COLUMBUS – After spending nearly half his life at Ohio State, achieving one of his biggest athletic dreams there and meeting his wife and some of his best friends there, you would be correct if you think Luke Fickell has some strong feelings about his upcoming separation from OSU when he takes over as the University of Cincinnati’s football coach.
If you think he is going to let any sentimentality show as he juggles his roles as OSU’s co-defensive coordinator and the Bearcats’ next coach, though, you would be wrong.
“I can’t reflect. That’s not me. It’d be really difficult to even think about it,” Fickell said. “That’s why you’ve got to keep going, try not to think about it, keep going and now worry about the number of days. It is what it is. It’s a part of me that will never leave,” he said.
Fickell grew up in Columbus and played football and baseball and wrestled at DeSales High School. Along with being a Division I football recruit, he was a three-time undefeated state champion in wrestling.
He spent five years at OSU as a player, the last four as a starter on teams that won 41 of 50 games but saw three chances at national championships slip away because of losses to Michigan.
After an injury ended his dream of playing in the NFL, he returned to Ohio State in 1999 as a graduate assistant.
He spent two years as an assistant at Akron, returned to Ohio State in 2002 and has been there ever since, including being interim coach in 2011 when Jim Tressel was forced to resign after failing to inform his bosses and the NCAA of violations he was aware of.
Five Ohio State players – starting quarterback Terrelle Pryor, running back Dan Herron, receiver DeVier Posey, offensive tackle Mike Adams and back-up defensive lineman Solomon Thomas — were handed five-game suspensions.
Pryor left school rather than serve the suspension, and Herron and Posey later had another game added to their penalties.
Ohio State started the season 6-3, but lost its last four games, including a Gator Bowl trip that many people would second-guess after Urban Meyer’s first OSU team was banned from the postseason in 2012 by the NCAA.
Fickell said he learned a lot from his previous year as a head coach. And he starts his next job in a much better situation with a much better feeling than in 2011.
“People ask that question, ‘What’s the difference?’ There’s an incredible amount of difference because last Saturday going down there, having the ability to be introduced, to have a press conference, was an unbelievable time. It was obviously nerve-wracking; it’s something new, but my family was so excited for the opportunity,” he said.
“In 2011 it was a very, troubled, tough time. We’re all human, and we’re going to feel those things. It was tough. We didn’t even have a press conference in 2011 until at least two and a half weeks after. Why? We wanted a lot of things to die down, wanted to make sure we were prepared. It just never, ever, ever had the same feeling.”
Asked how much he has grown as a football coach in the five seasons since his one year in charge at Ohio State, Fickell said, “I couldn’t even tell you how much. I can pull up my iPad, and I made 25 to 30 mistakes every single day. I tried to document them.
“But the reality is I learned how to fall and get back up and keep going forward. That’s the name of the game, whether it’s life, whether it’s football,” he said.
One thing that will be different is that Fickell says he will say the word “Michigan” if he ever talks about Ohio State’s biggest rival.
“It’s not the same thing. Do I have the same feelings? Yes. It never will change. Just so we know. But the name might change just because I don’t want to put a different emphasis on it, we’ll have our own things we need to do,” he said.
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