Bumping this from the recruiting page. In the announcement of one of our latest OL recruits, the kid's high school coach is quoted as saying Frank indicated he could name his successor today if necessary to close the deal. That tells me there is an understanding with the AD that one of our two assistant/associate head coaches is already on tap to step in.

I sure hope it's Burrow.

I usually loathe hiring from within unless the successor is a wanted and sought after commodity. Are Burrow or Albin those guys? Who knows.

Keeping the continuity with the players in the locker room is great until things go South.

If this is true, then Frank is misleading recruits...which I doubt very much.

I think the elaborate titles for Burrow and Albin are partially to structure competitive salaries. Both have good experience and have had success and probably could do better financially elsewhere.
If neither are considered for our HC position they have solid credentials they can leverage for a future job.
It is hard to fathom that Frank has the power to name his successor. Perhaps a misunderstanding by the Canton Hoover coach?

And you would expect a "simple/clear" answer at this point? From Frank? From Schaus?

I agree that things can change. I disagree with one thing in your post, though. If Ohio were to win 28 games in a row, I think it is almost impossible that the AD, any AD, wouldn't try to keep as much of the staff intact as possible. Firing the entire coaching staff at that point would be an extraordinary risk for an AD. If they were to keep the staff intact, and bad things were to happen, they would survive because it would have been an understandable risk, but if an AD were to get rid of a staff that had won 28 in a row, and things went badly, the AD would be the fist one out the door.

Or stay in the same family and stare at Brian Knorr 2.0....

I almost got beat up by Coach Burrow's family (over exaggerating) at the pep-rally in the Bahamas for being caught in this very discussion.

I would be all for him IF - we were consistently winning the MACC and operating at a much higher level.

I love Frank. I hope we have him for many more years but I do not think we are at a point in our program where a favorite son should get crowned, especially without a national coaching search.

More than just not having a large media market, Ohio doesn't have a strong natural recruiting area. I'm convinced that the long term success of a program is generally determined more by it's natural recruiting areas than any other factor. That is why you always see teams like Ohio, Michigan, Penn State, Alabama, Florida, Texas, and USC at the top, and they can change coaches, and still end up near the top, and why other teams are often mired at the bottom.

I believe that teams may have increased success at times because of a specific coach, or increased lack of success because of a coach, but over the long term will drift back to a level of success related to the talent that is produced in their natural recruiting area. In Ohio's case, that means that, in the absence of other factors, the tendency would be for Ohio to drift back to the bottom of the conference, since SE Ohio produces far less talent than SW Ohio, NW Ohio, NE Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, or Illinois. One of the things that frustrated and confused me for a long time was how long it has taken for Ohio's recruiting to improve, but I've grown to understand that issue a bit more over the years.

For Ohio to have success, long term, the ideal would be to build on the idea that their natural recruiting area is the entire state, and not just SE Ohio. That has proven to be difficult, or impossible. When Miami and UC were down, Ohio was able to recruit SW Ohio fairly well, but now that Miami and UC are recruiting better, Ohio is relying a great deal on recruits from around the country. That isn't necessarily bad, but sustaining it is difficult. That, in turn, is a special risk in replacing the entire staff. The existing staff has been building connections to high schools in Western Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Florida. A new staff will have ties to other areas, but will have to start over. If Ohio had a strong natural recruiting area, there would be a lot less risk in replacing the whole staff.

I'm not saying that replacing the whole staff would necessarily take Ohio back to the bottom of the MAC, just that, if Ohio decides to do it, they better be looking for a replacement that is not only a good coach, but who has strong ties of his own to good recruiting areas. They need to be someone who can either continue to improve recruiting in other areas of the state, or who can recruit strongly on a nationwide area. Recruiting is always important, but especially so when a school is in an area that doesn't have a strong natural recruiting base.

The majority of Ohio students don't come from SE Ohio L.C. so why would it be difficult to attract kids from Columbus, Dayton or Cincinnati metros only 2 hours away? These days a direct 4 lane highway going from Athens to these cities. We aren't University of Texas El-Paso distant from the major recruiting centers of Ohio. Its more about facilities and now Ohio is a program that within this decade has a renovated locker room & weight room, new IPF and a new academic center. Athens feels more like a small city than what it did 20 years ago with all the new apartment buildings. It had a sleepy feel to it but now there is a lot more action. I can remember when as soon as you hit the Convo it felt like you were out beyond the city limits.

That was my thought originally, but Ohio as a state is heavily recruited. To move up and be the "best of the MAC", or to be "competitive with lower P5 programs" or to be "ranked in the Top 25", Ohio needs to have competitive athletes. Ohio State takes the best of the athletes in the state, and behind them, every other team in the Big Ten recruits Ohio, as well as the AAC, and some of the Big Twelve and ACC.

Ohio can, and does, land some of those kids. The problem is that they don't have a strong local recruiting base to add those kids to. If they had a strong local area from which they have the best chance of getting, say, ten athletes a year that are competitive, they would be in a lot stronger position. They do get some players from SE Ohio, just not as many as other MAC schools are able to draw from their own backyards. Names that come to mind are Pleasants, Edwards, Roback, Marhefka the Luerhman twins,etc. Contrast that with the names that Miami is able to draw from the Cincinnati area, or BG and Toledo pull out of Toledo, or Akron and Kent pull out of the Cleveland area. All those schools recruit areas like Dayton and Columbus. All recruit statewide. The difference is that some have a stronger local area than others, and I have concluded that that, more than anything, affects their long term winning record over the last hundred years.

The one advantage that Ohio has over the other MAC schools is that they, alone, bear the name of the State. With success, in time that could give them an ever-increasing ability to recruit statewide.

If you include the Upper Ohio Valley (Valley) in the reference to SE Ohio, then OUr current staff does a terrible job of recruiting. Even if the Valley is not included in the SE Ohio reference, the Valley should be considered as part of Ohio's "backyard", as the Ohio University Eastern Campus (St. Clairsville) sits in the middle of everything. All of the schools in the Valley play in the Ohio Valley Athletic Conference (O.V.A.C.) which features 5 divisions (A, AA, AAA, AAAA, AAAAA) in 2 States (Ohio & WVa) with 51 member schools ranging from Warren Local and Parkersburg South on the southern end to Beaver Local and East Liverpool in the north. The conference represents over 18,000 student athletes and championships are awarded in 18 sports. Included in the member schools are Steubenville, Whelling Park and Morgantown. I point out all of this because in the past few years the only 2 players on the team from OVAC schools were Marhefka (St. Clairsville) and Chukwu (Wheeling Linsly). Both were invited walk-ons. In the same time frame the Valley had kids receive scholarships to Michigan, WVU, Penn State, Pitt and a host of other D-I (FCS & FBS) schools including a number of MAC and AAC schools. I know for a fact that a lot of these kids never got any look from our staff. One in particular is now a starting lineman for WVU at 6'8" and 330 lbs. So the bottom line is the current staff either can not or will not recruit the Ohio Valley. Sorry L.C. but I am not impressed with our current staff's ability to recruit its own "backyard".

My thoughts on future head coach:

Burrow 60% chance
Albin 40% chance

Burrow would make a great coach but to me (in my opinion) he is content with running the defense and stiffling opposing offenses. I could see Albin becoming coach and us getting an FCS or Nebraska-related OC. Just my opinion tho.