Money: news flash...OUr trOUbles run much more deeply than any one guy!

😎We actually had Minnesota on ropes until second half when they sat Poling Out! I agree Q for Heisman!!

It blows my mind that people can't detect sarcasm. Like, ever.

To think that somebody would post such preposterous thread amazes me. The excuses that we come up with. Are we losers? This is nuts.

I agree, the drop is steep between 1 and 2 at the LB position. Yes, JJ and BB are playing hurt, but don't forget that Chad Moore is also playing hurt with his broken thumb. I've been too busy to stay up to date on a lot of stuff, or to post much, but I did think that while Ohio did a lot of good things against BG, they absolutely torched the hole created by the weakness at LB and the thin interior defensive line. I've got to give Babers credit - he saw the weakness left behind by the injuries, and exploited it.

If Ben Russell had not been injured last year, Poling could have been waiting his turn like Maleek Irons?

Russell was a very good player, and Ohio would be better off with him playing than they are at the moment.

If he were still playing, yes, Poling's situation would have been similar to Iron's, or should have been. Poling would have played some, and as he proved himself, he'd have played more, exactly as is happening with Irons. If, at some point, he showed he was better than Russell, he would have moved ahead of him on the depth chart. That's how it's done in all sports at all levels, and there have been plenty of cases where it has happened at Ohio.

This whole "you can never move ahead of anyone on the depth chart no matter how much talent you have" narrative just shows that people have been watching too much politics, and they argue the same way. The examples of cases where players moved up the depth chart are numerous, and happen all the time. To argue that they should have benched Russell, and told him, "look, we know you have worked hard, and we know you're one of the best MLB's in MAC, but we've got this young hotshot kid and we think that some day he will be better than you, so we're benching you do that he can develop faster" is ludicrous, and I can't think of a better way to destroy the morale of a team.

Exactly. And we have heard nothing from the players about playing time issues or concerns.

So? We very, very rarely hear from the players. We occasionally have someone posts from people who claim to have some inside knowledge. There's about no way to judge the quality of those supposed inside posts.

The point being that when/if we do hear about it from the players, then you can be pretty sure that there are seriously big issues inside the house.

But lack of complaints from the players doesn't mean that the players are satisfied.

What I do know is that players that are better than other players always move up the depth chart. I've never yet seen a case where that didn't happen. There are cases where players are very close, and then they might end up with one on top, or they might end up alternating. That's kind of what I think might have happened with Russell and Poling, because both are/were very good. I think Russell was better against the run, and Poling was better against the pass. As such I suspect if both were on the team, we'd see them alternating, much like Bass and Layton, who are very close.

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