QB Coach--there appears a different style of ball handling by the QB's.

I have a special needs daughter, she can throw a football pretty well. She has been to many games watching her brother and sister in the 110.

When she throws a pass in the back yard it is always preceded with her holding out the ball as if to hand off that she learned watching Theo, Boo and TT. She thinks that before you throw the ball you have to play action like that--darnedest thing she picked up from the stands.

These QB's would hold that pose long--perhaps it is a pass read option. But today I don't see that exaggerated style. I also do not see the QB's riding the ball into the belly on the read option. Ball handling skills seem undeveloped by our QB's--is that a lack skill and dramatics on their part or a change of style? None of them would fake the cameraman out like you see on televised games by some QB's that take great pride in the ball handling skills to add deception to the offense's tools.

I don't disagree with that. Clearly he didn't have much to work with. I just think that at the OL position it will take longer than at most positions. Seeing progress in <1 year at OL isn't easy unless you are looking at slow motion instant replays of the individual linemen. No matter how well he coaches, an 18 year old is still 18. The best offensive linemen are 4th and 5th year upperclassmen.

I never had a real issue with Lightner, but it always seemed like he was trying to scramble to make a line, and never had built up depth. What I really don't understand is that normally OL is a position where walkons often make an impact, and if you have a strong OL walkon program you always have 4th and 5th year players. Unless Bales started a game or two, the last OL that started for Ohio was David Shelby, a walkon under Knorr. Here are the walkons under Solich, most of them under Lightner:
Pisano
Fosnaugh
Rauen
Batsakes
K Davis
Kenner
JD Bales
Crane
Fain
Stump
Everhart
Pritchard
Adams
Alcorn
Schilke
B. Williams
Noltemeyer
Alcorn
Pauley

Of these, Only JD Bales played regularly, and Everhart has played some, and earned a scholarship. Adams may have, too. Most other positions have done a good job of building a strong group of walkons, where they are there to fall back on when there is an injury or dept problem.

I don't know why Ohio hasn't had the quality walkons at OL that they have had at other positions. I do know that walkons can have a significant impact at OL. Nebraksa won national championships in the 90s, and so far as I know, had at least 1-2 walkons starting for them on the line, most years.

In any case, I'm not blaming Johnson for the issues at OL. He inherited very little, and has to build the line back up.

It ain't that simple, Monroe. It kind of depends on the project and how progress is evaluated. Sometimes there are setbacks from an original plan and it's necessary to make modifications with the desired results not coming about in the target year. If your boss can be shown that progress is being made and that the desired result is likely to happen if the contract is extended another year, you might get a contract extension and a raise. Note that in this case the evaluation needs to be made by someone who knows the business and can reasonably evaluate whether or not real progress is being made -- not by someone in another line of work who tries to impose the standards of his or her profession on another quite different profession.

Please. Stop it. Let's just agree to disagree. There's significantly only one scoreboard here. And we have beaten very few good teams and gotten thrashed by a lot of not-really-very-great teams lately. Here's six in the last year: beefs, bg2, cmu, kents, wmu. They beat us solidly and I don't think that anyone would claim that they were great teams ('cept maybe bg last year was decent and they destroyed us in 6 minutes). No; trying, haven't quit, youth, injuries, blah, blah, blah don't gain any traction here. Can't Solich and staff overcome those a wee bit so that we don't get blown out by middle-of-the MAC teams?

And, you're better than the 'we can't know as much as the coaches' card. Anyone who thinks our conception of offense is above the very bottom of college football is not very observant.

Isophording is an example of our low expectations and an unwillingness to shake things up. We have an opening for a CO-OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR and QB coach. Getting a coordinator job seems like a nice career step for someone and should attract some good folks.

Did we conduct a national search? The answer is almost certainly NO.

Instead we settled on a guy who has had the following experience (in reverse chronological order):

Toledo
Ohio
Eastern Michigan
Wittenberg
Colorado School of Mines
Fort Hays State
Hanover College

This guy has NEVER COACHED COLLEGE FOOTBALL AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. He's never been involved with it outside of the MAC. And he cut his teeth in Division 2 and 3.

Every year there are grad assistants or position coaches at bigger schools that are looking for opportunities. Do we even try to lure them to Athens?

A position coach at one of those "bigger" schools could take as much as a 75% pay cut coming to OHIO.

Since it was mentioned.....The current HC at Colorado School of Mines (Bob Stitt) is one of the most innovative offensive minds in football. Here's Bill Connelly's
profile of Stitt:

http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2014/10/17/69934...

That's exactly the kind of guy a MAC school should target for an OC (or even HC) position.

Sure, lower ranking OSU assistants make over 250k...is that true at Northwestern or other Big 10 schools? What about at Cinci, Pitt, etc...? And moving from a position coach to a coordinator position is a step up, that should be worth something.

This is the same mentality that keeps us where we are. PJ Fleck doesn't think that way...that's why he'll be kicking out butts until he moves on to a better job.

Successful people figure out what they want, and they go and get it.

"Deference" -- now there's a word not often seen on fan boards, not even on this most erudite of sports boards, let alone actually practiced. ;-)

I'm sure you loved Isophording's 2010 recruiting class, Bcat.

It all comes down to TALENT, not coaching. We could run off tackle all day with a 6'1, 245 bull fullback, couldn't we ? Especially if we could just audible if the defense is loading up against the run play and throw to our 6'4 wide receiver. We just don't have those kids on our team. So, if we would run those plays if we had TALENT, what should we do ? We should go get that talent. We should put time and energy into recruiting. What happened to the lost art of recruiting ? Do our coaches go out and hit the pavement and get across the table from mom and pop and look their son in the eye and tell him what a great addition he would be in green and white? Do they follow up the visit with a phone call when they get back to the office ? Do they write hand written notes every week ? If we are spending 10 hours a week on recruiting, we should spend 20. If we are spending 20, we should spend 40. THAT is how we turn this thing around. Get out on the road, all over the country, get into living rooms. SELL our product !! SELL Ohio University !! SELL Frank Solich !!! SELL SELL SELL !!!!!

Nice to see that, for once, my memory was "dead on." 2000 when Grobe's team averaged 31.2 ppg also was a year when Ohio had a stout defense. It was one of only 4 or 5 FBS teams to not give up more than 28 points in any game.