Much to the surprise and absolute joy of the Cincinnati Bearcats’ fan base, head coach Luke Fickell confirmed on Monday via Twitter that he will be the head coach of the Bearcats going into the 2020 season.
Fickell’s tweet featured himself and the UC football team celebrating a win inside the locker room with the caption: “Looking forward to more of this in 2020! Who’s with us?!”
A monstrous sigh of relief was taken by every die-hard UC football fan as they had assumed an unfortunate history would repeat itself, and we would lose yet another coach to a bigger university. After the resignation of head coach Mark Dantonio on Feb. 4, rumors started swirling of who would be the next head coach of the Spartans program.
Luke Fickell was at the head of those rumors and it was confirmed that he did take a meeting with Michigan State to discuss the job, which only heightened the fears of the UC fans.
Within the last 15 years, the UC football program had been used as a stepping stone by coaches to get to larger universities. In 2006, after three seasons, the aforementioned Mark Dantoni left for Michigan State. In 2009, after three seasons, Brian Kelly left the program just before their Sugar Bowl appearance for Notre Dame. And in 2012, after three seasons, Butch Jones ditched UC for the University of Tennessee. Now in the year 2020, after three seasons with the team, Luke Fickell confirms he will return proving to be a leader that this team and University deserve.
He is the first coach in roughly two decades that has chosen to stay with the team instead of taking what seems to be the easy way out. He ended the notion that the University of Cincinnati is merely a stepping stone to get to greener pastures. All of the trust issues and the insecurities that the likes of former coaches Dantonio, Kelly, and Jones had created, Fickell put to rest with just one tweet. This school and fan base deserve somebody to stick around and with Fickell choosing to do so, I would expect an outpouring of support shown by the Bearcats’ fan base in this upcoming season and many more to come.
With Fickell staying, it shows the NCAA that they have a Head Coach, with a record of success, in the driver seat that is committed to making this program better and does not plan on leaving anytime soon. Luke Fickell’s one tweet could very well put the wheels in motion to have the University of Cincinnati added to a Power 5 conference soon.
