The University of Cincinnati Bearcats have had 22 football recruits visit the campus the past two weekends.

        The Bearcats (7-4) play Marshall (7-5) in the Motor City Bowl at the Pontiac Silverdome outside Detroit at 4p.m. Dec.27.

        “The atmosphere with all the team practicing and all the camaraderie can only help (the program),” said UC coach Rick Minter. “Our campus should have been shut down last Saturday — exams were completed Friday — but every one of our players was here. There was life going on.”

        The Bearcats also will have some recruits visit later this week because of the excitement around the Crosstown Shootout basketball game between UC and Xavier.

        This is the third and final week for coaches to be out on the road recruiting prior to the bowl game.

        “But I elected to set our sched ule up for this to be a work week in bowl preparation,” Minter said. “We (coaches) won't be leaving the campus very much — maybe just to visit some local kids in the morning or evening.”

        Minter called the bowl game “great exposure in a geographical area we would like to reclaim” as a recruiting region.

        He said Detroit is “in the heart of Big Ten country and Mid-American Conference territory.”

        “We're slowly trying to knock down those doors of resistance and bring Conference USA to light,” he said.

        Bearcats Jason Collins-Baker and Nathan Wise are from Detroit. NOTES: The Cats have sold 4,500 of their 8,000 ticket allotment for the Motor City Bowl. One- and two-day travel packages are available from Provident Travel and Traveleaders. Game tickets ($38 apiece) are available at Shoemaker Center or by calling 513-556-CATS.

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