Another thing it makes me think about is the "Love" debate, about the relative advantages of scheduling weak versus strong opposition. There are advantages and disadvantages to both, but I think so long as one understands the strategy of what you are trying to accomplish, either can work. As I see it, the two strategies are:
Strong-foe - The plan
Recruiting is critical, and so is fan-base communication. The idea is that you recruit better talent because they know they will be playing top-flight competition. You simultaneously try to build fan support, and attract them with the good opposition, increasing attendance, then ticket prices, gear sales, and contributions.
Strong-foe - What can go wrong
If you aren't able to recruit sufficiently good players, or the coaching isn't good enough, you won't ever win. That eventually will turn off the fans, and attendance will drop. Similarly the morale will fall, and the plan will fail. Fans love to see this plan followed because of the potential for instant improvement, but I think failure is much more common than success. I think you need a very dynamic and media focused coach for it to really work well.
Weak-foe - The plan
You play just enough top competition that the players will know where they need to be, and the rest of the time you play teams that you have a chance to beat. You build a winning attitude, and player confidence, so that, even though you may be lacking somewhat in talent, when you do play the top teams, you play with confidence, and over-achieve. You attract fans not because of the foes, but because the team wins. As the winning starts, fan support increases, and recruiting increases.
Weak-foe - What can go wrong
If you too many weak teams, your team may not be competitive against the top competition from lack of practice. They may get to the hard games, but lose, because, while they are confident, they aren't really prepared, and don't really have sufficient talent. Because of the lack of appealing foes, fan support will grow slower, as will contributions. Worse, if you don't win the games against the teams that you "can beat", the whole plan fails.
Some people would have you think there is only one way you can do things, but I think either of these can be made to work, and you can find people that have used them successfully. There are probably other plans that work, too. My personal opinion is that the weak-foe plan was right for Ohio because I don't think that the strong-foe plan would have generated the revenue and fan support quickly, given the demographics. I also don't think Solich had the right dynamic personality for the strong-foe plan, and the other fit him better.
What has happened is that the weak-foe plan has worked, but we've seen one of the problems - getting to the games, but not winning. That applies to both MAC championships and bowls. A classic team for that was 2006. The team played with confidence, won games, and got to the MAC championship and bowl. On the other hand, it just didn't have the experience or talent to compete when it got there.
I think they are over that hump, now. I think the overall talent is much higher now, and they can and do compete in those games now. They should have won the MAC championship last year, and did win a bowl. Now it's just a matter of continuing to build the talent level, and continuing to upgrade the foes. The recent recruiting classes have been getting better and better, so over the next 5 years, the overall talent level will continue to get better. I also see the competition level increasing. As for foes, not long ago they were signing deals with North Texas State, Louisana-Lafayette, and New Mexico State, and now I expect to see teams more like Marshall, Louisville, or Cincinnati. The result of both will be that Ohio will continue to improve, and be competitive when they do get to bowls or championships.
Edit = oh, and Tulsa is 39, so Ohio is still to come.
Last Edited: 7/30/2012 1:58:31 PM by L.C.