New Bearcats coach Tommy Tuberville has already made some bad impressions in the Cincinnati area, with quarterback recruit Kyle Kempt decommitting from the school and his coach insisting Tuberville won't be allowed to recruit further at the high school.
Tommy Tuberville angers local high school coach over QB recruit snub
Cincinnati recruit Kyle Kempt was willing to stay with Tommy Tuberville at Cincinnati after Butch Jones left for Tennessee, but Tuberville moved on, causing his high school coach to close a previously important recruiting pipeline.
Jeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports
Kempt had committed to the school under Butch Jones, who left to take the open job at Tennessee. He had been recruited by Tennessee as well, but chose to stick with Cincinnati as a student with a 4.4 GPA interested in Cincinnati’s engineering program. But as Todd Porter of the Canton Repository reports, something went awry in the weeks after Tuberville’s arrival at Cincinnati.
It’s not clear whether Tuberville pulled a scholarship from Kempt, or Kempt just took a hint, but whatever happened, it didn’t exactly go over well with Kempt’s coach at Massillon Washington High School, Jason Hall:
“It was an ugly situation,” Hall said. “I think they thought he was going to go to Tennessee with Butch Jones and they offered another quarterback. But that wasn’t the case. Cincinnati will not be allowed back in Massillon on our campus as long as Jason Hall is in Massillon.”
Tuberville has burned a bridge or two over the last few weeks, first leaving Texas Tech unannounced and going to Cincinnati, and now angering high school coaches in the area of his new school. That’s never a good idea, especially shortly after arriving in a completely new region of the country.
