Step outside of yourself for a moment. Step into a hypothetical world where you've been given the opportunity to impart the tangible change of your choosing to the Ohio Bobcat football program.

In your spare time you've drawn a defined circle around a specific grouping of teams over a number of seasons. And you've chosen to exclude 73% of the games outside of that circle. These are Ohio football games played during the 2012, 2013, and 2014 seasons.

The lightbulb goes off, you can't believe your luck. This is the idea that's really going to be worth something. And you start to flesh out a plan of action.

Pretend I'm in charge of the Ohio Bobcats football program and I've heard rumblings of your plan. Pretend I've hired the firm you represent as a consultant. And I'm not paying a consultant to "just point things out", I'm paying a consultant to stand behind a recommendation for tangible change in my program. Though my purpose for hiring your firm is exploratory in nature, as part of the program leadership enrichment budget, I'm ready to get swept off my feet.

Pretend I'm open minded. And I have a longstanding respect for the collective intellectual capital that your firm has acquired.

Take a deep breath.

You've just handed me the final report, a report that weighs in a measure of your firm's time. I can feel it. I'm anxious. With a quick glance the executive summary appears to elegantly summarize some dense analysis.

I'm about to ask for your firm's recommendation...

But first I riffle through the pages, and something just leaps off the pages. I cut you off mid-sentence, and politely request the justification for excluding 73% of the data over that three season period (2012-2014).

I'm not an absent-minded client. In the data you've excluded I know that Ohio beat an 8-win Big 10 team on the road. I know that Ohio beat a 9-win and a 10-win team that won bowl games in the seasons that Ohio beat them. I know that Ohio won its second ever bowl game against an 8-win team with a win over Arkansas, a 3-point OT loss to Auburn, and a 5-point loss to an 8-win Baylor team that won their bowl game.

A switch just flipped. I'm not so open minded anymore.

Suddenly you're fumbling over your words. Somehow you're able to loosely convey that the firm is in agreement on this exclusion of data.

"But why? What is your justification for excluding 73% of the data?" I ask as the tension sets in.

"The MAC Championship!" you exclaim. "The teams.. the data! The data in this report identify the teams Ohio MUST beat in order to win the MAC Championship!"

The brick settles in my stomach. Was I too quick to dismiss you? Was I too quick to dismiss the firm?

"Show me," I speak softly.

You look over both shoulders. But you know full well that your boss hasn't reviewed this.

With a lump in your throat, "well um if you see here, Ohio has lost to these MAC opponents over the past three (3) seasons."

With an open ended "okay"... "So why does Ohio HAVE to beat these specific teams?"

"Ohio lost by alot to these teams. Well you see, um, these teams are the best teams, and if you want to win the MAC championship, you MUST to beat the best MAC teams in the regular season. By the multiple possession point margins of these games we can see that Ohio is unable to beat these teams and therefore unable to win the MAC Championship."

I pause. Something doesn't add up.

In 2010, I remember OHIO beat, not lost to, but beat the MAC Champion in the regular season. In 2008, the only game MAC Champion Buffalo won against a team with a winning record was against then undefeated Ball State in the MAC Championship game. Clearly Buffalo didn't beat any of the top teams in the regular season. But perhaps they did play the top teams close.

"Even if I was to entertain this line of reasoning, your justification hinges on the margin of victory. Buffalo beat a top MAC team just once in 2008 and won it all. Where can I see more detailed analysis on this in your report?"

Confidently you exclaim, "Well yes sir the margin of victory says it all! MAC Champions don't get blown out!"

At once I begin collecting the report now strewn across my desk. I ask you to leave in the sort of manner that implies you're leaving this office for the last time.

I quietly state that BG lost to a 5-win Indiana team 42-10 in 2013, a year they won the MAC Championship. And 2014 MAC Champion NIU lost to a 7-win Arkansas team 52-14 the year they claimed the trophy.

As the door's closing you frantically blurt out "but sir! Ohio got blown out more than once in a season!"

With the door shut I look over to my colleague who has been sitting silently throughout the entire pitch. With a sigh I affirm, "They never answered my question. They had no quantifiable justification in their report for excluding 73% of the data."

My colleague throws the next report on my desk. The executive summary states that Ohio is 6-1 over the last four seasons against teams with a shade of green as their primary color.

"This guy might actually have a better idea than the last pitch."

Hector the pup was an apologist!!!

You left out BIGMANZ.

Unacceptable.

I have a different solution to the open-ended problem. How about we all set aside our differences for awhile. How about we all stop having the exact same debate every week, since it doesn't accomplish anything anyway, and we all know where we stand.

This team has played very well for 5.5 halves this year, and not well for one half. How many more good halves do they have left this year, and how many bad ones? I have no idea, but I do know this: They still can have a very good season. How about we get behind them for awhile, and hope for the best? Then, at the end of the season, we can pick this debate back up.

This is just too funny! You use this as evidence to support your point? It is the exact opposite. OHIO lays a Thanksgiving egg at Kent to enable the losers in Miami to take what may have been OHIO's. IMO the Kent game that year was Solich's biggest defeat as coach of OHIO to date. To have a team totally flat and soundly beaten by a team who had nothing to play for other than a fired coach when OHIO should have mopped the floor with them and headed off to the Motor City on cloud nine.

The staff is 0-3 in MACCs, 2-4 in bowl games and continues on a 5 year decline in number of wins; 2011 (10), 2012 (8), 2013 (7), 2014 (6), 2015 (5). If it takes a coaching making $500,000 a year more than Solich to have a winning record in the MACCs, bowl games and 8 in a row over BG/Kents I'd pay the money.

I don't pretend to know anything about the longevity of specific staffers. I also don't pretend to know how good/bad OUr approach is relative to either other schools in the MAC, or if it has evolved at all over the course of the last 4-5 seasons.

There are two things that I do know:

1) Football is evolving into a game that is decided based on how good your QB is, and other than TT, I question how good any Ohio QB has really been before and during Frank's tenure. The elite MAC teams referred to in this thread, more often than not, have excellent QBs. I'm of the opinion that we don't.

2) Sometimes it may take a new, or fresh approach to move a program forward. Examples I can cite include:
*When Frank & Co, after losing to Troy, switched approaches to the spread, making what I think was a big difference in how well Ohio played offensively over a number of seasons.
*When the Bengals brought back Hue Jackson, it elevated their offensive unit's effectiveness, and brought a different attitude to the team. Only injuries derailed them last year.


I'm not a "football guy" enough to understand the X's and O's, and I don't follow recruiting enough to know why we don't seem to get the talent at QB, that say BGSU gets, but those are my simple observations.

I believe WMU is paying Fleck about $850K per year. If so, that is about $300-350K more than us.

Do you believe that Fleck will stay there at that salary if he gets a good offer?

The fact of life in the MAC is that MAC teams pay what they can afford, which is usually $4-500,000, and they get what they can afford. If the coach turns out badly, they replace him. If the coach turns out well, they also need to replace him. Either way it's rare to see a coach in the MAC for more than 4-5 years. I don't see any particular reason to think that paying an extra $350-500k will accomplish much because if the coach does well, you still lose him. I don't think paying less accomplishes anything, either. If your offer is below the market price, you aren't apt to get much.

You don't specifically state what the 73% that such as me exclude. I'm presuming that it's the games in Solich's first 10 years.

Your analysis seems to fail on two key points.

First, as I have stated above, one is judged on recent accomplishment. If a CEO does well in his first 7 years but has a lot of poor performances in the next three, well, he doesn't get thru that next three. No one cares about the first seven given recent stin. Look at corporate CEO's and football coaches at any company or program with high aspirations. After no more than 1.5 years--and probably much closer to .75 of one year--they are fired.

Second, it's performance in key moments that matters. Penn State was great. So was the first bowl victory. But no one cares that we beat Miami or AKron or Idaho. Quite the contrary--losing to those types is/would be horrible, unacceptable. The goal is a MACC (else why are we playing?). That goal is represented best by games against the top level of teams in the conference. How have we fared against the top level of teams in MAC over the last three plus years?

I have nothing against Solich. He's a good man.

My evaluation is based solely on: Any reason to believe that he can he coach us to a MACC?

"Step into a hypothetical world where you've been given the opportunity to impart the tangible change..."


OH GOD I HOPE MY CHILDREN NEVER GO TO BUSINESS SCHOOL.