NCAA Football

Tommy Tuberville Bolted From Dinner With Texas Tech Prospects To Accept The Cincinnati Head Coaching Job

On Saturday, Tommy Tuberville was named the next head coach of the Cincinnati Bearcats football team. His departure was a shock to many at Texas Tech, the program of which he is now the former head coach, and plenty of people are still reeling from his decision to leave. Devonte Danzey of Hutchinson (Kansas) Community College, a Texas Tech offensive guard prospect, is particularly stunned. Probably because Tuberville bolted in the middle of dinner with Danzey on Friday, only to find out Saturday that Tuberville had, uh, left dinner to join another school.

8-10 coaches, along with other recruits – lineman Sunny Odogwu and receiver Javess Blue – were out to dinner in Lubbock on Friday. Danzey, the unintentional prophet, was peppering the coaching staff with questions about program stability, whether they would remain in place by choice during his time at Texas Tech. It’s an understandable concern that a player would want the same coaching staff, the coaching staff that recruited him, to be in place all four years. But Tuberville, for whatever reason, was evasive with his answers, mentioning that he coached at Miami and Auburn and that Ray Lewis had been one of his recruits. And then Tuberville got up and left the table. A bathroom break, or so everyone thought.

Except Tuberville never returned. Odd, for sure, but he’d be at the 11:00 a.m. campus tour the following day, Saturday. Wrong again! Because 30 minutes later, interim head coach Chris Thomsen broke the news.

Via 247sports.com:

“‘The waitress brought our food out, and we thought (Tuberville) went to the bathroom, but he never came back to dinner,’ Danzey told 247Sports.com. ‘The next thing I know, the next day, he made an announcement that he’s going to Cincinnati.’”

For what it’s worth, Danzey is still considering Texas Tech, assuming he likes the new coaching staff. So that’s good, at least. But bolting in the middle of dinner to take another job? Even Bobby Petrino wouldn’t do that. Maybe.

[247sports.com, via Eye On College Football]

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