The next step not only in football but for the university as a whole is to try and bring a marquee hotel down to Athens that would serve SEO. Think the market isn't there? Hotels these days don't need to be in a high traffic corridor so long as show up on travel search engines. Hilton Garden Inn for Athens, a king hotel for SEO with facilities for wedding receptions, conferences ect. The football program needs to get more fans down to the stadium. If Athens had a Westin, Sheraton, et. all it would change the image of the community to be thought of as a more significant college town.

Not choke in November

Bring Dion Byrum, Tevell Jones and TJ Wright back as graduate assistants to help with our db's, win in the living room and stop making excuses, hold assistant coaches accountable and stop melting down at the end of the season.

A very valid question here and in my opinion a great quesion. That is the biggest X factor in if a program makes the jump with university commitment or has to do it to spite them. I will say with McDavis we were able to do a lot as an athletic department. With Nellis, I will be intrigued to see how he feels about athletics and where it plays in the university plans.

I think with winning the charm would be enhanced. We have talked on here for a long time that this campus shouldn't be hard to sell to prospective students and such. I think in time it will become a question that comes to a head.

I will also agree that having a hotel downtown of larger name recognition would help in putting Athens on the map larger. Though as everyone has stated, our zoning restrictions put a quell to that in a hurry. To which I have to ask, does the town want successful collegiate athletics? That in itself is a million dollar question.

"Presumably the title of this thread implies that the next level is not to compete every year for a MACC (that Ohio already does) but to become a major major G5 player, one that is able to compete yearly for the G5 spot in the New Years Day bowl. Question is, does Ohio want to spend the $ to get to that spot, and if it does, will it be sacrificing some of the small school charm that we've all come to love? I truly don't know the answer; I just pose the question to ponder."

I don't think that Ohio wants to fork out "the cash to get to that spot." Can't blame them. To become a Boise State it takes $$$. This university isn't willing to even pay UCF kind of money. Take a look at Scott Frost's asst. coaches salaries at Central Florida and then look at what they are now being paid in Nebraska. It is mind boggling. Salaries are only a small part of the equation. Locker room facilities, weight room ,stadium, etc. It is all very costly. I really don't know how the Kent's and Eastern Michigan's can hang on for very much longer.

A badge I'll wear with honor ... thanks, bud ;-)

If we have 500 posters, you will get 500 different definitions for "legitimate next steps", so you need to either ask people to define their baseline and then address those, or you need to define what you feel are "legitimate next steps" and have people address those.

Stop the presses! I agree with about 95% of this.

I joke!!!!

But seriously, I know playing Boise at Boise and playing FAU at FAU might not be ideal ... but those would both be quality wins for Ohio if they were so fortunate.

I hate the idea of playing bowls on team's home fields ... especially for the home team. What the hell kind of reward is that?!?! Congrats FAU ... you earn a bowl bid and you get to go nowhere!!!

One of 10,000 things wrong with bowl setup.

But anyway ... an Ohio win over Boise at Boise would be a bigger feather in their cap than beating ULM in the Independence Bowl.

As I was going through some old VHS tapes converting family stuff to digital I came across A Field of Dreams. Hotel in downtown Athens - build it and they will come. Has Ohio already made recreational pot legal? :)

If the university has the opportunity to make a strategic investment by expanding Peden or expanding the OU Inn, I'd take expanding the OU Inn in a heartbeat. The university should be making strategic investments to be an enabler for future support and a new OU Inn like the one in the Ridges master plan is an enabler. In addition to that I believe Athens could handle a Hilton Garden Inn and a Hyatt Place down on Richland. E.State st. development is subject to the 3 story rule height restriction but I believe that restriction does apply to the south side of the city. Three premo hotels that can be marketed for all of SE Ohio on the internet search engines. The US 33 corridor has about 500,000 people. Lancaster, Logan ect nothing but motels. Parkersburg and Marietta have historic hotels downtown but dated.

#1 Training Tables - Eating dining hall food in the café is not the food OUr athletes need to stay competitive for 4 years. That's why I proposed a community program where we grow food for student-athletes (and we athletes will help manage the grow process as well). We could sell excess food to locals for a super cheap price. Win-win for the commmunity.

#2 Schedule more competitive opponents. It's nice to get wins versus Kansas but we need to pull an Akron move of playing Penn State, then LSU and a few more schools before non-conference play. Playing those types of opponents early in the season will make MAC competition seem easy towards the end of your season. Our recruiting changed instantly the night we beat PITT at home on TV. Although Cincinnati is no big time POWER 5 team, we need to crush them when we play there next year. We could win a lot of Cincy recruits after the game. Personally I would like to see us play a school like Notre Dame. They are always on ABC and they play small schools like Tulsa and Nevada, who get the opportunity to play on big time TV. We need that exposure!

#3 Every year there is a group that's behind the others. When I was there in 2006-2007 we had a kickbutt defense but our offense was not that great. We relied too much on Big Play McRae. This year we have a top offense nationally but our corners are getting beat in coverage. We need a year were all three phases are on the same page.

If we can do these three things I believe we can put OUrselves in the best position to elevate OUr program.

If we are consistently collapsing in November, it means one thing: our conditioning program needs to be greatly improved, especially if we are going to continue to play the kind of physical football that we have been playing. We are not just talking about weights and running, this should include stretching and improved training table style nutrition (as mentioned previously on this board).

We also need to take advantage of Ohio's improved National recognition and start recruiting everywhere, including Internationally. We have one Canadian player, why not more? I think that Ohio should create a couple of amazing football camps not just for players, but for High School and junior college coaches too. Likewise, the recruiting budget needs to be expanded tenfold, and that more could be done to build an network of Alumni with their eyes and ears on the ground thus gathering the latest info on potential players all over the country and beyond.

We also, of course, need to continue to improve our facilities, even if they are shared with the rest of the University.