I'll give you credit for trying a slightly new angle of attack here, but basically it's the same old drivel. You simply don't know what you are talking about. Just because you were right about Knorr and lead the lynch mob, of which I was an early recruit, doesn't mean you really know much about football. Knorr was an easy call. He was a first-time head coach who clearly had trouble with the administrative and leadership aspects of being a head coach. Frank is a seasoned coach who has lead a team to a so-called national championship game [I refuse to call it real championship because it was a politically chosen matchup, but that's a discussion for another day.] You promised to quit your bitching until next fall. Please be a man of your word. Thanks, amigo.

Monroe please go cheer for Miami. Seriously. For real.

Sorry everyone.

It's staggering how much Jim Tressel and Jim Bollman kept a governor on Ohio State's offense for a decade and kept their jobs. Any team could go into their stadium and hang with them because they refused to use the talent they had. Tressel coached like his team was the underdog trying to hold off Goliath. He somehow never realized he was Goliath.

Meyer does not have that problem.

I don't mind someone from Ohio rooting for A&M, when they're not playing Ohio of course. It's a free country and if you want to root for the Microsofts of college football, you have a right. Hell, I was a Yankees fan until the '94 strike when I gave up on MLB and they were about as mercenary as any snob-conference school. Just don't wear their crappy gear on campus. It's tacky and disrespectful.

I went to O.U. in the mid 1970's.

I don't remember there being much interest either way with O.S.U. Of course back then they were just "Ohio State"
Some of the stores uptown did have the O.S.U. football games playing on the raido,but nobody really paid any attention to it.

I can't recall ever seeing people wearing anything but O.U. stuff on campus,except for the occasional high school letter jacket.

This is so true and it's emblematic / symptomatic, which ever you will, of the changes in the collegiate sports arena in a relatively short period. I grew up watching A&M on local TV but beyond the entertainment value of it and the chance to root for Alan Hornyack, it was meaningless. When a game was over no one gave a rat's a$% for A&M or Ohio or anyone else unless it was Notre Dame (football) or UCLA (hoops). It was just local entertainment.

ESPN and cable changed all that and the wearing of school colors and jerseys and message boards and traveling cross country to watch your team play can, I think, all be traced to that moment.

I miss those innocent, casual relationships we all had in the 70's.

seems as if some on here are desperate to create a false dichotomy where if you are not apoplectic over the results of our football program in every post and in every thread then that automatically makes you some sort of sunny-day dreamer who doesn't have the moral courage to stand up and demand that our football program rise to a higher level of achievement.

its tiresome, self serving, and not conducive to forwarding a legitimate discussion about the program.

+1 You've pinpointed one of my major beefs with the originator of this thread as I've told him both publicly and in PMs. He sets up strawmen and then knocks them down. For the record, once again, I'm not happy with the results of the last 2.3 years. I'm also not ready to jump ship. The man who beat Pitt and Penn State and took us to three MACC games can do it again. There's no reason to believe he can't. And, I have every expectation that we'll win the MACC the next time we get there. We certainly came very, very close the last time.

So do I. The sports related ones also........

Obviously my opinions are very different from yours. They start with different goals. For you, it seems that the goal is a MAC Championship at any cost. Perhaps, having rooted for teams that won not only league Championships, but also National Championships, but also for teams that never won any games at all, my perspective is different than most people's.

Over the years I have learned first and foremost to separate my personal accomplishments from those of teams I root for. I understand why each team wants to win, to reach their personal goals, and as a fan, I hope they do that. Nevertheless I have learned over the years that you can have fun even on days when your team loses. I have also learned that, when a team does achieve it's goal, whether it's a league championship, or a higher one, the next day you are back to square one, with new goals for the following year, and zero wins.

As a result, for me the most important goal is a team that plays with desire, that gives it's all, and makes me proud to be a fan because of their behavior both on and off the field. Ohio had some rough times back in the 2006 timeframe, and has had a few incidents over the years since then, but on the whole, I can most assuredly say that I've been proud to be a Bobcat fan these last ten years.

Next, let's turn to this period that troubles you, the last 31 games. First, let's talk about things it could be. Is it that Solich is old? Has he lost his fire? Has his energy level dropped? Is he getting senile? Based on comments from media people, both radio and print, the answers to all these are negative. Comments usually talk about his fire, energy level, and continue burning desire to win.

Now let's turn to the known reasons, things there is no one that questions:
1. No one disputes that the 2010 recruiting class did not turn out to be a good one. It was depleted by no-shows (Ashley), people that left due to off-the-field issues (Kozak), people that were lost due to career ending injury (Smith, Dietz), people that left for other reasons (Atwell, Jones, Stefanski, Morales, Snyder, Tarrant), and in the end you were left with Carpenter, Kristoff, Cochran, and Ingol. I don't mean any disrespect to them, but 4 people isn't much of a class.

The result of having a hole in your recruiting is a weakness 3-5 years later, which would be 2012-2014. Could that be a part of the problems over the last 31 games? It seems like it.

2. No one disputes that there was an amazing number of injuries in 2012. A few are normal, but when you have the massive numbers Ohio had in 2012, it casts a long shadow that can last for several years, especially since many will re-injure themselves the following year. A few positions in particular were very effected:
A. Offensive Line - At RT, losses of McGrath (late 2012, much of 2013) and Dietz (would have played 2012-2014) pushed reshirt Freshman Watson into a starting role. At RG, loss of Sam Johnson (late 2012 and virtually all of 2013), then Wood (2014) and Gibbons (2013, 2014) pushed Pruehs into a start as a true Freshman. at LG, injuries to Carlotta (late 2012), Smith (2012-2014), and Lechner (late 2012, much of 2013) pushed McQueen into starting as a redshirt Freshman, then M. Lucas as a redshirt Freshman. Center was more normal, with an orderly succession from Allen to Powell. At LT periodic injures to Prior (part of 2012, 2013) moved McQueen to LT. On the whole the offensive line, because of all these injuries, has been very young from 2012-2014, and that has significantly reduced offensive output.

B. Tight End - This position has, more than any other, been severely hurt by the injuries of 2012. Thompson was lost for late 2012. Robak, who would most likely have been a starter for 2013-2014 was also lost. Next behind them was probably Tanner, who would most likely have played 2013-2015, but his career ended before it ever started, with shoulder injuries in 2012 and again in 2013. Next man up was Davon Henry, who also had shoulder injuries in 2012 and 2013. And what about Tyler Knight? Was he ever able to play? Troy Hill was next, and did play well in 2013, until he was hurt. Because of all the injuries, they brought in two graduate transfers in 2013, Anthony Talbert and Alex Asher, but only Talbert was able to play. That brought Ohio down to true Freshman Mangen, who played well for as young as he was. For 2014, they brought in a JUCO, Boland, who ended up sitting 2014 due to injury. The shadow of those 2012 injuries at TE has been very long, and is still affecting things even today. Next year Ohio should hopefully be out of that shadow. Hopefully there will be some healthy upperclassmen at TE, in Mangen, Boland and Henry, and a Redshirt Sophomore, Morgan, but certainly the last few years have been a struggle.

C. Defensive line - The bulk of what had been a very good defensive line missed the last half of 2012. Carl Jones (DT), Neal Huynh (NG), and Tremayne Scott (DE) all missed the end of 2012, but were able to play against Monroe in the bowl, and it made a huge difference. Those injuries, back in 2012, will have one last effect, in 2015. Because of those injuries, true Freshman Crutcher was called from his redshirt year. He wasn't really ready to play, but was needed anyway. Without those injuries, he'd be a returning starter/5th year Senior next fall, and would give Ohio a very solid NG.

D. DB - Losses of Carrie, Hughes, and Shaw gave Ohio a totally different backfield in 2012 than expected, Wells/Fisher/Bass at corner, and Kristoff at Safety. Add in injuries to Wells and Scipio in 2013, and an off-the-field incident involving Fisher, plus periodic injures in 2014 to Jones, Scipio, Wells, Kristoff, Carpenter, and Ingol, and that also hindered the defensive backfield in recent years.

A few injuries are normal, but when you look at the extent of the injuries, especially in a few positions, does it seem possible that the injuries of 2012 cast a long shadow over 2012-2014? It certainly seems like it to me.

3. Cyclical strength - There were some unusually good recruits in 2008-2009, and when those players left in 2011-2012, a downturn of sorts would be expected. Some of those players were Gerald Moore, Tremayne Scott, Jordan Thompson, Eric Herman, Neal Huynh, Alphonso Lewis, Vince Carlotta, Tyler Futrell, Travis Carrie, Matt Weller, Jon Lechner, Xavier Hughes, Tyler Tettleton, Jelani Woseley, Skyler Allen, Mario Dovell, Carl Jones, Beau Blankenship, Ryan Boykin, Donte Foster, and Ryan McGrath. Even in the absence of the factors I listed in 1 and 2, would there have been a downturn in 2014? Probably.

4. Internal issues in 2013 - From interviews with various players and coaches we know that there were internal issues with the team in 2013. Those sorts of things crop up sometimes. The fact that the coincided with the factors I listed in 1-3 is probably not a coincidence. When a team is doing well, internal issues are usually glossed over, but when a team is struggling, sometimes problems from internal issues get amplified. Did this contribute to the downturn in 2013? It seems to have, for sure. Was the problem eliminated in 2014? It seems to have been eliminated. There was no evidence from player interviews, coach interviews, or from the play of the team that these problems continued. Mostly the weakness in 2014 seem to have been from factors 1-3.

So, we have 4 known factors that no one disputes that would have reduced results from mid-2012 until 2014. Do any of these factors continue to be problems? Well, #1 was a temporary thing, affecting only the 2010 class. Solich said that the 2013 class was his best yet at Ohio, then said 2014 was even better, and 2015 also looks pretty good. The long shadow of all those injuries is mostly gone, except that we could use Crutcher another year, and there is still quite a bit of depletion at TE. #3 is behind us, as is #4.

That brings us back to Monroe's statement:

Is it going to change in 2015? I wholeheartedly agree with Monroe here. I absolutely don't see any reason for it to change from the past, other than some slight changes for the better with those problems out of the way.

The fact is that ever since Solich got by his first 4 years, Ohio has on average finished 2d in the East, finishing 1st twice, 2d twice, and 3rd twice, and that includes the period with the problems I listed above. With those problems out of the way, and with some excellent recruiting classes coming into there prime in the next few years, why would anyone think things will change, and that Ohio will get worse? In my opinion, you'd have to be delusional to think that Ohio won't be competing for MAC East titles and MAC Championships in the next few years.

LC, if the team fails to beat above average MAC teams (next year it's: BG, NIU, WMU or BSU) for the fourth year in a row, how will this impact your analysis of the state of the program?