http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nca...i/2650521/
WEST HARRISON, Ind. — How do you know you've found Tommy Tuberville's golf cart? It says so right on the side — both sides, actually — in big, script letters that would make it impossible to identify incorrectly.
But here's the thing: It's Tuberville's golf cart in the most literal sense. He bought it when he was head coach at Auburn, took it with him to Texas Tech and then shipped it back across the country again when he moved to Cincinnati last winter. In the meantime, it's had two different paint schemes from orange to black-and-red, which he was able to keep since Cincinnati and Texas Tech have the same colors.
COUNTDOWN: Cincinnati is No. 34
Oh, and it also has a stereo system with two speakers. Really.
"Yeah, I like to listen to a little George Strait and Merle Haggard before practice," Tuberville said Tuesday.
The golf cart provides Tuberville a convenient mode of transportation for getting around campus, but it feels a little superfluous here at Camp Higher Ground, where the Bearcats have come for 14 consecutive preseason camps under five different head coaches.
A handful of college programs now leave campus at least for part of training camp, but nobody does it quite like Cincinnati. This place, tucked away in the woods about 20 miles west of campus, is just about the perfect setup for a training camp. Used as a retreat center for the other 50 weeks of the year, the Bearcats have essentially made it a home away from home by installing two practice fields, with the living and eating quarters all within 200 yards of each other.
Cincinnati coach Tommy Tuberville has taken this golf cart, parked by the team's practice field, to three jobs, repainting it with each step.(Photo: Dan Wolken, USA TODAY Sports)
And though there's very little Internet access and cellphone service is spotty, players have access to a swimming pool, a basketball court, a ropes course and a zip line, and they can spend time bonding with no outside demands on their time. Not to mention that everyone raves about the food.
"It's unbelievable," said Tuberville, who's never done an off-campus training camp. "You've got them 24 hours, and if you're back on campus they go eat and lay at their lockers for a couple hours and don't get any rest. Here they can go lay in bed, cool off, take a nap and get back out here. It's awesome. No distractions, no girlfriends, no parents, nobody."
Cincinnati likes it so much here, they're staying for two full weeks. Tuberville wanted to stay even longer, but the Bearcats had to go the first four days on campus because some players were finishing summer school.
STOP 2: Tennessee
Tennessee coach Butch Jones, who was at Cincinnati the past three seasons, said he felt his teams came out of camp much fresher and focused and played better in the opener because of it.
"All you do is walk up the stairs and go to bed (at the end of the day)," he said. "I think it's an unbelievable advantage."
It's quite an undertaking for Cincinnati to stage its camp here. Four semi trucks full of equipment come from campus, and it takes at least 24 hours of work to convert the main lodge — used sometimes for religious revivals or gun shows — into a makeshift locker room, a temporary weight room and a medical training facility.
"We leave a lot here now, but it's taken us five years to duplicate everything," associate athletics director for sports medicine Bob Mangine said.
It's a tremendously impressive setup but not one many schools can copy. Jones said you have to find the perfect facility "or it can be a negative."
2013-08-13_Cincy-camp-lockerroom
Cincinnati's makeshift locker room at its remote training camp in Indiana. The Bearcats have been visiting the camp for 15 years.(Photo: Dan Wolken, USA TODAY Sports)
Other notes and observations from Cincinnati:
— There are almost two simultaneous quarterback battles going on with the Bearcats. One is between seniors Brendon Kay and Munchie Legaux, and the other involves redshirt freshmen Bennie Coney and Gunner Kiel. Kay, it appears, has a slight edge on Legaux — even though the former was held out of practice Tuesday morning to give him rest and give Legaux an opportunity to work with the first-string offense. Both quarterbacks have starting experience, so that's not a huge area of concern.
More interesting is the battle in 2014 when Kiel becomes eligible. Rated as the top quarterback in the nation out of high school, Kiel initially committed to Indiana, then switched to LSU, then decided at the last minute to enroll at Notre Dame for the 2012 spring semester.
Last season, of course, Kiel sat while redshirt freshman Everett Golson led the Fighting Irish to the BCS title game. And with Golson appearing to have the position locked down, Kiel decided to transfer to Cincinnati, which is close to his hometown of Columbus, Ind. When Golson was suspended this season for an academic violation, there was some initial speculation that Kiel might be interested in transferring back, but he quickly reaffirmed his plans to stay at Cincinnati. Now he'll have to sit out this year while Coney — a highly sought-after recruit himself — gets more snaps in practice and may get some game experience. Coney looked pretty good Tuesday, so keep an eye on that battle heading into 2014.
"(Kiel) has been good, he's just lost," Tuberville said. "He didn't run this type of offense, underneath the center some. This will be a great year for him. He has to get stronger. He'll spend the next 12 months in the weight room, understanding the offense. It's a lot easier standing back watching guys get chewed out, but we'll give him a few reps. He's good, he just has to work on his footwork. All the little things have to come. He's got the strong points of being a quarterback, but he has to learn how to play."
— Tuberville was supposed to be president of the American Football Coaches Association this year, but he asked to have his term delayed because of everything that came with changing jobs. That responsibility instead has fallen to Texas' Mack Brown this year, but Tuberville will be president in two years, which could be interesting timing given all the talk of a separation within Division I.
"I don't think it'll happen," Tuberville said. "Every 15, 20 years they've tried to make it where (bigger schools) want to make their own rules and decisions. That's not going to happen. It's just not feasible and it's not feasible to have 40 or 50 play each other. That's not gonna work out. You don't have enough scholarships. You have to be able to play non-conference games.
"You hear some of these coaches wanting to play nine conference games. Go get you some of it. It's a lot tougher than what you think. We did that in the Big 12, it's a grind."
Tuberville, like many coaches, is also concerned about the effect of the NCAA's deregulatory push on size of coaching staffs.
"There's gonna be a vote on that, on going to 22 staff members, and there needs to be," he said. "You've got some schools with 50 guys out there and they're involved. That's an advantage. I don't care what they have, don't give an advantage to coaching staffs on the field. Hopefully we get it all ironed out. People try to find ways around the rules, and hopefully sooner or later we can get control of it and get everybody on the same playing field in terms of how many guys can be coaching, directing, cutting down film. It's a mess, it really is. I've been in all those meetings, and it seems like four or five coaches are the ones that cause the problems."
— Cincinnati would love to be preparing for a move to the Atlantic Coast Conference like Louisville but instead is trying to make the best of the American Athletic Conference, because that will be its home for the foreseeable future. It might not be the first choice, but it's a league the Bearcats have a chance to win year in and year out .
"The attitude is what I've been impressed with," Tuberville said. "They've won a lot of games here, and guys have made a name for themselves. All this conference stuff, I just kind of shut it out. Don't worry about that. We can't control that. I went through three years of it at Texas Tech not knowing if we were going to be independent or WAC or Pac-12. You didn't know. So hey, just go play and have fun. (Any future conference shifts) aren't going to happen for most of these guys anyway. So let's go play with what we've got."
