TicketsSept. 20, 2006
Each week during the football season, Head Coach Mark Dantonio welcomes a former Bearcat captain to serve as a guest captain. The guest captain honor carries the responsibility of speaking to the team prior to the game about what it means to be a Bearcat. He also walks to midfield with the current team captains for the pre-game coin toss.
Brad Jackson is set to serve as guest captain for the Bearcats' matchup against No. 10 Virginia Tech. Originally signed as a wide receiver, the undersized Jackson was moved to safety and then found a home at linebacker after Rick Minter arrived on the Clifton campus. He finished his collegiate career as a first-team All-Conference USA linebacker in 1997.
A third-round choice of the Dolphins, in the 1998 NFL Draft, Jackson went on to play five seasons in the NFL. He was a part of back-to-back Super Bowls, in 2001 and 2002, winning the title with Baltimore in Super Bowl XXXV and coming up short with Carolina in Super Bowl XXXVI.
A key player in Cincinnati's 16-0 win over Virginia Tech the last time the two sides met, Jackson picked off two Jim Druckenmiller passes. The first was returned 71 yards for the first touchdown of the game in a pouring rain. Currently residing in the Baltimore area, Jackson recalled the game and his experience at UC.
"Coach Minter had a way about connecting football with the life. He always said, `Play with everything on every play, because you never know when it might be taken away'."
"People still didn't understand how good we were on defense. Coach Tim Rose deserves a great deal of credit for the defense. He put guys on the field who no one else thought belonged. Coach Rose found all of the diamonds and he polished them. He had a very close group believing in itself."
"That game was about guys believing in each other. We took a lot of pride in playing on the road. We liked going on the road and playing in front of 60,000. It was us against the world."