Since when is two years enough time to turn around a program? I understand Akron was bad, but he was doing it with someone else's players. We witnessed a bad run with Knorr at the helm, but I think he was fired after getting a fair shot. I can't say the same for Ianello and Turner Gill. Were either of them hired by folks expecting an instant turnaround with bottom-tier players?
The team was ranked 120th going into this season in returning letterman all the more reason why you can't blame the performance on the coach.
Well, you can if he ran off many of the letterman. Normally, I would agree that two years is not enough time. But I think that there are cases where someone demonstrates a level of incompetence (See Gene Cross at Toledo) that you can't let continue. While Ohio gave Knorr four years, it was clear early on that he was in over his head.
In 2010, Akron was outscored 272-117 in conference games. In 2011, they were outscored 321-103 (including 189-35 in their last four games). In Brookhart's last year, they were outscored 248-148.
So the trend line is:
2009 (Brookhart): -100
2010 (Ianello): -155
2011 (Ianello): -218
If we want this conference to be better, we need Akron to do what they did. They could have let this continue for two years to verify what they already knew. As was the case with Gene Cross, I think it is impossible to find anyone worse. We'll check the results next year and see.