11-22-2006, 10:45 AM
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...6/1082/SPT
A funny thing happened to the UC football coaches in the waning moments of their team's astounding, nationally televised win over seventh-ranked Rutgers Saturday night:
Their cell phones started filling up with text messages from recruits. With eight minutes left and the game safely tucked away, quarterbacks coach Dave Warner noticed several messages on his phone. Defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi had five before the game ended.
"Great job," the kids would text. "Looking forward to seeing you on my official visit."
"Can't wait to set up a visit."
Let's type that again, to make sure we're not hallucinating: The cell phones of UC football coaches started filling up with text messages from recruits.
This is how it starts.
A big win with big exposure. One hotshot kid saying to his hotshot buddy, as they watch the field flood with shiny, happy people, "Let's check out Cincy." Maybe a local kid who normally would go to Columbus or Ann Arbor sticks around and makes it big here. Maybe more do the same.
More wins, more TV. More kids from more places, their eyeballs glued to "College GameDay," wondering what's the deal with Cincinnati.
Who knows how high school kids pick their colleges? Really: Who knows how high school kids do anything? It's insanity to hitch your livelihood to the whims of 18-year-olds with girlfriend problems. And that's if you're coaching at Ohio State. Imagine what it's like almost anywhere else, including UC. Even with the Bearcats' promotion to the Big East and their modest success in the past several years, what's an assistant coach going to say to a hotshot kid quarterback?
"Come to Clifton, son. We've been to the Fort Worth Bowl."
It's perception, mostly. It's status, being able to say you're going to Big State. It's a chance to play a big schedule, go to a big bowl, have an NFL scout ask to watch tape of you.
UC football has fought the perception battle forever. The school has chipped away at it lately: joining the Big East, upgrading the facilities, hiring a coach with Big Ten credentials. But it was still UC. "When are they going to take the next step?" a recruit with higher-profile options might ask.
UC couldn't have choreographed its Next Step any better than it did Saturday night. Now we understand, or at least appreciate, why the Bearcats would play at odd hours on weird days - Sunday at 8 p.m., anyone? - just to be on TV. If there ever were a Hi-Mom moment for a college football program, it was at Nippert Stadium four nights ago. A picture is worth a thousand recruits, and the picture the Bearcats offered Football Nation was of a (mostly) full house of screaming, painted undergrads, storming the field.
"Unique" was how coach Mark Dantonio described the experience Tuesday.
Well, yeah.
At UC, they don't worry about taking down the goal posts at any time, let alone before a game ends. But there they were, late in the final quarter, security folks tilting the posts down and out of harm's way. Bearcats players and coaches don't concern themselves with escaping the field quickly, but there they were, stuck in the center of a storm, signing autographs.
Signing autographs?
"I lost my daughters there for a minute. It was sort of a mob scene," Dantonio said.
Until home visits begin Sunday, UC coaches are limited to one phone call a week. They aren't limited when it comes to text messages and e-mails, however. Picture a lot of big, stubby, football-guy forefingers, pounding those little telephone buttons until the buttons beg for mercy. That doesn't count piles of handwritten notes - "hope you saw us Saturday night" - that assistants will send out like junk mail.
"We made a statement. We gathered a little respect," Dantonio decided Wednesday. "From a nationwide perspective, this is a team moving in the right direction."
This is how it starts. A big win with big exposure. A change in the perspective wind. UC football is making a little move toward the big time. One text message at a time.
A funny thing happened to the UC football coaches in the waning moments of their team's astounding, nationally televised win over seventh-ranked Rutgers Saturday night:
Their cell phones started filling up with text messages from recruits. With eight minutes left and the game safely tucked away, quarterbacks coach Dave Warner noticed several messages on his phone. Defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi had five before the game ended.
"Great job," the kids would text. "Looking forward to seeing you on my official visit."
"Can't wait to set up a visit."
Let's type that again, to make sure we're not hallucinating: The cell phones of UC football coaches started filling up with text messages from recruits.
This is how it starts.
A big win with big exposure. One hotshot kid saying to his hotshot buddy, as they watch the field flood with shiny, happy people, "Let's check out Cincy." Maybe a local kid who normally would go to Columbus or Ann Arbor sticks around and makes it big here. Maybe more do the same.
More wins, more TV. More kids from more places, their eyeballs glued to "College GameDay," wondering what's the deal with Cincinnati.
Who knows how high school kids pick their colleges? Really: Who knows how high school kids do anything? It's insanity to hitch your livelihood to the whims of 18-year-olds with girlfriend problems. And that's if you're coaching at Ohio State. Imagine what it's like almost anywhere else, including UC. Even with the Bearcats' promotion to the Big East and their modest success in the past several years, what's an assistant coach going to say to a hotshot kid quarterback?
"Come to Clifton, son. We've been to the Fort Worth Bowl."
It's perception, mostly. It's status, being able to say you're going to Big State. It's a chance to play a big schedule, go to a big bowl, have an NFL scout ask to watch tape of you.
UC football has fought the perception battle forever. The school has chipped away at it lately: joining the Big East, upgrading the facilities, hiring a coach with Big Ten credentials. But it was still UC. "When are they going to take the next step?" a recruit with higher-profile options might ask.
UC couldn't have choreographed its Next Step any better than it did Saturday night. Now we understand, or at least appreciate, why the Bearcats would play at odd hours on weird days - Sunday at 8 p.m., anyone? - just to be on TV. If there ever were a Hi-Mom moment for a college football program, it was at Nippert Stadium four nights ago. A picture is worth a thousand recruits, and the picture the Bearcats offered Football Nation was of a (mostly) full house of screaming, painted undergrads, storming the field.
"Unique" was how coach Mark Dantonio described the experience Tuesday.
Well, yeah.
At UC, they don't worry about taking down the goal posts at any time, let alone before a game ends. But there they were, late in the final quarter, security folks tilting the posts down and out of harm's way. Bearcats players and coaches don't concern themselves with escaping the field quickly, but there they were, stuck in the center of a storm, signing autographs.
Signing autographs?
"I lost my daughters there for a minute. It was sort of a mob scene," Dantonio said.
Until home visits begin Sunday, UC coaches are limited to one phone call a week. They aren't limited when it comes to text messages and e-mails, however. Picture a lot of big, stubby, football-guy forefingers, pounding those little telephone buttons until the buttons beg for mercy. That doesn't count piles of handwritten notes - "hope you saw us Saturday night" - that assistants will send out like junk mail.
"We made a statement. We gathered a little respect," Dantonio decided Wednesday. "From a nationwide perspective, this is a team moving in the right direction."
This is how it starts. A big win with big exposure. A change in the perspective wind. UC football is making a little move toward the big time. One text message at a time.