I mentioned in my prior post the strong correlation between these facilities rankings and the recruiting rankings. I thought it might be best to put them side by side. Here are the numbers for recruiting (a composite number of the last five year's classes, predicting which teams will be best in 2017), followed by the facilities ranking from above. I grouped them in groups, to make it easier to see. I also stuck the MAC winning percentage over the three years on for reference as well:

A Group
WMU 2032 +12.5 .833
Toledo 1902 +15 .792
NIU 1678 +16.5 .750
BG 1670 +12 .625
Miami 1612 +17 .417

B Group
Ball St 1550 +10 .292
Ohio 1538 +6 .625
CMU 1530 +7 .583

C Group
Buffalo 1367 +3 .304
EMU 1361 -9 .208
Kent 1357 -3 .217

E Group
Akron 1317 +19 .458

As you can see, the recruiting rankings and facilities rankings are almost exactly the same, except for Akron. The top 5 schools from a facilities ranking are consistently the top 5 schools from a recruiting ranking, while the bottom 3 schools from a facilities perspective are the bottom three from a recruiting ranking, and the three in the lower-middle in facilities are also in the lower-middle in recruiting.

The winning percentages match up fairly well with facilities, but not quite as well as the recruiting rankings. Ohio and CMU have won more than you'd expect from the facilities rankings, while Miami, Ball State and Akron have won less.

Why is Akron out of place? I have no clue. They have facilities, and should be able to get the recruits, but I guess they have been so focused on transfers they haven't bothered. Or, maybe the recruits are worried that due to financial concerns the whole school will close, I don't know.

In any case, it appears that generally, if you want to improve the results, you have to improve recruiting, and to improve recruiting, you have to improve facilities, but Akron is a warning as to what can go wrong in trying to accomplish that.

Very true, Robert. It's also possible that the relationship is very different. Another plausible hypothesis that reverses the presumed cause and the presumed effect, and therefore leads to entirely different (and bleak) conclusions, is this:
[quote=A bleak hypothesis]Perhaps results are most directly related to the ability of a school to reliably draw from a local recruiting pool of high quality, and that good results ultimately lead to good facilities, which in turn assists in recruiting, creating a feedback loop that repeats itself. When a school, such as Akron, attempts to short circuit the loop by building facilities, that doesn't change its ability to reliably draw from a local high quality recruiting pool, and therefore does not effectively alter the ultimate results significantly, so they don't have the results they had hoped for. [/OUTER_QUOTE]

I certainly hope this isn't correct. If it is, the rich will always be rich, and the poor will always be poor. Yet, as you look around the college landscape, schools like Texas, USC, Alabama, and Ohio State are may have a bad year now and then, but seem to be consistently near the top.

I fear it is, too, Robert, but for parity's sake, I hope it isn't. We will see a few tests in the coming years. For example, with Snyder at Kansas State, they have dramatically improved their facilities, and their profile, but there is still no local recruiting pool other than the Kansas Juco schools. Will they be able to sustain their progress, or will they slide back where they have been in the past?

Nebraska is another data point that may support this hypothesis. Because of past successes they have fantastic facilities, but no strong local recruiting pool. Despite their facilities and what seems to be unlimited funds to throw at prospective coaches, they have slid back to mediocrity, and I tend to think they will stay there, changing coaches every four or five years.

It costs a lot to keep buying out contracts.

Perhaps a way to break out of the lack of facilities, lack of success cycle is to have a dynamic, change-agent coach who brings real winning, who brings a MAC title.


Well, looks like we won't find out for a tenure.

Apparently.


But it is clearly something that...hello, this is year 13...is reasonable--very reasonable--to ask for.

You say adjusted and I say softening up. I've covered this time and time again our schedule is set to get 8 wins at most. Until there is a bonus for Solich to go win a MAC Championship, this is not going to happen. It's absurd that the contract only calls to go win 7 or 8 games a year. So I ask yet again, what incentive is there for this program to improve?

Yes, the more I think about it, the more I suspect the second, grimmer hypothesis is correct. Facilities are probably a result, not a cause, and if you just build facilities, hoping for results (as Akron, Rutgers did), it's not going to work. For longer term success, Buckeye to Bobcat is probably right that Ohio needs to expand and solidify its natural recruiting area.

+1

Article:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2016/10/27/mi... /

From the article:
Ohio Frank Solich $5,000 Athletic 7th win
Ohio Frank Solich $5,000 Athletic 8th win

So once again, tired of people questioning me where I find these things or hear from my sources. Not only that, feel free to do a public record request and you will find the same thing I did.

And you wonder why I question the direction of the program when our motives are only tied to solely win #. It's why PJ Fleck at WMU got bonuses for going to the Cotton Bowl. Sure it will say non-CFP bowl game, to get there you have to win a conference title to be automatically qualified.

Matt - his contract does not call for winning 7 or 8 games a year. He gets a bonus for achieving those win totals. The two are vastly different.

I can see bike lanes getting a lot more use in a city like Philly,then in a more suburban area where I live.
Around here the bike lanes are pretty much abandoned from early November to early April.
There are also very few riders on rainy days.