Luke Fickell is the man tasked with turning around Cincinnati football. The Bearcats went 4-8 in Fickell’s first season, but there are reasons for optimism in 2018.

It’s easy to forget that Cincinnati football was one of the most consistently successful Big East programs during the conference’s later stages. The Bearcats managed to nail three coaching hires in a row, employing Mark Dantonio, Brian Kelly and Butch Jones from 2005 to 2012, all of whom left to take bigger jobs. In that time span, Cincy finished in the top 25 four times, won at least 10 games five times and won two conference titles outright.

Then the Tommy Tuberville era began in Cincinnati, and the program cratered (the Bearcats’ new status as a “Group of Five” team in the American Athletic Conference certainly didn’t help matters either). After winning 18 games in his first two seasons, Tuberville’s Bearcats crashed to 7-6 in 2015, and then the bottom fell out in 2016 and the Bearcats went a paltry 4-8.

Luke Fickell’s already done a lot to change the culture in Cincinnati, even if the results haven’t quite shown up on the field yet. The Bearcats went 4-8 again in 2017, but more importantly, they inked the best recruiting class in the Group of Five by country mile in the offseason. Given the program’s recent history of success and the talent they’ve been bringing in, it feels like a matter of when, not if, Cincinnati football will get back to its winning ways. 2018 might be a bit too soon, though.