In all seriousness, Albin and Burrows. And I can not believe that I thought this last night, but now I know why Nebraska dumped Frank. He has gotten us to a point of where we expect to win, and win often. But it seems that he cannot get us to the next step. I hate thinking and typing these things out, but it appears true to me. We cannot get to the next step in our programs progression.
Actually this was not the reason why Nebraska fired Solich. There are far more differences than similarities in the situation. Some differences:
1. At Nebraska, they had a long time tradition of winning, and when he took over, they were coming off on National Championships, and had great athletes on the team. Solich had no reputation to recruits, and was an unknown, so there was an immediate drop in the quality of recruits, and then a slow recovery after that, but that meant that 4-5 years down the road, teams steadily got worse as Solich recruits worked into the system. At the point he was fired, it was near a bottom, with only Solich recruits, and from there should have improved.
At Ohio they were coming off a losing tradition, and recruiting had not been very good. Knorr had recruited a few great players, like Muncy, Cohen, and McRae, but many of his recruits never played, so there was little depth. At Ohio, therefore, most of the initial teams (2004-2008) were not that great, but steadily improved as Solich recruits worked into the system.
2. At Nebraska most Solich assistant coaches were holdovers from Osborne, and were older. As they retired, there was a transition that was not always smooth. On bump along the way was that he hired a new defensive coordinator who, while capable, had some personal issues, and had to be replaced after a year. The replacement, Bo Pelini, everyone knows. His first try, Craig Bohl, has demonstrated in the years since then that he was a good coach, too, with what he has done at N. Dakota State. At the other extreme, at Ohio he has had essentially the same staff with only minor changes from day one.
3. At Nebraska a new AD had some very different attitudes from the Ohio AD.
4. At Nebraska, under Solich, there were some very high highs, as well as low lows. He did, after all, get to a National Championship game. At Ohio he's won some big games (Pitt, Illinois, Penn State), but lost some games badly (Loisville, BG, Buffalo this year). It's been a lot of highs and lows. Right now is a low time, after two miserable losses.
Thus, I don't see the situations as very similar at all. Still, the question is the same. Should Solich retire? Should he be asked to retire? Those are questions I can't go into. It's up to Solich to decide if he wants to retire, and up to Ohio fans and the Ohio AD to decide if they want to ask him to retire.
As for your other question, whether Ohio had plateaued, I think I'll make a separate thread.