It was about 15 years ago when then-LSU assistant coach Bill Elias came up with the idea for the Bayou Bash, a fan-friendly event that celebrates the Tigers' newly-named recruiting class on national signing day.

While Elias has moved on, the Bayou Bash has endured and remains one of the biggest and best national signing day events in college football.

Miami (Ohio) coach Mike Haywood, who was on that LSU staff, wanted to bring the same type of innovation to Oxford, Ohio. So he asked Elias, the recruiting coordinator and linebackers coach for the RedHawks, to help come up with a way to bring the same kind of national signing day excitement to Miami (Ohio).

What they came up with was a reality show of sorts, chronicling national signing day from inside the athletic department.

“We wanted to be innovative,” Haywood said. “So Billy said, 'with all these reality shows on TV, why don’t we have a six-hour reality show?' So, we got together, came up with all these ideas and that’s basically going to be what we’re going to have.”

Miami (Ohio) will broadcast six hours of national signing day live from the athletic department via the school’s athletic Web site. The school will announce the signing of each player as it happens, including those from soccer, field hockey, and women's track and field. For football, cameras will follow Haywood and position coaches as they speak with the signees on the phone and congratulate them on joining the team. There will be highlight video of each recruit and a recruiting pundit will talk about each player and how they fit into the team.

Haywood said current players also would be interviewed, including two early enrollees and linebacker C.J. Marck, who transferred from Connecticut last season and will be eligible to play in the fall.

“The ultimate goal is to get more people involved in Miami football because we’ve reached out in our recruiting area, which has never happened here previously," Haywood said. "So it gives people in these other recruiting areas an opportunity to receive more information and knowledge about Miami football.”

For the first time, Miami (Ohio’s) recruiting class will contain players from 11 different states. While Haywood said he wanted to stay true to recruiting players in-state, he also knew he needed to broaden the RedHawks' recruiting scope if they wanted to be competitive in the Mid-American Conference. In Haywood’s first season, Miami went 1-11 and lost by an average of 21 points per game.

Throughout his coaching career, which not only included a stop at LSU, but also Texas and Notre Dame, Haywood has recruited the Houston area for 16 years. Currently, all of the Texas recruits listed on Miami (Ohio’s) commitment list are from the Houston area.

Haywood said he hopes the reality show will open more doors in those areas that either were lightly recruited by the RedHawks previously, or not recruited at all.

“With recruiting as our blood line, we can recruit and we can bring better players in to win this conference, and then as we start winning this conference we will get even greater players to go in and take over to win 12 games,” Haywood said. “Right now, we don’t have the talent to win 12 games, but in the next four years, because of the way we’re recruiting, we’ll have enough talent to be in all 12 games and possibly win all 12.”