CINCINNATI — Mike Cummings doesn’t care what type of player you were before he arrived at Cincinnati. That’s irrelevant. All the Bearcats’ first-year offensive line coach has been interested in since he was hired in January is what type of player and person you are right now and how hard you’re willing to work to keep getting better.
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It’s why Cummings liked Joe Huber from the moment he met him this past winter, completely unaware of his scholarship status. Or lack thereof.
“I didn’t know he was a walk-on,” Cummings said. “I met the players in the weight room on my first day here, and I’m watching this guy, he works really hard, he’s tough, he can move. It had to be a week later when someone told me that he was a walk-on. I would have never known.”
Once spring practice started a few weeks later, it only reaffirmed Cummings’ first impression of the 6-foot-5, 305-pound sophomore. Cummings started introducing some of his techniques and philosophy with his new offensive line group and was amazed at how quickly Huber grasped everything and the intensity he played with.
“He was able to execute it, and I’m thinking maybe it was because he didn’t know any better, right? Then you start to see that he can really pick it up,” Cummings said. “Plus the physical nature of his play is incredible. I think I went to (offensive coordinator) Gino (Guidugli) at that point and said, ‘Are you sure this guy’s a walk-on? Because I don’t think you’re right. Let’s check this.’”
Joe Huber is set to start Saturday against Arkansas. (Courtesy of Cincinnati Bearcats Athletics)Huber is in fact a walk-on, and he had only two walk-on offers coming out of Ohio’s Dublin Jerome High School in 2020: Akron and Cincinnati. That isn’t totally surprising considering he was 6-foot-2 and 172 pounds at the end of his sophomore year of high school, with his first driver’s license to prove it. Huber was always a good athlete — he wrestled and played defensive line on the football team — but at some point, he realized that if he was going to have a future in the sport, he needed to get a lot bigger.
Huber started his junior season of high school at 190 pounds, still playing on the junior varsity football team. By the end of his senior year in 2019-20, he was up to 220 pounds and sprouted a couple of inches to 6-4, playing as a two-way starter for varsity on the offensive and defensive lines. He earned all-state honors and was a state-qualifying wrestler that winter.
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“Anyone can get bigger. I just knew I needed to eat a lot more,” Huber said. “I got on a really good meal plan, eating a lot of chicken, rice and eggs. I just wanted to put on as much good weight as I could, so I stuck to the meal plan.”
Alex Huettel, currently the offensive line coach at Fordham, was a graduate assistant for the Bearcats in 2019, and his brother was the offensive coordinator at Dublin Jerome. Huettel watched a game that season and was intrigued by Huber’s potential, so he started recruiting him as a walk-on. Huber decided to attend Cincinnati shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, upending the final months of his senior year of high school. Huber used the time to hunker down in his at-home weight room.
“The coaches here told me they wanted me at 250 pounds by the time I got here (in summer 2020),” Huber said. “I showed up at 275.”
Grinding instead of whining in quarantine pic.twitter.com/RtanSHPI8f
— Joe Huber (@JoeHuber14) March 27, 2020
It has been a steady upward trajectory ever since, in terms of both body mass and on-field development. Huber’s teammates were blown away by his work ethic and progress once he got to campus.
“We couldn’t believe he was a walk-on. He was working harder than anybody out here,” said Dylan O’Quinn, a senior captain and starter on the Bearcats’ offensive line. “He put on a ton of weight and already had the athletic ability, but Joe is an awesome guy. He works harder than anyone I’ve known since I’ve been here. He just shows up every day, gets his work done, doesn’t complain about hurting at all.”
Huber spent his true freshman season on the scout team working mostly at left tackle, going up against Myjai Sanders, Curtis Brooks and Elijah Ponder every day in practice. He paired that humbling preparation with continued work in the weight room and extra time on the field, and by spring ball of his second season, he was working with the second-string offensive line for a team that ultimately reached the College Football Playoff.
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“He’s an athlete. A big athlete. A really good athlete,” Cummings said. “He’s very strong, very coachable, very smart. If you tell him something, he’s going to remember it. And then he’s going to be able to do it.”
This past spring, under a new position coach, came an opportunity. The Bearcats had a couple of returning starters in Jake Renfro and Lorenz Metz held out of spring practice while rehabbing injuries, which bumped Huber up to the first team. Up to 305 pounds, he started working at right guard but eventually flipped with O’Quinn during the summer and moved to right tackle. That’s where he’ll be for Saturday’s season opener at No. 19 Arkansas, a not-so-long-ago undersized and under-recruited walk-on starting on the edge for the No. 23 Bearcats as he enters his third season.
“I don’t really have a preference, I can play anywhere. But once they put me in (during spring) I saw my chance,” said Huber, who has the same approach to the 130-plus pounds he’s put on since high school. “I can get to whatever weight they want me. They want me at 305, so that’s where I’m at.”
That mentality has endeared Huber to Cummings and his teammates as much as his natural athleticism. Huber exemplifies the tough-and-nasty attitude Cincinnati football strives for, particularly in the trenches, and carries it with a quiet, steely demeanor. Asked about their new right tackle, Renfro and O’Quinn both referenced a T-shirt Huber wears around the facility that reads: From my silence comes violence.
“He’s definitely a man of few words,” O’Quinn said. “That shirt is the perfect way to describe Joe.”
🚨 Excited to announce that we've partnered with @GoBearcatsFB redshirt sophomore OL, @JoeHuber14!
You can view the first 2 designs (both available as a t-shirt & hoodie) 👇https://t.co/S96v4OgJnR#SilentAssassin #Bearcats https://t.co/v0u1OZPA7y pic.twitter.com/7LGaezZ6r8
— 513shirts․com (@513shirts) August 28, 2022
Local apparel company 513shirts jumped all over the NIL opportunity, working with Huber to create personalized designs. It’s a welcome revenue stream for Huber, who was placed on an available scholarship for the spring semester but is back to walk-on status this fall. He mentioned he does have some other potential NIL deals in the works, but he’s not in a hurry to shed the walk-on moniker, either.
“I do like (being a walk-on),” Huber said. “It makes me feel like an underdog and still makes me want to work really hard.”
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Fayetteville reunion for Fletcher
Saturday’s game at Arkansas will be a mini-family reunion for Bearcats sophomore punter Mason Fletcher. His younger brother, Max, is a freshman punter for the Razorbacks, and this weekend will be the first time the Australian native has seen Max and their mother in nearly two years. Both of the Fletcher parents took four flights totaling more than 24 hours to Fayetteville to see their sons play in person.
“My old man came over for the Cotton Bowl last season, but I haven’t seen my mom or Max since I left Australia in December 2020,” Mason Fletcher said.
Fair to say mum and dad are tailgate ready 🤣🤣❤️❤️ pic.twitter.com/g8g0ODUOn3
— Mason Fletcher (@MasonFletcher19) August 28, 2022
UC’s punter came to Cincinnati by way of ProKick Australia, the organization that has helped place a number of Australian football players at big-time college football programs. Fletcher had very little knowledge of American football, but he was intrigued when he saw former high school classmate Nik Constantinou playing for Texas A&M a few years back.
“I hadn’t talked to him for about two years, but I saw him on TV playing in front of 100,000 people and thought, ‘Ooh, if I can’t play Australian football, that would be really nice,’” Fletcher said.
The Bearcats’ last punter, James Smith, was a four-year starter and Ray Guy Award finalist and another ProKick product. It led to Cincinnati finding Fletcher, who was forced to kick for former special teams coordinator Brian Mason over FaceTime during the pandemic. That proved convincing enough to UC, which signed Fletcher to its 2021 recruiting class. Like many ProKick products, Fletcher is a non-traditional American college student as a 22-year-old sophomore, but the 6-7 Aussie arrived in Cincinnati readymade, averaging 42.9 yards on 50 punts as a true freshman last season.
“I was a little bit older, which helped me. I was mature enough to be ready to go,” Fletcher said of his transition to American football. “And I’d like to say I was a pretty good kick back home, one of the better ones.”
The Fletcher family has had Saturday’s opener circled since Max committed to Arkansas’ 2022 recruiting class in October, but Fletcher said the two haven’t talked much about the actual game.
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“The world works in mysterious ways. It’s brought us together for this game and brought Max and I to two places that are really historical and big college football teams,” Fletcher said. “He’s as competitive as me so we haven’t really talked about the game to be honest. It’s a big opener against an SEC team, 75,000 screaming fans, but it’s been really calming for me knowing I’m going to be able to see my family.”
Fletcher is planning to see his parents at the hotel before the game but won’t get to see Max until the teams take the field to warm up. He’s excited about the reunion, although he admits his experience with the Bearcats has helped ease any homesickness.
“I’m at a place where it is genuinely family. I haven’t been home yet, but I also haven’t felt the need to go home,” Fletcher said. “All my family is here in the sense that I love it here. The coaches are awesome, Coach (Luke) Fickell and his family have been really awesome to me.”
(Top photo: Courtesy of Cincinnati Bearcats Athletics)
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