Coach Albin is 56.
He has been using pretty much the same offensive coaching
scheme his entire time here.

As they say "the leopard can't change his spots".
Even if he wanted to,I don't think it would be easy for Coach Albin to "inject
new ideas and life into the program".

Perhaps this fact played into the timing of Frank's announcement. There was no way we couldn't choose his preferred successor.

I'm just going to assume you completely ignored the "... hired an interim ... " part.

Obviously no one expected a completely new, competent staff could be assembled in July. But thanks for hammering home that point.

Sigh.

An interim hire would have signified she was open to taking the program in a different direction. Maybe she wasn't "allowed" to do that because of previous promises bestowed upon Frank? I don't know. But what I do know is this is a disaster and she's accountable. We'll see how long until something is done to change the trajectory

She gave Albin a 4-yr contract with a 2-yr $1.1M guarantee. That's a larger base salary than Frank ever had.

So yeah. She's accountable.

She could have easily slapped an interim tag on him or anyone else on that staff signifying that she's ready to move in a different direction if they don't prove themselves.

She didn't. So yeah. She's accountable.

Maybe she wasn't allowed to go the interim route based off previous promises. I can buy that. But she paid him $1.1M guaranteed!

So yes. She. Is. Accountable.

But yeah. I'm on crack for holding the AD accountable for the decision of paying an unqualified guy more money than Ohio has ever paid a football coach in school history.

GTFOH.

The damage done in 2 years could be colossal. One year & there's a fighting chance to keep from sinking

Exxxxxxactly!

There were no good options. To recap:

1. There wasn't time for a new search.
2. A promise may have been made to Frank that he be allowed to name his successor.
3. The 'interim' tag may have led to recruits and players bolting

What is effectively a two year deal for Albin's actually as close to an ideal outcome as we could have hoped for, given the circumstances. Had we gone the interim route (and it's not clear that was even a possibility) and recruits/players left, people here would be blaming Cromer for that decision. Instead, she opted for stability but got a quick turnaround opt-out.

We're in the middle of a budget crisis and have a football program that was completely irrelevant even when the best coach in the history of the university was at the helm. Spending an extra 500k on a buyout, when (as Billy pointed out) we're already paying both Albin and Solich as is, would be a ridiculous decision.

What do we gain from that, exactly? We do that to be one year closer to losing more money by going to some bowl game nobody cares about and which has no national significance?

Continuing to dump money into trying to compete at this level makes no sense for the University. I just don't get this viewpoint.

I didn’t say “dump money”…I said “arrange a buyout”. Maybe there’s a creative solution? Leaders find ways to get stuff done that aren’t obvious to the rest of us.

When you say that we are competing at a level we aren’t able to compete at you are 1,000% correct. It was explained to me that a huge factor in recruiting is “schools in between”. So if you are trying to get a kid from Northwestern Ohio for instance then they have to drive past Toledo, BG, and Miami. You want a kid from Cleveland then they drive past Kent and Akron. So they factor that into their decision making process because they want their mom and dad to come see them play on Saturdays and it’s way more convenient. Frank at least gave us the Nebraska connection and was a big enough name that out of state guys parents knew who he was at Nebraska. I am almost certain we are going to lose that “in”. I can’t imagine how things are going to look going forward in terms of recruiting unless we get a big name. I saw someone in a post weeks ago mention Will Healy from Charlotte but that’s not even realistic because of the pay cut to begin with. He’s making $750,000 there and I don’t think he’s worth half of that to begin with. We need someone who is tenured as a coach with a name who probably screwed up a little along the way to begin to get us back on track. I think Albin is great as a person but a former stud for us told me last week that guys just don’t want to do it for him the way they would when Frank was watching. I think that’s a ridiculous justification but apparently that’s how these guys view it.

I don't think it's a question of a "right to name his successor." I think it's more that Frank had the leverage to do so. He's dangling a substantial donation in front of the athletic department, and there are also important optics about how you treat your 18 year coach on his way out the door.

Albin was Frank's guy, and Albin got the job. I suspect there's no circumstance under which he wouldn't have.

What donation is Frank dangling infront of anyone? His role is to help raise money, but you'd have to show me where he's preparing his own sizeable gift.

I got the impression here, around the 35 min mark, that he was in negations with Julie (when he mentioned arm wrestling with her) concerning a donation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJmBY5m4c-4&t=2s