If he is not fired, I will leave the Cincinnati Bearcats head coach, as he have a misunderstanding with his player.

If he is not fired, I will leave the Cincinnati Bearcats head coach, as he have a misunderstanding with his player.

I will leave the Cincinnati Bearcats head coach, he declared during a disagreement with his player, if he is not fired.

But if he eventually leaves at some point in the future, Luke Fickell has clearly lifted the Bearcats back to relevance and success rather than using them as a stepping stone to greater and better things.

I wrote it in February 2020, after a highly public search process led to Cincinnati head coach Luke Fickell declining to allow Michigan State to remain with the Bearcats. It followed two straight 11-win seasons, but it was before Fickell had guided Cincinnati to an American Athletic Conference title, much less a Peach Bowl or a College Football Playoffs quarterfinal, earning Coach of the Year awards like loose change in the process. It seemed like a happy, festive surprise even then, three whole seasons ago, that Fickell was still in Clifton.

At last, on Sunday, Fickell traded the Bearcats for the Badgers. After six seasons, he left Cincinnati as its most successful and decorated coach. He was presented in Wisconsin on Monday.

Fickell was clearly ready to depart and attempt something new as soon as he made his decision. Administrators in Cincinnati’s athletic department were aware of mutual outside interest for the previous few weeks, and Fickell’s wife, Amy, paid a visit to Madison, Wisconsin, earlier in November to inquire about the Badgers’ interest in Luke, according to The Athletic. Fickell had an interview with Wisconsin athletic director Chris McIntosh on Saturday, November 12, according to the Wisconsin State Journal, following the Bearcats’ victory over East Carolina the day before.

Fickell may never have decided in his mind that he was taking the Wisconsin job, but it was obviously a very serious possibility before Friday’s regular-season finale defeat to Tulane. He renounced his earlier, self-imposed rule of not interviewing or considering offers during the season as a result of losing out on a real opportunity to interview with Notre Dame or Oklahoma during the College Football Playoffs last year. Fickell is a self-described creature of habit and a principled guy, but even the rock he so frequently claims to live under was unable to survive the ever-changing college sporting scene. A lot of things change. People also. The difference between stubbornness and steadfastness is not great.

A Friday night loss, media reports in the morning of Sunday, an official announcement and private plane to Madison on Sunday evening made for a fairly chaotic departure. But, as I said in February 2020, it would be unjust and inaccurate to say that Fickell utilized the Bearcats as a stepping stone given all he did to get the program and himself to this place. With college football, nobody leaves well anymore. In the nature of the industry, coaches either stay long enough to be fired or succeed long enough to go on.

After 22 seasons, TCU made a statue for Gary Patterson, who was later thrown out, and Cincinnati fans have been fervently advocating for one outside of Nippert Stadium. Riding out somewhere into the sunset is mostly a fantasy.

Fickell moved to Wisconsin because it seemed like a “destination job” and a better setting that fit his goals and timing. He also leaves Cincinnati behind with a new destination job that is significantly more alluring than the one he took over in December 2016. When Fickell got to Cincinnati, the head football coach position needed to be completely rebuilt, beginning with the local recruiting environment. With the right personnel and players in place, he developed NFL-caliber talent and gave a nomadic, mismanaged program a culture and identity. He also won games with it.

He pushed a school that seemed like big-time football might have passed it by into the power conference and four-team playoffs. Without Fickell’s on-field influence, perhaps Cincinnati would have received a call from the Big 12, paid a head coach $5 million annually, and erected an indoor practice facility and nutrition center valued at $100 million. For the Bearcats, that means they will never have to find out.

Now, the next coach has a success plan in place, and to be fair to Cincinnati, some earlier iterations of the same plan also proved to be rather successful. Hire both regional and local people. Accept the underdog, blue-collar attitude of the neighborhood. Play like Trent Cole, Jason Kelce, Mardy Gilyard, and Sauce Gardner did—with flair and edge. Though he might do far worse than a brazen effort at Fickell karaoke, the hired person will have his own method and philosophy to follow.

Though Fickell, who in some ways became a prisoner of his own upcoming $100 million practice facility, made it far more difficult and ambitious, it is still a challenging job. Part of the reason he thought the time was appropriate for a fresh ascent was this. The new coach of Cincinnati will walk into a league that is far more difficult and come with aspirations of winning a conference championship. Better resources and increased alignment with funders and stakeholders follow. A job is alluring for the same reasons that make it difficult.

Short-term obstacles for the Bearcats are probably going to keep coming from the unavoidable personnel and roster churn, abbreviated schedules, and general unpredictability that accompany any coaching change. Although Clifton will have sleepless weeks ahead, summer always feels unreal in the winter. Cincinnati has a history of winning football games again, sooner rather than later, with a solid lineup.

More than the circumstances surrounding his retirement, Fickell is a product of and a major contributor to that track record, for which he should and will be recognized. Fans are free to feel and react anyway they choose—angry, disappointed, or betrayed. At this time last year, a large number of those same supporters were most likely measuring plots throughout Varsity Village for that Fickell statue. It is possible to be both. And maybe eventually, the university will construct the statue. Or perhaps the practice facility, the title and Playoff banners, a name in the Nippert Stadium Ring of Honor, or any of the innumerable players, games, and moments from his career that will endure will honor Fickell.

Fickell organized everything, not doing it alone, and he ought to be honored for what he accomplished for UC and the legacy he leaves behind, no matter how long and wide. Greater than Fickell is and always will be Cincinnati football. And Fickell is mostly to blame for it.