As University of Cincinnati men's basketball coach John Brannen continues to sort through who's left in his locker room, Bearcats football coach Luke Fickell also has been forced to take inventory of his roster this offseason.
Like Brannen, who had six of his players enter the transfer portal last week, Fickell has had his issues of players transferring, as center Jakari Robinson earlier this month became the latest UC football player to enter the portal.
Robinson, who started 24 games during his Cincinnati career, entered the portal as a graduate transfer, joining backup quarterback Ben Bryant, wide receiver Jayshon Jackson and others.
"I think it's (the diminished amount of in-person contact due to the global pandemic) been tough on us as coaches and I think it's been a lot harder on these 18- to 22-year-olds," Fickell said on Monday. "I think that piles onto the issues that the guys leaving in the basketball program or even that are leaving in the football program. It's made it a lot more difficult."
While Brannen and his players just wrapped up their season, Fickell and his group are just starting theirs, as the Bearcats held their first spring practice on Friday. The countdown to the 2021 season opener Sept. 4 against in-state rival Miami University has officially begun.
"We're excited to get outside a little bit with the good weather and put on some pads starting Tuesday," said Fickell, who is entering his fifth season at the helm of the UC football program.
Fickell and the reigning American Athletic Conference champions took their first steps toward defending their crown and bouncing back from their season-ending 24-21 loss to Georgia in the Peach Bowl on New Year's Day. The defeat, which included the Bulldogs outscoring the Bearcats 14-0 in the fourth quarter, foiled a perfect 10-0 season for Cincinnati, which was No. 8 in the season's final College Football Playoff rankings.
"It's hard," said Fickell, who finally watched the loss after putting it off for weeks. "Any time you lose a game the way you did and as close as you did, you keep revisiting those three, four, five, six plays and a few of those calls that maybe you could've done differently. But it's not going to take away from the fact that I was really impressed with how guys handled the situation and how they played."
Fickell on Monday pointed to quarterback Desmond Ridder and defensive end Myjai Sanders as the team's leaders and standard-bearers who are tasked with showing the younger players how to properly prepare for the road ahead.
Ridder and Sanders both elected to return for another season after standout junior campaigns in 2020.
Ridder, last season's AAC offensive player of the year, passed for 2,296 yards and 19 touchdowns while rushing for 592 yards and 12 scores. Ridder's 22 career rushing touchdowns are the most by a quarterback in program history.
Sanders earned a first-team All-AAC selection en route to racking up 31 total tackles and leading the team in tackles for loss (10.5) and sacks (seven). The 6-foot-5, 258-pound Jacksonville, Florida, native will anchor a defense that will have a coordinator other than Marcus Freeman for the first time in Fickell's tenure at Cincinnati.
Fickell brought in longtime Michigan State assistant coach and former Bearcats assistant Mike Tressel to replace Freeman, who left the program in January to take the same job at Notre Dame.
Cincinnati plays in South Bend on Oct. 2.
Fickell and Tressel will roam the same sideline for the first time since they were together at Ohio State beginning in 2002, when the Buckeyes won the national championship, and until Tressel joined then-Ohio State defensive coordinator Mark Dantonio at Cincinnati. Dantonio was hired as UC's head coach in December 2003.
"The familiarity, personally, really helps," Fickell said on adding Tressel to his staff. "He's had to build some relationships with some guys in our defensive room that he didn't know, but I think the relationship, the familiarity from that point of things for me has allowed me to stay out of the way and let him do and build some things within that defensive room with those guys because they're really, really good, really sharp and smart and got good ideas."
Fickell said he's already begun to pick Tressel's brain to figure out some enhancements and adjustments that will make a defense that has already been one of the most dominant in the country even more stifling.
"Right now, it's about getting better," Fickell said. "I think in general, right now, our idea is how do we go to the next level."
The season isn't for another five-plus months, but the excitement for the Bearcats to play at Notre Dame and Indiana and continue to build on the success of the past few seasons is palpable.
"Oh, yeah, there's no doubt," said Fickell, who is 35-14 at UC. "... But then you have to have the maturity enough to be able to say, OK, it's still five, six months away. What do we gotta do to make sure we're in a position that when we get there, we have the opportunities that we need to have. ... But I think there's nothing better to have that little buzz within your community as well."