"He gonna cry in the car..."

Phil Steele keeps current decade data. MAC

Ohio third with scoreboard on 1. & 2..

1. NIU 70-26 (73%)
2. Toledo 61-28 (69%)
3. Ohio 56-36 (61%)
4. WMU 47-42 (53%)
5. BG 47-43 (52%)
6. Ball St. 41-45 (48%)
7. CMU 39-49 (44%)
8. Kent 34-51 (40%)
9. Buffalo 29-55 (35%)
10.Miami 29-58 (33%)
11. Akron 26-59 (31%)
12. EMU 22-63 (26%)

I think many of you are missing the real point. FS and Co may very well be the best coaching staff in the MAC. Their issue has been recruiting and getting ENOUGH QUALITY PLAYERS on the field at the same time to win the MACC.

Thank you for giving me a direct answer. I have one more question. What is your impression of Joe Novack, who built the NIU program into the power it has been for the last decade?

I agree. I don't understand why the people who complain about him keep answering his posts. That's exactly why he does it. To get a response. Don't they teach psychology in college?

I ignore more of his posts when he posts them in an unrelated thread. When there is a thread where his posts actually relate to the thread, as they do in this thread, I sometimes engage in a certain amount of dialogue, but you will note that even here I ignored his rant, and I haven't debated with him. All I tried to do was to pin down his position, and I think I've done that.

By his definition, any coach who has won a MACC is inherently better than any coach who has not. That makes Carey his coaching preference. Now we can wait to see what happens to Carey's career. Will a P5 powerhouse come calling for this MACC coach? Will he get fired? Will his teams continue to get worse each year until his name becomes a verb "We've been Careyed!"? Will this dip at NIU be brief and reverse, and will he come back strongly and win another MACC? We'll have to wait and see, but I now consider Carey his man.

For the record, Monroe's posts don't bother me particularly. It's a free country, and he is entitled to his own opinion, just as I'm entitled to a different one. I just skip over his posts when they are in threads where his rants are unrelated.

what's up with the logo, not sure if I've seen it with the "Bobcats" underneath it like that before. Hope its not official, don't like it.

For what it's worth, I agree with Casper, for the most part. I think Ohio does a fantastic job with the players they get, and as they continue to turn 2-star athletes into draft picks, the recruiting continues to improve each year, but much slower than I had expected a decade ago. If the final finish each year was solely based on recruiting, Ohio would be in the upper middle of the MAC, about 5th or 6th, yet they almost always do better than you'd expect from recruiting alone. That's a mark of good coaching.

Where I disagree with Casper is that I don't think that the recruiting problem is all about relating to recruits. I think two other things play a factor as well.

The first is the natural recruiting area. SE and Eastern Ohio produces far less Division I athletes than other parts of the states. Meanwhile Miami is in the fertile SW corner, while Toledo and BG are the the strong NW corner, and Akron and Kent are in the northeast. Ohio ends up fighting them all in the the central part of the state, and has to try to get recruis from SW Ohio and NE Ohio as well, of they have to go to Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, Georgia and California.

The second factor is the physical facilities. They have improved a lot in the last decade, but even now, in a recent thread, they were ranked near the bottom of the MAC. That definitely hinders recruiting.

So, if you're going to try to decide how much credit or blame to give Solich and staff for recruiting, you have to factor in these disadvantages. In retrospect, there is a perfectly logical reason why Ohio was consistently near the bottom of the MAC for many years. Solich has addressed, the problems, using camps around the state to open recruiting around the state, building a winning reputation to improve recruiting, and improving facilities.

The result is that recruiting has continued to improve. Will Monroe be right, that the future will look like the past? Since the input is different (better recruits), why shouldn't the output also be different? Monroe doesn't see the difference in recruits, so he doesn't expect anything to change. Monroe looks at the players lost from last year, and thinks this year will be a step down. I look at the recruits from recent years moving up, and i see no reason not to expect 2017 to be even better than 2016, and 2018 to be better still. Will they win a MAC? We'll have to wait for them to play the games, but I think they will be in the top 2-3 teams each year, and very well could win one at any time.

How quickly we forget. In fact, it WAS "boring" for large stretches (if you define "boring" as a continual onslaught of the same thing: run, run, sweep, run, run, sweep, etc).

Once we fell behind, it was merely academic, how much would we lose by? Now, having said that, hats off to Grobe for recognizing our plight and doing what he could to compete. We were undersized and probably undertalented. With that, Grobe found a way to win, but was it sustainable? We'll never know.

By contrast, Solich has taken a different approach. He's worked to build what is necessary for more sustained success, putting us on a competitive platform that should serve us well even after he's gone.

How good were we when Grobe left?

Bruce Bochy managed the Padres for 12 years, never won a WS with them. He's obviously a terrible manager.

First thing in a long time that I've agreed with Monroe. A fact that needs to be acknowledged to the BA world. I think that first Knorr year after Grobe would have been a big year for OHIO. [alternative reality on] That first home game against Iowa State would have been a win, rather than a three point loss, and we would have taken off from there -- an undefeated season, or close to it. [/alternative reality off]

I agree, 2017 is not a top. The teams should just keep getting better. I see no down years in the near future, and I see Ohio in the run for a MACC each and every year.

It's really hard to take this "poll" by Athlon's serious.

Frank = 13th yr

No other coach has more than 5 yrs of tenure at a MAC school

Jinks (BG) - 2nd yr
Candle (UT)-2nd yr
Creighton (EMU) - 4th yr
Martin (MU) - 4th yr
Carey (NIU) - 6th yr
Bowden (UA) - 6th yr
Haynes (Kent) - 5th yr
Leipold (UB) - 3rd yr
Neu (BSU) - 2nd yr
Lester (WMU) - 1st yr
Bonamego (CMU) - 3rd yr

How many of these coaches, if given 12 yrs, would have at least one MACC?

I don't know....and I doubt we ever will. Why? Because coaches typically don't spend 12 yrs in the MAC!

So by seniority, Frank wins this "poll" by Athlons. No other coach, except for maybe Carey and Bowden, have a body of work that are able to be judged against Frank's. It's not because Frank has been so ultra-successful...it's because he has 7 YEARS ON EVERY OTHER COACH IN THE LEAGUE.

Do I think Jason Candle wins multiple MACC if he stays at Toledo for 12 years.....yep.

Do I think the same for Chuck Martin at Miami...yep.

Do I think the same for Mike Jinks at BG....maybe.

I'd take the vegas line that every coach on here, except for maybe Bowden & Haynes, might win a MACC if given 12 years at their respective school.

Do I think Frank ever wins one at Ohio.....probably not. Proof is in the track record. If he hasn't won one in 12 years, I don't think it's coming. This isn't the SEC or the B1G. It's the MAC. 12 years is more than enough time to fall into a MACC.

Does this mean Frank is a bad coach. No. Simple answer...no.

Does this poll mean Frank is an exemplary coach. I would say no as well.

He's a pretty good football coach. Not a great one. Is the best Ohio has had in 30 yrs....without question. But it's apples and oranges to compare him to Hess or Peden. Totally different eras. Totally different job descriptions now. Running a program in 2017 is much, much different than it was in 1968 or 1958.

And for the record...I looked this up before last season....

Again....Solich one of only three coaches in MAC HISTORY to not win a MAC title in 10+ yrs in the MAC.

So if Frank is unable to win a MACC this year....he will tied for the longest tenured coach in MAC history to not win a MAC title. Not exactly elite company in a not-so-elite league.