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The Enquirer was the first to report this, or rather the first to put it in the public sphere. I am not entirely sure on the timeline, and at this point I don't actually care. Whats interesting is the reasoning Tommy Tuberville gives for the move.
"We’re going in another direction on coaching and recruiting"
"The defense played well. This is more about recruiting. I always start with recruiting."
This is just about the starkest reminder possible that the one thing we all think coaching is about, the performance of the team on the field in games makes up such a small portion of the duties and responsibilities of a football coach, be it of the positional or coordinating variety.
On the whole the Bearcats performed very well on the field. Art Kaufman and Fred Tate will be able to point to a lot of production from their positions, and the defense as a whole in their next interviews. But it seems obvious that Tubs was not enamored of either mans recruiting output.
For the Bearcats they have a very small window to find a replacement for Kaufman and Tate. We are currently in the middle of a dead period in recruiting, and they obviously don't want recruiting to go live without Kaufman's replacement in place.
A guy with mid western roots would make a lot of sense, for a lot of reasons. Currently Steve Clinkscale was the only member of the staff this year who spent the majority of his career north of the mason dixon line. Finding someone with more familiarity with the area would obviously make a lot of sense for recruiting. Of the currently committed prospects, of which there are 25, only 10 are from Ohio. UC simply has to do better in the state of Ohio, and locally more than anything.
Replacing Tate is somewhat easier, I just expect his duties to be subsumed by Robert Prunty who coached the defensive ends this season. Having separate coaches for defensive ends and tackles isn't exactly unheard of, but it does fall into the category of things that make you say "thats a bit weird."
The good news is that Tubs has a very deep rolodex of connections and should be able to find a top notch guy to come here in relatively short order. If the recruiting dead period ends with the Bearcats without a defensive coordinator I would be shocked.
