Phil Longo admitted it bothered him when he turned down an offer from Luke Fickell to join him at Cincinnati as the offensive coordinator.

He told his wife, Tonya Longo, that if he ever had another opportunity to team up with Fickell down the road, he would take it.

"When you first meet someone, you have that initial instinct about them - I trust my instincts - I really like Luke. Even though I didn’t take the job at Cincinnati, he and I stayed in touch and developed a friendship," Longo said when meeting with local reporters for the first time Thursday afternoon.

Instead of teaming up with Fickell, Longo opted to join Hugh Freeze at Ole Miss. The decision isn't one the 54-year old coordinator regrets. Longo, however, knew if the opportunity presented itself again, it was one he had to take.

"For him to give me another opportunity but with an even better relationship than maybe we had the first time and at a place like this, it’s an easy decision," Longo said. "And I say that with a heavy heart leaving North Carolina because I have great relationships there and we had a great run over the past four years, so it wasn’t easy leaving North Carolina.

"I just felt like that was something I would have enjoyed doing, so when it happened a second time around, I wanted to jump on it."

Longo is a well-traveled coach. His latest position at Wisconsin marks the 10th stop as a coach in 24 years. It's a journey that started his junior year at Division III Rowan University.

The New Jersey native spent his college playing career as a running back and quarterback at the university. When he suffered an injury that cut his junior year short, Longo helped with recruiting and teaching.

Longo got his first head coaching opportunity in 1996 at Parsippany Hills High School in New Jersey. His journey would then take him to Pennsylvania to Minnesota to Illinois to Ohio back to Pennsylvania then to Houston to Mississippi to North Carolina before he finally landed in Madison. A journey that spanned 11 schools.

The trajectory found him at Sam Houston State as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach before being presented with the opportunity at Ole Miss. During his final season in Huntsville, Longo led an offense that averaged 547 yards per game for a 12-1 team.

"It was just such a great opportunity for me," Longo said of the chance to join the staff at Ole Miss. "The Big Ten and the SEC represent some of the best college football in the nation, and so to have an opportunity after we were at Sam Houston State to go to the SEC and do that, it was exciting and we wanted to go see if we could do this thing at the highest level and we had a lot of fun doing it."

After the interview for the job at Cincinnati, Longo and Fickell kept in touch from afar and developed a friendship. While at Longo's clinic, the two would talk football and meet during the offseason.

At Ole Miss, Longo coached and developed the likes of A.J. Brown and DK Metcalf but he "felt like it was a mistake not working with" Fickell.

"I enjoyed my time there and we had a wild ride (at Ole Miss) and I coached some of the greatest players I’ve ever been around," Longo said. "I felt like like it was a mistake not working with him, so when I had the opportunity to work with him this time, I wasn’t going to pass it up.

"Then on top of that, it’s at Wisconsin of all places, so it’s just a double positive for me. So to be able to come to the Big Ten and coach at Wisconsin and do it side by side with the rest of the guys he’s hired, it’s a no-brainer for me."

The decision for Mike Tressel to join what was going on in Madison may have been even more simple. The Badgers new defensive coordinator was waiting to see if Fickell would give him a call to make the jump to Wisconsin.

Tressel had first spent time with Fickell when he joined the staff at Ohio State as a graduate assistant from 2002-03 while Fickell was the special teams coordinator. From there, Tressel spent 2007-20 as the linebackers coach and defensive coordinator at Michigan State before joining Cincinnati as the defensive coordinator the past two seasons.

"Given the opportunity, it was a no-brainer," Tressel said when meeting with local reporters.

"He’s a fantastic person to work with. He’s a great person 100 percent. When I was given the opportunity to go work for Coach Fickell at Cincinnati, I was in the Big Ten at that point but I wanted to work for him. I know how good a coach he is, how good a person he is, me and family trust him, so it was a no-brainer. It was just a matter of is he going to give me a call, and he did. So yep, I’m in."

The two worked together for the first time 20 years ago but even then, Tressel recognized the kind of talent Fickell had. He knew he had a next step in him to lead a program.

"You can tell he was very intelligent, you can tell his guys believed in him, trusted and responded to and played for him, but he also understood what his role was at that time, which I admired," Tressel said. "He could have come in as a smart football coach but he understood where he was at that time at Ohio State, and that was really impressive given how good of a coach he was. So you knew when the opportunity arose, he was going to be successful."

In terms of where the trio is looking to take Wisconsin? Tressel wasn't shy or hesitant when asked about the ceiling of the program.

"National championship is the ceiling and this program can do it," Tressel said. "And we're going to get it done."

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