We also have to judge a coach on recruiting. I'm unimpressed with that so far. When I look around the MAC, there are transfers from the portal from Ohio State, Michigan, NC State, Michigan State, Pitt, etc. We seemed to really not take advantage of the portal whatsoever. I hope I'm wrong on all this, but the HS class that just came in doesn't seem to be of the highest caliber. Multiple years of this becomes a long-term problem, not a quick fix for the next coach.
While I haven't been following the situation as closely as years past, my sense is that he knows this year is critical, and that he has to win, so he loaded up heavily on JUCOs and transfers. That often works in the short term, but the longer term effect is that those players are gone within two years, and with fewer freshmen in the class, there is a shortage of experience again in two years. It is often hard to maintain consistency year after year that way. Terry Bowden, at Akron, always used a lot of transfers and JUCOs, and did a better job than most that I have seen use that strategy. He did jump quickly from 1-11 to 5-7, and he had one 8-5 season, and a lot of competitive teams, but he never could seem to quite get over the hump to become a consistent winner.
In fairness to Albin, recruiting is always hampered when an "unknown" assistant is promoted to head coach. If he can establish that he can win, and that he as some long term stability, his recruiting gets better fairly quickly. As an extreme example, when Tom Osborne became coach at Nebraska, his recruiting the first year or two was not good because he was unknown, but later in his career, his recruiting was outstanding. I'm certainly not saying that Albin is an Osborne. I'm saying that success breeds success, and failure breeds failure. If Albin wins, his recruiting will improve. If Albin loses, there is no reason to keep him because his recruiting will not improve.
Last Edited: 8/31/2022 10:55:26 AM by L.C.