Ive gone through Solichs first nine seasons at Ohio and broken down each season by month. Heres how it looks (Nov includes only regular season games):

	Aug/Sep	Oct	Nov	Post-season
2005	2-2	2-2	0-3
2006	2-3	4-0	3-0	0-2
2007	2-3	2-2	2-1
2008	2-3	1-3	2-1
2009	2-3	4-1	3-0	0-2
2010	1-3	4-0	2-1	0-1
2011	3-1	2-2	4-0	1-1
2012	5-0	2-1	1-3	1-0
2013	3-1	3-1	1-3	0-1

Its interesting to note that during the first six seasons, the teams struggled in the first month -- not one winning Aug/Sep in the first six years -- then generally would improve as the season progressed. 2011 was a transition year; strong start and finish but struggle in the middle. The past three seasons have been the opposite: winning the first month of each season, then struggling the rest of the way. One reason for the improvement in the early record is the shift in OOC scheduling philosophy. Also note that Ohio has had only one losing October in Solichs tenure.

This season is the first time in four years that Ohio has lost more than one game in the first month. But Ohio can still continue its three-year streak of having a winning record going into October by winning the next two.

I'm choosing to interpret this as good news to come later this season:

late 2008: despite a massive wave of injuries late that season, the team still finished the last two months near .500.

late 2012: two short weeks so the Bobcats could appear on the ESPN family of networks torpedoed what began as a hugely promising season, however the team finished very strongly in the bowl game.

late 2013: an aberration due to the team simply quitting once it was clear they weren't going to make it to Detroit.

We still have many questions to answer with this 2014 edition, but I still hold out hope that the youth will grow into a highly competitive squad come October 4th against CMU. Strong weeks against Idaho and Eastern Illinois will show us all we need to know for the remainder of the MAC schedule.

My most pleasant surprise through three weeks: this squad could have quit the last two weeks, but to my untrained eye, they fought through all 60 minutes despite being out of both games.