This is an interesting post.
Frank has made mention that his current freshman and sophomore classes were 2 of his best at Ohio, thus it leads one to believe our current senior and junior classes are weak.
Did we not recruit well enough 4-5 years ago to keep the talent at a high level?
I for 1 do believe that the experience the current underclassmen are receiving will pay off....GO BOBCATS
The answer is, clearly, yes. Here's a little recruiting history.
During 2005-2009 Ohio had a single recruiting coordinator, Germano. Germano wasn't able to get a lot of players from Ohio because Ohio University was way down the recruiting pecking order, behind schools like Miami, Toledo, BG, and even Akron. Therefore Germano scoured the country for players that the big schools missed, and Ohio's recruiting classes were loaded with players from places like Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Oklahoma, California, Georgia, Texas, and Florida, and then he filled in with under-the-radar kids from Ohio that no one else wanted. Almost none of the kids during those years had other offers, or were rated 3 stars, but there were some players in his classes. Furthermore, year by year, his aim improved, and the classes got better.
During 2010, Germano, who was tired of the recruiting coordinator job, I think, handed the reins to the current QB coach, Scott Isphording. That class was small, and for whatever reason, the results were not that good. Most of the players from that class left the program, and only a handful are left (Cochran, Ingol, Carpenter, Kristoff). Some left because of impatience (Snyder), others because they were starters, but got hurt (Mark Smith, Bryce Dietz). But, Ohio is almost without 5th year Seniors this year for the first time.
From 2011-now recruiting has been handled by Brian Haines. His first class, 2011, was his worst, but they have been slowly improving. His last two classes are his best. 2011 had some very good players in it, but like the 2010 class, included a lot of players that have since left the program (Welter, Bell, Curtis, Price, Hammonds, Fisher, Bennett). Haines's recent classes contain mostly Ohio players. In most cases, now, Ohio has moved from the bottom of the MAC pecking order to the top. If Ohio offers an Ohio player, more often than not he accepts the Ohio offer, or he accepts a competing P5 offer. Losing Ohio players to other MAC schools happens much less often than a decade ago.
The last two years his classes have been the two best yet under Solich. That comes from the horse's mouth, but also my numbers confirm it. Earlier I was asked how various classes compared on the recruiting thread, and the numbers I came up with, and some of the players from each class, were:
2006 (Germano) - 2.68 (Price, Hodge, Luchsinger, Posey, McCrae, Williamson, Garrett, S. Jackson)
2007 (Germano) - 2.65 (Keller, Flading, Dunlop, Strum, Brazill, Harden, Davidson, C. Meyers)
2008 (Germano) - 2.93 (Huynh, Carlotta, Carrie, Weller, Herman, Thompson, Lewis, Futrell, Moore, Tafua)
2009 (Germano) - 2.94 (Lechner, Hughes, Fortune, Woseley, Allen, Dovell, Jones, Foster, McGrath)
2010 (Isphoding) - 2.15 (Carpenter, Cochran, Krstoff, Ingol)
2011 (Haines) - 2.59 (Russell, L. Smith, Crutcher, McQueen, Wells, Vick, Purdum, Jov. Johnson, Bass, Lucas)
2012 (Haines) - 2.86 (Gibbons, Watson, Laseak, Patterson, B. Brown, Tor. Davis, Reid)
2013 (Haines) - 3.16 (Wood, Sayles, Poling, Basham, Mangen, Cope, McLeod)
2014 (Haines) - 3.40 (Lowery, McCray, Walker, Brunson, White, Preuhs, Brunis, Nelson, Langenkamp)
These numbers are based on my after-the-fact evaluations of how the players contributed at Ohio, so the last couple classes are still partly guesses. They may drop some, but based on the impact these players are already having, the classes will no doubt be higher than those that preceded them.
A team of legit D1 recruits will take down a team of walk-ons and mostly 1AA level talent 9 times out of 10.
A team of Seniors and Juniors will take down a team of mostly Freshmen and Sophomores 9 out of 10 times, too. However, the following two years you have a team of Juniors and Sophomores and then a team of Seniors and Juniors, and you will be much improved.
I get accused sometimes of pulling my long range predictions out of some dark place, but actually, I use a weighted average of the recruiting scores. The formula I use is .5*true freshmen+1*redshirt freshmen+2*sophomores+3*juniors+3.5*redshirt seniors
Multiplying the numbers above, and using "3" for the next 2 classes, I get:
2011 - 27.39
2012 - 27.395
2013 - 26.36
2014 - 25.875
2015 - 28.865
2016 - 30.79
Did I expect a weak year this year? Absolutely. I said so before the season. Do I expect a dramatically better team the next two years? Absolutely. It's not reading tea leaves; I'm just punching the numbers.
Last Edited: 10/12/2014 2:23:43 PM by L.C.