How did the University of Cincinnati Bearcats manage to blow a golden opportunity to hire Coach Prime to bring a National Championship contender to Cincinnati? No offense to new coach Scott Satterfield, the latest in an impressive list of coaches including Brian Kelly, Butch Jones, Tommy Tuberville and Luke Fickell. If the Administration and fan base can be patient, Satterfield will probably build a strong program in five to eight years. Satterfield has a reputation as a strong recruiter.
But if you want to talk about recruiters, Coach Prime is going to be accompanied by a storm of recruits who will descend upon Boulder, Colorado. Even though Prime has no obvious connection to the city of Boulder, the Transfer Portal is about to explode with recruits who can’t wait to play major college ball for him. Rather than being recruited by some stodgy manager, these young players have a chance to play for someone who many people regard as the GOAT at his position.
Look out, and get out of the way, because Prime is bringing many of his key recruits with him via the Transfer Portal. The impact will be very subtle, about like a falling safe. He immediately established himself as the most honest football coach in America by warning his new 1-11 Buffalo team that they should consider hitting the Transfer Portal because he is planning on bringing new players in via the same route, probably including his son Shedeur, the likely new starting quarterback; Travis Hunter Jr., who stars at both cornerback and wide receiver; and several others.
Many observers were skeptical whether he could lead a football team like relatively unknown Jackson State. Lo and behold, however, star talent flocked around him and quickly transformed Jackson State into a football powerhouse. This season they went 13-0. It is so obvious that the same formula will work again, as young star players are so eager to play for the GOAT. Look, Nick Saban, Kirby Smart and Ryan Day and all those dudes are awesome, but if you have a chance to play for the GOAT, you have to take it! Get serious!
Do not forget that Coach Prime played four years with the Cincinnati Reds baseball team. Though his baseball career was not at the same magnitude as his football career, he was nevertheless a huge star in the Cincinnati community. Cincinnati was one of his adopted homes. It would be an enormously effective recruiting platform. But it just did not happen.
Fortunately, there is more than one good football coach in America, so who is to say that things won’t work out well for everyone? Hopefully, Scott Satterfield will turn out to be another Luke Fickell, and it will all work out. Still, for the moment, it just seems that another Ohio sports team has fallen short due to lack of imagination. It wouldn’t hurt so badly if Prime were off to be the new coach at Georgia Tech, given his connection to Atlanta, or the University of Texas at Arlington, or his Alma Mater, Florida State. That would be very understandable. But the University of Colorado at Boulder? Really? That’s who beat out the University of Cincinnati for Deion Sanders?
Why couldn’t the UC Athletic Department see the wisdom of hiring Prime? In fairness, we don’t know how it went down. We do not know whether UC realized just how serious Prime was about moving to a Power Five Conference University. Colorado, on the other hand, figured out immediately that the opportunity was real, and they were willing to do whatever it took to get Prime to be their next head coach.