More football or Wall Street? Recruiting from Ivy League pays off for Butler.
In his first season as head coach, Mike Uremovich led Butler football to its best season in 10 years. Now, he's tapping a familiar pipeline to keep the program trending upward.
Uremovich arrived at Butler after three seasons as assistant head coach and offensive coordinator at Temple. Coming off a 3-8 season in 2021, Butler won its first two games of 2022 and finished with seven wins, the program's most since 2013.
"Anytime you take over a program, you're just trying to establish what you're gonna demand out of the guys and the guys here were great," Uremovich said. "I give the seniors a lot of credit because sometimes when you're a new staff, you don't know how much buy-in you're gonna get, because it's a new staff and you don't have the trust of them yet. ... At the end of the year, I felt we made a lot of good steps. And obviously there's a couple games we still feel like we let get away from us."
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Harvard transfer wide receiver Tyler Adams quickly became quarterback Bret Bushka's favorite target, catching 10 passes for 143 yards and two touchdowns in his first game against St. Thomas (Fla.). Adams finished his lone season at Butler with 39 catches for 689 yards and five touchdowns. He was an All-PFL honorable mention and earned an offseason training camp invitation from the Indianapolis Colts after a strong showing at their local pro day.
The academic standards at Butler can make for a tricky fit when searching for players in the transfer portal. Coming from the Ivy League, Adams was able to transition quickly on and off the field. This season, Butler brought in four transfers from the Ivy League in wide receivers Jack Biestek (Yale) and Jack Bill (Harvard), running back William Enneking (Cornell) and Indy native and North Central graduate defensive back Harry Ochs (Brown).
Bill remained in touch with his former Harvard teammate Adams, and Adams' success with the Bulldogs and the good things he heard about the coaching staff helped him decide to transfer to Butler.
"When they were recruiting me, they were really real about it," Bill said. "Usually, you go out on the recruiting trail, and you find guys who are trying to toot your own horn and pump up your tires and everything like that. They were pretty straight with me. They said, 'we want you to make the best decision for yourself, even if that's not us.'
"(Adams and I) always like to push each other and keep each other accountable. We stayed in touch, and he was talking to me about the coaches here and the strength coach T.J. (Greenstone), that was another big reason why I came here."
Ochs made 38 tackles as a freshman at Brown but did not see game action after his first year on campus. The decision to transfer to Butler was about coming home and following in the family tradition. His parents, father Kyle and mother Colleen are Butler alums, and Kyle was a captain on the Butler football team. Similar to his fellow Ivy League transfers, once he visited campus, he felt at home.
"I just wanted to come back home, be closer to family and everything like that," Ochs said. " I was exploring options in this area, and once I got in touch with all the coaches, I just really really enjoyed every moment I had with them.
"It pretty much felt like destiny. There were just green lights every step of the way."
The infusion of talent is needed for a team with just two preseason All-PFL selections in Bushka and kicker/punter Luka Zurak. Offensively, the Bulldogs will rotate in several skill players, but Bushka will be the catalyst. Last season he accounted for 3,004 yards of total offense, averaging 216 yards passing and 57 yards rushing per game with 25 total touchdowns.
Bushka said he expects his new teammates to integrate into the offense smoothly while he takes another step forward in Uremovich's system.
"The comfortability as a whole has gotten a lot higher because it's not just basic stuff anymore," Bushka said. "We can kind of take it to a higher level, upperclassmen-type level within the offense. Working with him for a year and a half now since he's been here, two spring balls ago, knowing how he thinks, he knows how I think, he knows how all the quarterbacks think. So, getting that comfortability with each other and that bond, it's real strong."
Butler 2023 football schedule
Sept. 2, at Montana, 2 p.m.
Sept. 9, vs. Taylor, 1 p.m.
Sept. 16, vs. Wabash, 6 p.m.
Sept. 23, at Stetson, noon
Sept. 30, vs. Presbyterian, 1 p.m.
Oct. 7, at St. Thomas, 1 p.m.
Oct. 14, vs. Davidson, 1 p.m.
Oct. 21, at Dayton, 1 p.m.
Oct. 28, vs. Valparaiso, 1 p.m.
Nov. 4, at Morehead State, 2 p.m.
Nov. 18, vs. Drake, noon
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Butler football: Ivy League transfers a boost to Bulldogs' 2023 roster
