CINCINNATI – After the final home game of Luke Fickell’s crash-course interim season at Ohio State in 2011, a Buckeye manager pulled Fickell’s black Chevy Suburban a few yards from the training room at Ohio Stadium. As the SUV idled in the stadium tunnel as night fell in Columbus, Fickell stared out at home field one final time as Ohio State’s interim coach.

Uncertainty filled the chilly air. The 20-14 home loss to Penn State left the Buckeyes 6-5, as Ohio State struggled in the wake of Jim Tressel’s dismissal. The season fizzled amid suspension and controversy, and Fickell, then 38, found himself pondering coaching at Ohio Stadium for the final time.

“I just kind of took a little time to [reflect],” Fickell said recently in his office at the University of Cincinnati. “Not knowing if you’ll ever have the opportunity to be back.”

Less than a decade later, Luke Fickell is preparing for a high-visibility stretch that will crescendo with a return trip to Ohio Stadium as the visiting head coach. He’s the third-year head coach at Cincinnati, which he led to an 11-2 record last year, and he has emerged as one of the profession’s most promising young coaches.

Cincinnati hosts UCLA on Thursday night in a marquee game for the program. And in his homecoming at No. 5 Ohio State in Week 2, Fickell has a chance to show precisely how far he and the Bearcats have come, in part because of lessons learned from that interim season.

The ties to Ohio State run deeper than Fickell playing five years at the school and spending 16 seasons on staff. He also grew up in Columbus and his wife, Amy, actually lived in the stadium while a student there. (The honors dorm was located there her freshman year.)

“It’s like playing against your brother,” Fickell said, noting his emotions will be more intense than sentimental. “That’s a big-time deal. I’m a competitor, so there’s no one I’d want to beat up more than my brother. I mean, holy cow, there’s no one I’d want to play harder against.”

Fickell’s worries that dark night in 2011 were alleviated when Urban Meyer quickly retained him as defensive coordinator on his 2012 Ohio State staff. From there, Fickell didn’t rush back to become a head coach. He showed an uncommon patience until the right opportunity emerged.

“Incredibly, I learned to be myself and that great leaders truly value consistency, the ability to be consistent with your emotions and energy and messaging,” he said. “There’s things you can’t learn from reading a book.”

In writing a new coaching chapter, Luke Fickell stayed true to himself.

View photos Cincinnati Bearcats coach Luke Fickell talks to an official during a game against Central Florida in 2018. (AP) More

Blood sport and bounce houses

The Fickells hosted the family of defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman for a pool party earlier this summer, a fitting gathering as each family has six children. The day included the typical jousting in the Fickell family pool, which led to Freeman challenging Fickell to a wrestling match. “He looked at me like, ‘I don’t want to do this to you,’” Freeman said.

Freeman, 33, played linebacker for Fickell, 46, at Ohio State and has kept in good enough shape that he said he can likely lift more weight than his old coach. But it didn’t matter, as Fickell’s legendary competitiveness includes a 106-0 high school wrestling record.

The result wasn’t all that surprising, with Freeman tapping out twice. “I have to live with that one for a while,” Freeman said.

In building a program to reflect his identity, it’s no surprise Fickell used competition as a fundamental tenet. Amy Fickell recalls Euchre games so heated they unnerved guests, and her husband wouldn’t dare let her win a morning jog. “He would tackle me,” she jokes, “before he would let me win.”

The six Fickell kids know the feeling. In his office this spring, Fickell was grumbling about the competitiveness in the little league pitching performance of one of his older twins. “If that was wrestling, you’d have a black eye, bloody nose and you’d be limping,” Fickell said, still clearly irked days later.

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