Fickell Adds Freeman, Phillips to Staff

Luke Fickell’s staff is continuing to develop and develop nicely. Yesterday Cincinnati announced that Marcus Freeman and Doug Phillips were each named assistant coaches for the program. Freeman will serve as defensive coordinator and linebackers coach and Phillips will handle special teams.

Freeman actually played under Fickell during his playing career from 2004 to 2008 and was a second-team All-Big Ten honoree in 2008. He was a graduate assistant at Ohio State after that and is an Ohio native. As far as coaching prowess goes, Freeman coached the linebackers at Kent State from 2011 to 2012 and then at Purdue over the last four years. He was also a co-defensive coordinator for the Boilermakers in 2015.

Phillips also has Ohio roots and ties to Ohio State. He is from New Middleton, went to school at Toledo and has served in coaching roles at Youngstown State (where he also received his master’s degree in 1995), several Ohio high schools and Bowling Green. He worked with Fickell in 2006 as the defensive quality control coach at OSU and was most recently director of player personnel at Iowa State after a seven-year stint as a high school principal and superintendent.

Freeman and Phillips join a staff that reportedly already includes Mike Denbrock as offensive coordinator and Joker Phillips as wide receivers coach, although we are still waiting on official word from UC on those additions.