What to do with Albin as the Head Coach?

People who consistently underperform at their job are (and should be) fired. Especially when there is a line of qualified applicants waiting to be considered. Albin must go 6-6. He lost all possible "style points" today. 4-4 in conference (which, given the MAC, is not a big ask) or he wii be replaced.

At the latest, I would can him at the end of the year, possibly before, and begin the search for a replacement now. At this point we'll be lucky to match last year's win total. Our defense is getting worse instead of better, and our offense won't see such a porous defense as Fordham's probably for the rest of the year. More importantly, Fordham out-coached us today, a trend that continues from at least the last three games. They shutout our offense for much of the second half (we had only the kick return TD in the 3rd quarter) and were a coach's headset throw away from trying a game-winning FG. (Just about the only instance of poor coaching they showed today.) After the first quarter we didn't stop their offense until it was almost too late.

It'll probably be tough improving on last year's record. Some of our MAC opponents look better than they did just a couple weeks ago. Kent was down by only 10 pts at #1 Georgia with 5:30 left in the 4th quarter today. NIU lost at #8 Kentucky today by only 8 pts, using an inexperienced backup QB (Lombardi should be back by Oct 22). MOFO beat NWern tonight. And inept Buffalo put up 50 on EMU, which beat Arizona St last week. At the moment, we might beat Akron, but we can't count on it. I would say that unless Albin somehow wins the MACCG, and maybe even if he does, he should be gone next year. He's not a long-term solution.

(In an earlier post in another thread I said I was done on this board for the season. That takes effect at midnight tonight. See you on the b-ball side.)

I hope you keep your word.

That's not accurate or fair.

If at the time of Coach Solich's arrival in Athens some 17 years ago, you took any one of the Top 10 Ohio high school football coaches and placed them on Coach Solich's staff, I can't imagine any one of them could have possibly started their head coaching stint nearly as bad as what we are witnessing now. It is one thing not to have any talent, it is quite another not to look prepared with what talent you do have. To have that many years to study at the feet of an accomplished coach and to perform the way we are perfoming now shows a complete lack of knwoledge of how to prepare and motivate players for games, something you have to do at the high school ranks to be successful.

I call BS on our entire attempt to mythologize Frank Solich.

He's the definition of a mediocre coach. Not a single conference championship, schedules loaded with boring, low quality out of conference games to optimize for eligibility for low level bowl games.

We were never the best team in a low level conference. Solich was fired from a program that, at the time, was perceived as a national power, but has since been exposed as bumbling, poorly run, and will never regain its prior status.

We convinced ourselves that mediocre was good because our program sucks and basically always has. And now we're mythologizing Solich and trying to duplicate that "success" by pining for another cast off from a bottom half P5 program.

Time to move on from the Solich era. It's not a model that's worth trying to rebuild.

I think in the short term with the MAC not being particularly strong this year Albin will probably beat last years record of 3-9 and also with a lot of Solich recruits still on the roster. The advantage also of a full year to coach the team over just a couple of months last year with Frank stepping suddenly down. A baby bump in talent in 2022 because of the pandemic helps.

Long term it doesn't seem like the answer and if 2023 is bad the excuse would be there to get someone new in for 2024 and the 12 team playoff so we can recruit to it. 2022 and 2023 are lame duck years with new conference lineups with the exception of the SBC.

I don't understand at least at this point why Ohio can't have recruiting class in the Top 3 of the MAC and Top 10 of the G5 every year. Not having an IPF was an excuse for a long time and the tower was recently remodeled. I assume the players lounge is in place at this point. New field looks great and of course academic center. Weight room recently remodeled with nutrition center. What is the new facility excuse?

Widely believed across the MAC. Conference commissioner said as much to me over cocktails at a pregame party for the baseball all-star game in CLE several years ago. "For whatever reason, Solich can't seem to prepare his teams for games they should win easily. We're all waiting for him to win a championship but they consistently blow it year after year."

He's an OU alum, BTW.

Fire him before the 110 post game playing of Alma Mater OHIO if OHIO loses to Zips on Homecoming.

Give him till the end of the season otherwise for an evaluation of the two years.

Frank was ONE loss from being the MAC’s most Losing coach!

Yep, he was mediocre. He lost 19 games in 6 years at a Nebraska program that had lost 3 games in the 5 years before he took over. He was fired because the team got worse, at a rapid pace. He took over a program that had won 95% of their games, and in his 6 years in charge success was suddenly winning 75% of games. He underperformed Bo Pellini at Nebraska. Is Bo Pellini an excellent coach?

And yes, our program was terrible before Frank arrived. He raised the bar. But to pretend he raised it to a standard that anybody would consider excellent is non-sense. He won no conference championships, and won 63% of his games.

I know where the bar was. Solich was a good thing for our football program. But that some insist he's a legend says more about the sad state of our program than it does about Frank Solich the coach.

Question for the crowd: how many FCS schools have named their fields/stadiums after a coach who never won their school a championship?

I don't know the answer, but I bet I do.

@CampusFlow

Your real answer here is not having enough restaraunts, malls, etc to attract top talent. And no players-only dining hall hurts too.

To get better recruits we have to beat P5s at home as well (in front of visiting recruits) That helped us in the past get better talent.

I really think we should look at transfer portal for DEs, CBs and safeties to improve in the short-term.

JMHO.