Cincinnati Recruiting: Prospects Decommitting From UC In Droves

Over the last 48-72 hours the Cincinnati Bearcats have taken a hit on the recruiting trail with National Signing Day just two months away. Since Sunday, UC has seen Jeremy Larkin flip to Northwestern and three more recruits have decommitted from the Bearcats.

Cornerback Dontye Carriere-Williams from Miami, Florida is the most recent but has pretty much been on the fence for days. He was offered by Wisconsin two weeks ago, visited Madison over this past weekend, and officially decommitted today. Go figure, he also picked up an offer from Maryland during that time.

Then there’s mountainous offensive lineman Liam O’Sullivan. A UC commit since June when he visited Clifton during Cincinnati’s annual Summer camps, his recruitment had been fairly quiet since then. O’Sullivan boasted offers from a handful of teams at the time, including “Power Five” school Illinois, but with the coaching change it wasn’t likely the Bearcats would lose him to the Illini.

Unfortunately the coaching change at Syracuse did. The Orange, under previous staff Scott Shafer, didn’t appear to have much interest in O’Sullivan. But you know who did? Dino Babers at Bowling Green, who had already extended an offer to the linemen. And can you guess who Syracuse hired to replace Shafer? You guessed it, Babers, who promptly and aggressively brought O’Sullivan into the fold and away from Cincinnati.

Defensive back Romelo Webster rounds out the flurry of players scurrying from UC. Like the others, the Hallandale, Florida product had been committed to Cincinnati for a while now, since May to be more accurate. Unfortunately, like O’Sullivan, his 11th hour decision appears to be a result of a recent coaching change. Webster visited Iowa State on December 12th, who just prior to that hired Matt Campbell, who was the head coach at Toledo this past season. And which school also offered Webster? That’s right, Toledo when Campbell was at the helm.

Again, it figures.

Webster hasn’t yet given Campbell and Iowa State his commitment but, like with Carriere-Williams, it feels like it’s only a matter of time. Either way, it seems improbable the Bearcats will be back in play with him.

Of the four decommitments, Larkin definitely hurts but when he has an opportunity to play for a solid Big Ten team and especially at an academic powerhouse like Northwestern, it’s hard to blame him. The O’Sullivan flip is particularly frustrating for me. At 6’7″, 240 lbs coming out of high school he could have developed into a monstrous offensive lineman along the lines of an Eric Lefeld, Cory Keebler, or Sean Hooey, all three fit O’Sullivan’s mold coming out of high school. You just can’t load up on enough tall, large hog mollies up front and it’s disappointing Cincinnati missed out on this one.

Overall, losing all four of these players puts UC under the gun to find valuable replacements. Remember, prior to this weekend the Bearcats only had four or five scholarships available. Now they need to come up with eight or night players in less than two months to fill those openings. That’s not exactly the ideal situation for coaching staffs but I wouldn’t put it past this one to dig those diamonds up.