days after UC announced in December 2016 that Ohio State defensive coordinator Luke Fickell would be the Bearcats’ next head coach, I set out to write a story for UC’s athletics website, ‘gobearcats.com,’ about the process that UC athletic director Mike Bohn used to make that decision.
Bohn told me that he interviewed Fickell, with his entire family on hand, in his suburban Columbus home on Dec. 8, 2016. That was two days before Fickell was announced as UC’s head coach, replacing Tommy Tuberville, who lasted four years in the job before he was caught on video telling a UC fan after a game at Nippert Stadium to “Go to hell” and “Get a job.” After that faux pas, Tuberville and Bohn both agreed it was time for Tuberville to go. In a strange career twist, he’s now a U.S. Senator from Alabama.
While Tuberville was campaigning for the Senate last fall, Fickell was leading the Bearcats to a 9-1 record, an American Athletic Conference championship, and a No. 8 ranking in both the College Football Playoff rankings and the Associated Press poll. The Bearcats, who lost to Georgia in the Peach Bowl on a late field goal, are 31-6 over the past three seasons under Fickell.
Before Bohn interviewed Fickell, he and his staff had done extensive research on him, supplemented by the use of data analytics to vet all 12 of the candidates on his original list, something Bohn said he had never done before.
A computer simulation on each candidate, assuming the personnel on UC’s roster at the time, was run 100,000 times to produce a four-year projection of how the team would perform under each coach on the list. The computer analysis projected UC’s win-loss record, points for and against, and where the Bearcats would finish in conference play based on what was currently known about its schedules during the next four years. (Of course, not even the computer could know that Fickell would have to coach during a pandemic during his fourth season at UC.) The computer concluded that Fickell would give the Bearcats their best chance (80 percent) over a four-year period to win a conference championship.
To learn more about Fickell, Bohn talked to sources across the country, including former UC coach Mark Dantonio, then the head coach at Michigan State; and Urban Meyer, then the head coach at Ohio State.
Dantonio’s opinion was especially meaningful because of his past relationship with both UC and Ohio State. Dantonio had worked with Fickell on the OSU staff in 2002 and 2003 and they had remained close friends.
“He came in as a linebackers coach,” Dantonio said when I called to ask him about Fickell. "He was very engaging, a great recruiter, an outstanding coach. He’s got great relationships with the players. I think he has a plan. I told him that UC is a great place. I think you can win there.”
It was Dantoino who advised Fickell about UC and helped him get involved in the Bearcats’ search.
“He always loved this place,” Fickell said. “He loved it for his family. He loved the kids while he was here. He loved the community here. He loved the schools here. He had nothing but great things to say about it.”
Bohn was also impressed by Fickell’s Ohio ties. The Columbus DeSales High School graduate played nose guard at Ohio State in addition to coaching on the Buckeyes’ staff, where he served as interim head coach at his alma mater in 2011.
“A lot of people referred to him as Mr. Ohio,” Bohn said. “He knows where players have been. He knows the coaches they played for. He knows who their brothers are.”
Prior to Fickell, UC had had trouble keeping football coaches for longer than three or four years, but Bohn said he did not require Fickell to make a long-term commitment to the school, although he did agree to a six-year contract.
“Our discussion was, ‘We want you to be our football coach and if you do great things here and you go on to the be the head coach somewhere else, then go for it,’” Bohn said. “’We’re going to support you 100 percent.’ We’re not worried about the timeline because I think we have the ability every time to get better. It’s nice to have longevity, but it’s nice when the program is elevated and on a trajectory towards wins, graduation rates, performance that excites us.”
As it turned out, Fickell outlasted Bohn, who left UC in November 2019 to become the AD at Southern California.
I covered UC football for UC’s website for one year under Fickell. I found him to be bright, hard working, sincere, and driven to succeed. He was good with the media and it was obvious that he had a close relationship with his players. I’d like to say I predicted that the Bearcats would achieve the heights they have under him, but that would be a lie. Perhaps jaded by the departure of so many other UC football coaches, I wouldn’t have predicted that he’d still be at UC entering his fifth year in 2021 or that UC would be the preeminent Group of Five program in the country.
I should have paid more attention to what Fickell told me in his office during an interview shortly after he was hired.
“My number one thing when I talked to my wife was, if we ever go to be a head coach, I want it to be a place where we feel we can take our family and raise them there for 10 years,” Fickell said. “Are you going to go someplace and say, hey, in two or three years we’ve got to win and we’ve got to go (to another school) because that’s what you do at some other schools and some other leagues? We didn’t want to do that. My family’s too important to me. My kids are too important.
“Now if things happen, things happen, but that wasn’t what our plan was. People always say, don’t go someplace where you can’t win. Well, if you’re a great coach and you believe in what you do, I think you can win anywhere, right? I’ve got confidence in what I do. I’ve got confidence in how I’m going to recruit. I’ve got confidence in how I’m going to develop players.”
We know now that Fickell had good reason to be so confident.
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