What I was trying to say is that the football program is in steady state. We can expect a certain level of performance...both in W's/L's and in strategy, style, etc... And this will continue until Solich decides to hang it up.
...
And this is my primary point of disagreement with you (and some others). I think that Solich and staff do a great job of coaching the players up. I also believe that they do a great job of game planning, and coming up with good strategies that get the most out of the players they have. The hard data supports these things. They consistently rank higher in win percentage than you'd expect from recruiting rankings. Nevertheless, in my opinion, they have been held back by consistently having recruiting rankings in the bottom third of the MAC.
In my opinion, the recruiting classes have been improving dramatically in recent years. They were OK, but nothing special from 2005-2009, then the 2010 class was abysmal. The 2011 class was better on paper, but many players were lost to injury, so that class wasn't great, either. From 2012 to 2017, however, in my opinion each class has been better than the one before it. We shall see how the 2016-17 classes look five years from now, but I think we will look back and see that they were very good.
I believe Solich and staff can coach up these better players, too. If I am right that the classes are getting better each year, then logically we should not be in a steady state. Instead we should see a series of teams where each one is better than the one before it. 2014 was made up primarily of players from the 2010-11 recruiting classes, and was the bottom of the cycle. 2015 was better than 2014, and 2016 was better than 2015 (Monroe would argue that not winning the MAC East, and thus not having the privilege of playing against WMU meant that the 2015 team was better than 2016).
If my observations are correct, then Ohio is NOT in a steady state. Instead we will see that 2017 will be better than 2016, and 2018 will be better than 2017, and 2019 will be better than 2018. Soon enough we shall see if the first part of that is true, so there is no reason to beat this dead horse. Instead we'll let the team show what it can do, and either I will be right, or not.
Here's another prediction, by the way. As they have better athletes in the system, I also expect them to do more varied things, and be less "boring". The reason is the game plan is designed to take advantage of what they have, and the better players they have, the more things those players can do, and do well.
[/QUOTE]Here's some hard data
Wins by Ohio since 2005
4
9
6
4
9
8
10
9
7
6
8
8
That's 88 wins in 12 yrs
Average of 7.3 wins per (5.6 losses per year) with a highmark of 10 wins 6 years ago and a lowmark of 4 wins 9 years ago
7-5 (closer to 7-6). That's literally just above average football
Yes, a helluva lot better than all 12 year stretches probably in Ohio history.
But 0 league titles and 2 bowl wins in that span
[QUOTE=Paul Graham]
What I was trying to say is that the football program is in steady state. We can expect a certain level of performance...both in W's/L's and in strategy, style, etc... And this will continue until Solich decides to hang it up.
This was not to say that this is bad. I actually think its pretty good and enjoyed watching the team last year. But this is the current state of Ohio football.
You guys want people to be happy with the consistency that Solich and Co. provide. Fine. But you should be willing to accept the consequences of a relatively sleepy BA and moderately enthusiastic fanbase.