I came to Ohio in the last year of the Cleve area. I can remember going to my first game and thinking “I can play better that this”. There was no effort and no respect for the football team on campus. Over the next three years I would occasionally go to games but never got excited about football like I did about basketball.
It all changed for me when I went to a Central Ohio Alumni dinner that featured Jim Grobe. I listened to him talk about the culture he was establishing and I was hooked. We bought season tickets the next year and have had them ever since. The Grobe years were fun but I can remember being very happy when we simply won more games than we lost.
The Knorr years are one big blur of bad football. We kept going to games without any expectation of winning but simply enjoyed fall Saturdays in Athens. I had a conversation with a former co-worker that was working his way up from officiating high school football games to the college game and the MAC. He asked what I thought of Knorr and I said “I would love to have him as a neighbor, but he gets paid to win football games so he has to go.”
When Frank was hired I could not believe what I was reading. I was expecting another up and coming assistant that would either fail miserably or turn things around and leave. Frank had experience, was a winner, and was still being paid by Nebraska so we would not have to shell out a ton of cash. The Pittsburgh game was fantastic. I had never experienced something like that at an Ohio football game. Frank was for real.
I saw one play (can’t remember the year or the opponent) that confimred for me that the culture was changing. Austin Everson had rolled out to pass and took off down the sideline. A defender blew him up on the sideline. It hurt to hear it. For second I thought “oh no”. Austin jumped right up, exchanged a few words with the defender, and ran back to the huddle. I know he hurt but he was not going to let down his team. That was the first time I remember seeing real toughness out of an Ohio team and I knew it came from the top.
For the last few years I have believed we could win any game we played no matter the opponent. I knew the coaches would prepare the players and the players would play for one another. It has been a slow but steady building process under Frank. His playbook has evolved but the core values of hard work, resilience and team work have been there from the beginning. Our coaches can coach against anyone, the talent gap has closed significantly and our guys play like a team. This is fun to follow.