Meant to post this earlier with the Manning news, but looks like UC losing a third coach in the past few weeks for a bigger job. Gasparato reportedly going to Troy as DC:
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Another big departure who won’t coach a game at UC:
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A prospect to watch. The date is not set, but he wants to visit.

Very big road win today for the Bearcats, thanks to David DeJulius' runner in the lane just before the buzzer:

Another good national mention of UC recruiting:

Good breakdown of Bearcats recruiting, as one of five programs nationwide that's on a roll right now:

Per release from UC:


Cincinnati football head coach Scott Satterfield announced on Thursday the hires of Special Assistant to the Head Coach Luke Mullett, Football Dietician Michaela Serrano and Director of Creative Media Clay Colvin.

“I’m excited to announce these additions to our staff,” Satterfield said. “From technology management and operations to recruiting and branding to fueling our student-athletes the right way, all three serve purposes that are vital to our program. Having worked with each of them at Louisville, I have seen their commitment to excellence. They will make our program better and I’m excited to welcome them to our Cincinnati family.”


Luke Mullett, Special Assistant to the Head Coach

Mullett, who will serve on Satterfield’s leadership team, comes to the Bearcats from Louisville where he worked as the Director of Football Technology since 2018. He oversaw all coaches video and digital technology for the Cardinals.

Prior to Louisville, Mullett served as the associate director of football operations at Tennessee in 2017 and was the Director of Video Services at Marshall from 2015 to 2017.

Mullett was also the video coordinator for three years at his alma mater, Eastern Michigan, where he directed all aspects of the football team’s audio-visual productions. He was a student assistant for the football team at EMU and served as a defensive graduate assistant before taking over video duties.

At UC, Mullett will be heavily involved with overseeing facility and technology projects and serving as a liaison between the football staff and multiple arms of the athletic department.


Micaela Serrano, Associate Director of Performance Nutrition - Football Dietitian

Serrano joins the Cincinnati staff as the football team's first registered dietitian. She comes from Louisville where she served as a football dietitian since 2020. At Louisville, she provided daily performance nutrition for the Cardinals' football team and game day fueling needs while overseeing dietetic interns.

She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Kentucky where she played a vital role on the Performance Nutrition team. In her role at UK she managed performance nutrition for baseball, assisted with Olympic sports, and helped fuel the Wildcats' football team. She was a member of the Kansas City Royals Sports Nutrition team, fueling their minor league affiliate, the Lexington Legends, to a South Atlantic League Championship in 2019.

After graduating from UK, Micaela completed her dietetic internship through the Coordinated Program at UK where she provided nutrition services to UK HealthCare, St. Claire’s Hospital, and UofL Sports Nutrition.


Clay Colvin, Director of Creative Media – Football

Colvin joins the Cincinnati staff as the Director of Creative Media, where he will direct all creative and recruiting communications for the football team, including the official @GoBearcatsFB social media accounts.

He comes from Louisville, where he served in a similar capacity since 2021. He also has experience as a creative coordinator for Eastern Michigan and a graphic designer at Army.

A Springfield, Ohio, native, Colvin was an honorable mention All-America offensive lineman at the University of Findlay.

Wow, what a deflating loss tonight for UC, which had a 13-point lead with 8 minutes to play. Per usual for most teams that lose, UC athletics acted like the loss didn't happen or at least minimized it and didn't post Wes Miller's post game presser. I'm not sure anyone got it on video. Best I could find is a video of ECU coach Mike Schwartz after the game:

Hey all, not sure if you saw, but Derek Nicholson has accepted the position as Miami's linebackers coach. Reports have just surfaced that cUC has already hired Cortney Braswell from Army as his replacement. Braswell was a quality control analyst at Louisville under Satterfield in 2019:
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Following up my previous INsider, full story on QB Braden Graham. Hard to tell where UC is here exactly, but he really liked the coaches who were at Louisville, like Pete Thomas. My guess is he'll be in Clifton for a spring practice, so we'll know soon.

As you probably know, Rivals’ network was down for several hours today. One of the servers the network uses was part of a global outage. But I wanted to share this quote from Rivals team site director Josh Helmholdt:

"Earlier today, one of Rivals' service providers experienced a global outage that caused the site to be inaccessible for several hours. This is a platform outside of our network or our control and many sites were impacted by this outage, not just Rivals. I want to apologize to those of you who were not able to access the site earlier today. All operations are now restored and we will be working with this provider to ensure that the issue that caused today's outage has been fixed and will not reoccur."

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Hey guys, I caught up with a local prospect across the river in Kentucky, Covington Catholic (Ky.) 2024 tight end Willie Rodriguez, who's really getting a ton of attention in recruiting circles. He's up to 10 scholarship offers, after Western Michigan offered on Friday. Other offers include Boston College, Indiana and Virginia Tech.
Login to view embedded media Rodriguez said UC was the last school he visited, Jan. 22 for the junior day and Memphis basketball game. Now, I'll also say early here, I'm shocked but the Bearcats have not offered. Rodriguez said he's talked a lot to assistant coach Josh Stepp, who recruited him at Louisville. I will say, though, Stepp didn't offer him at Louisville. So there's something Stepp just isn't sold on yet. Offensive coordinator Tom Manning, who's also the TEs coach now with the Bearcats. But Rodriguez likes the idea of staying close to home, so he's hopeful UC will come through. Also evidenced by him attending junior day.

The only visit set right now is March 4 to Indiana. Since the Hoosiers have offered, he's interested. I will say, Rodriguez is also an accomplished wrestler, though he told me he's mostly been focused on football. But he would be open to the option of doing both sports if that came up.

I also asked about Virginia Tech, since I know the Hokies like Rodriguez a lot. He said he wants to get there this spring, along with UC. But again, this might be the kid who doesn't have a UC offer whom I'm watching the most. He's good, so I'm surprised an offer hasn't come. But we'll see.

Full story coming.

Great news for Cincinnati, Birdsong has the Bearcats down as an OV spot.

Good overall look by Clint Cosgrove, including talking about the Kelce bros:

Big night from Oguama and Davenport, with 18 pts each.

Following up my previous INsider, latest on a recent UC offer in Tennessee:

Big honor for the former Bearcat. Release below from UC:

Former University of Cincinnati All-America cornerback Ahmad “Sauce” Gardner was named the NFL’s Defensive Rookie of the Year by the Associated Press on Thursday night at the 2023 NFL Honors awards show held at Symphony Hall.

Decked out in a crimson suit with his signature “SAUCE” chain and accompanied by his mother, Alisa, Gardner collected the award live on NBC.

“First and foremost I (have to) thank God,” he said as part of his acceptance speech. “Without him I wouldn’t be here…I want to thank the Jets for taking a chance on me and allowing me to be a part of their defense. I want to thank all of my coaches from little league to Detroit King High School to Cincinnati. Everywhere. Last by not least, I have to thank Detroit. It was hard growing up … the adversity is what it took to get me here. I appreciate it.”

It’s no surprise Gardner collected the honor after authoring one of the greatest seasons by a rookie cornerback in NFL history following being selected with the No. 4 overall pick in the 2022 NFL Draft by the New York Jets.

Last month, he became the first Jets' cornerback selected for the AP All-Pro First Team since Darrelle Revis in 2011. He was the NFL's first rookie cornerback selected for the first team since Ronnie Lott in 1981.

The Detroit, Mich., native led the NFL with 20 passes defended and also had 75 tackles and two interceptions as the Jets improved from four wins to seven wins.

Gardner was a two-time First Team All-American while playing at Cincinnati from 2019 to 2021, famously never giving up a touchdown in over 1,000 snaps, while leading UC to a pair of American Athletic Conference Championships and to the 2021 College Football Playoff Semifinals at the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic.

He is the second Bearcat to earn a major pro football Rookie of the Year award, joining quarterback Greg Cook, who was the AFL’s Rookie of the Year in 1969.

So, UC won't get to play Texas in football and will only get one academic season in total with Texas and Oklahoma. The schools will pay $100 million to leave early:

UC mentioned in Rob Cassidy's morning look at five programs with crucial 2024 classes:

Just posted the story, but Ivan Pace, Leonard Taylor, Josh Whyle, Tre Tucker, Tyler Scott and Arquon Bush all got invites today to the combine:

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Hey all, I heard back from another of UC's recent spate of offers and caught up with him, Riverdale (Tenn.) three-star quarterback Braden Graham. He told me he's up to 16 offers now, most recently from UC, Charlotte and Arkansas State.
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Graham said he hasn't been anywhere for junior days and doesn't plan on attending any. He told me he doesn't like how there's so many recruits at them and he doesn't get to spend enough one-on-one time with the coaches, which is fair. Instead, he wants to be busy with spring practices, where it might be just him visiting, or a handful of recruits.

I didn't realize, but Graham said he's good friends with Luther Richesson, who spent this past fall at UC but is now in the transfer portal. Apparently Richesson still said good things about the school, the campus and the surroundings. But Graham said he also is interested because of the recent run of success, including the College Football Playoff birth two years ago.

Assistant coach Pete Thomas is the primary recruiter here and recruited Graham when he was at Louisville. Graham said he went to a Louisville game last fall and has stayed in touch with Thomas, even through the move to UC. He did tell me it was Kerry Coombs who actually came by his high school and officially re-offered a scholarship from Thomas.

It sounds like the new Louisville staff has not re-offered and not really talked to him. I gotta imagine Jeff Brohm has his own QBs he's after. So for now, I don't think that offer stands. I couldn't get Graham to give me much specifics on any other school. He just kept dodging the questions I had about any other schools recruiting differently or what he liked so far and I respect that. He doesn't want to show his hand.

So we know more about where things stand with UC and Louisville, but not a lot else. I'll have a full story coming on what info Graham did give me, which still paints a good picture.

Bearcats led by 7 with 2:36 left on a Nolley three, then went scoreless and Tulane forced overtime. Wave were hot in the extra session and UC couldn't keep up: