Thankful for that, and disappointed that we were not a player in the Blake Frohnapfel sweepstakes, because that kid is a stud. He went to UMass for their biz school and was a three year graduate from Marshall, and will have one more year of eligibility. I have no idea if we pursued him or not, and I hate to say it, but we blew it in not getting him. I respect our coaches wanting to give the guys in the program a chance, but he is light years ahead of our QB's and we would be an entirely different offense with him.

What D.A. said.

Now, that is funny.

No doubt Ohio will be 50% passes/50% runs, as usual, and will mix throws and runs on first downs to not be overly predictable, but I expect that Ohio will have a healthy dose of runs up the middle. Ohio has to be able to run the ball up the middle with at least some effectiveness or the rest of the offense won't work. This, by the way, is the mirror image of what Ohio tries to do to other teams. If Ohio can take away their runs, their offense isn't going to work, either.

The CMU game is a classic example of a case where the other team took away Ohio's run, and then Ohio was unable to use anything else effectively. With no power running game, shutting down Ohio's passing, sweeps, and options was not difficult. The Akron game was a good example of Ohio doing it to another team.

A lot of teams that are underdogs make the mistake of trying to get adventurous with their game plans, and get outside their team's comfort zone, and when they do, they never really have a chance to win. Ohio has won a lot of games using conservative plans that keep them in the game, and allow them to take advantage of breaks. The Pitt game was a classic example, but the same applied to games like Illinois and Penn State. Sometimes Ohio has stayed in games, but never got that break, and lost, but they never gave the game away; they made the other team earn it.

When you win with this philosophy, you might end up being compared to a team like the Pittsburgh Steelers. Tough, grind it out type teams. When you lose, its more like the NY Jets. And it can look ugly real fast.

Chase Cochran http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7OfcGOywRM&feature=youtu.be

"We execute, we will beat them."
 

 

He said "play with speed." Haven't seen that this year.

It could be either. But, some vociferous posters on here want the Oregon offense. So playing conservative and struggling at doing it (penalties, dropped passes, missed throws, etc.) plays into their hands.

Anyway, eliminate the penalties and catch some passes and we would have been a lot more fun to watch the past few weeks.

They may want that, yet, I think it's clear that more teams that try for an Oregon or Baylor offense fail than succeed. If there was a single offense that was a guaranteed success, all teams would use it. I honestly don't care if they run a single wing, T, wishbone, or Air Raid offense, so long as they execute, and make it work.

Each week they have been executing better, and I think fans are aware of that. Had Vick not been hurt, I think the progress would have been steadier, but after he was hurt the offense took a step or two backwards, and had to regroup. I think they are picking up again, though, and I think they will continue to execute better.

The key to this game will be a strong opening quarter like we had last week against Akron. The issue in that loss to BG was spotting them 14 in the first quarter otherwise we are right in to win that game. From the practice videos this team sounds hungry to get what they couldn't get done up at CMU. Game 9 of the season you are going to have to turn the corner and start playing well if its going to happen at all. A surprise victory with a lot of points is not out of the question for Saturday.

Interesting-do you think Ohio next year will be where WMU is now-a young team whose talent is starting to translate into wins, or does have WMU have younger, even better talent than Ohio?

If you believe the recruiting services, the players that constitute WMU's true Freshmen this year (recruiting class of 2014) are by far the best class ever in MAC history. WMU's recruiting class for 2015 is not quite as good, but is still very, very good for the MAC, and will again be rated well ahead of everyone else in the MAC.

Overall, talent wise, you'd have to think that WMU is ahead of everyone else in the MAC, or will be in a year or two. Now comes the interesting part, coaching them up. If Fleck turns out to also be a good coach, WMU will quickly become a dominant team, and Fleck will get hired by a P5 school. If he's not that great of a coach, he may get hired anyway, and be the next Ron Zook, recruiting his way to the top, and then foundering once he gets there.

Ohio had a very good recruiting class last year, too, probably #2 or #3 in the MAC. They also had a good class in 2013. Therefore, WMU and Ohio are very similar. Both are young, and talented, and improving. One difference is that since Solich's contract runs until 2017, Ohio's players won't see as much in the way of coaching changes as WMU's players likely will. It will be interesting to see which group achieves more.