Quite the brouhaha surfaced earlier today, with a report surfacing that Tommy Tuberville, in the midst of a dinner Friday night with several coaches and potential Texas Tech recruits, had dined-and-ditched the prospects. The intimation was that Tuberville had “went to the bathroom, but he never came back to dinner” in order to continue the pursuit of his eventual move to Cincinnati.
Tuberville’s new employer, though, disagrees with that individual’s version of how events transpired over the weekend.
In a statement labeling the reports as “inaccurate,” Cincinnati refuted the fact that their new head coach had ditched recruits, stating that "[c]oach said he was at the dinner, talked with everyone, ate and went home.” The recruit quoted in the 247Sports.com article, JUCO offensive lineman Devonte Danzey, claimed that "[t]he waitress brought our food out” and Tuberville was nowhere to be found.
UC also claimed in the statement that "[t]here was no contact between Coach Tuberville and Cincinnati prior to Saturday morning.” The dinner in question was last Friday night, which would call into question the UC portion of the dine-and-dash imbroglio.
Of course, it’s entirely possible as well that UC officials went through Tuberville’s agent before the coach was “officially” involved. Actually, the fact that, just a couple of hours after Cincinnati had first contacted Tuberville, reports surfaced that he had taken the Bearcats job strongly suggest just that.
Regardless of what may or may not have happened that night in a Lubbock restaurant -- and whether or not the word of a single individual should be taken as gospel either way -- there’s one undeniable fact coming out of all of it: recruiting trail fodder has been handed on a silver platter to those who will be battling Tuberville and his UC staff for prospects.