CINCINNATI - Mike Tressel, a nephew of Ohio State's head football coach, and two other Buckeye assistants are following Mark Dantonio to the University of Cincinnati.

Dantonio overhauled Cincinnati's staff Monday, retaining only one of Rick Minter's assistants. Ted Gill kept his job as defensive line coach.

Dantonio was Ohio State's defensive coordinator in the Buckeyes' 2002 national championship season. Minter was fired following a 5-7 season, and Dantonio accepted his first head coaching job in December.

Tressel, Mark Staten and Jeff Uhlenhake will follow him from Columbus to Cincinnati, which opens its 2004 regular season at Ohio State. Dantonio liked the way they worked with players at Ohio State.

''That's tremendously important to me,'' Dantonio said, in a phone interview. ''They know what has worked at Ohio State. They know the background I'd be looking for in terms of how to do things.''

Tressel, a nephew of Buckeyes head coach Jim Tressel, will coach linebackers and special teams. He spent the last two years working with linebackers and defensive backs at Ohio State.

Staten was a graduate assistant at Ohio State, working with the offensive line and tight ends. He will be the Bearcats' tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator.

Uhlenhake, another graduate assistant on the Buckeyes' staff last season, will be the offensive line coach. He was the head football coach and athletics director at Sidney Lehman High School in Ohio before joining Ohio State's staff.

Dantonio also hired defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi, who held the same job at Miami of Ohio last season. The RedHawks finished No. 10 in the country after winning the Mid-American Conference championship and beating Louisville in the GMAC Bowl.

Don Treadwell, who was offensive coordinator at Ball State last season, moves to the same position at Cincinnati. Ball State set school passing records last season under Treadwell, who will be able to build around senior quarterback Gino Guidugli at Cincinnati.

Also hired were defensive backs coach Harlon Barnett, who was on the staff at LSU last season; quarterbacks coach Dan Enos, who was offensive coordinator at North Dakota State; and running backs coach Tim Hinton, who has been head football coach at Marion Harding High School in Ohio for the last 11 years.

Dantonio noted that five of the assistants have coached on teams that won national championships.

''I tried to hire four or five guys who have won national championships for this staff,'' he said. ''That was very important to me.''