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Ohio Football Topic
Topic: Frank Solich Retires, Tim Albin signs 4-year contract to become new head coach
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Pataskala
7/18/2021 4:02 PM
Maybe they were too busy screwing up the Athletics website to do an adequate presser.
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cbus cat fan
7/18/2021 4:44 PM
We were blessed to have Coach Solich's leadership these past many years as well as a resurgent basketball program under Coach Boals. However, beneath that exterior and beneath the exteriors of a great deal of MAC athlectic and associated academic departments lie some serious rot and ineptness. This is what got some posters upset about the way this was handled, or perhaps correctly mishandled by the PR people. This along with a host of self inflicted wounds such as cancelling a basketball camp for some top prospects is a symptom of something much greater; seething anger coming from some within the university system itself aimed at college athletics.

In some ways their anger is justifed, many profs worry about enrollment declines, budget cuts, covid restrictions etc. Yet in their estimation athletics doesn't pay a price, neither does adminsitration. Since 2000, college adminstrative postions, often with politically correct titles have increased exponentially, while rank and file professors worry that the next budget cut could mean being relegated to adjunct status.

I believe Giacomo posted about Asst. Coach Brent Venables making some 2.5 million a year at Clemson. Most MAC head coaches will never make a third of that as a successful head coach in the MAC. Then we have coaches like Jim Harbaugh making is 7 or 8 million a year as he methodically drives the Wolverines not only into the ditch, but over the cliff. It is Crazy Town out there and just wait until the Name Image and Likeness circus gets into high gear with all kinds of big endorsemnt deals for skilled position players, while other first teamers just hope to get drafted. This is to say nothing about the young woman who is a second string player on her college softball, volleyball or field hockey who has a million followers on Instagram and gets signed to a huge endorsement deal. Why? Because she poses provactively in thongs while her teammates get no publicity, no big signing deal and no hope of a professional sports contract. You think things are crazy and messed up now in college athlectics and Higher Ed? Well to quote BTO, You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet.
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Maddog13
7/19/2021 1:55 AM
Bshot44, you go, man, go. I couldn't agree with you more. I don't understand those taking exception to your following statement, "and if it was Frank who wanted to downplay this, you have to override that for the good of the program." It's one thing if this news conference happened a year ago, when people were just learning how to use the Zoom platform. Too much time has passed since then to excuse the horrible production values on display at not just one news conference, but both. Even the reporters brought in for all of this lacked much in the way of technical Savvy either, which likely explains why they are stuck reporting regionally rather than Nationally. This may not seem like a big deal to some, but there was nothing good enough to replay on the Major Sports networks, which really was a major missed opportunity for Ohio University.

Even with the need for Social Distancing still at this time and date, I was also completely confused as to why it looked like Frank was politely and uncomfortably trying to avoid sitting on Julie Cromer's lap as though they were filming their segment of the Zoom call inside a telephone booth? That is until I realized that this was likely due to them having filmed this in a barrel going over the Hocking River Falls near White's Mill as a metaphorical example of what the fate of Ohio Football will be now that Coach Solich has left the program.

I would add to Bshot44's beautifully written and right on analysis of the situation is that the truth about Ohio Football is now that the Pandemic has financially placed Ohio University in such a bad financial place that we probably are not that far away from being a D-3 sports program anyway. Though this is one blip (actually two) in a constantly changing situation, I am not very optimistic about the future of Ohio Football based on what was witnessed here during these two press conferences.

In my opinion, this was not just a missed opportunity, but a media disaster. Albin, Cromer, and the rest of the Sports program better step up their game significantly from this point on. We, as Bobcat fans, deserve better; in fact, so does Frank Solich, who I believe gave far more to this program than he received back in return.
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BillyTheCat
7/20/2021 12:29 PM
bshot44 wrote:expand_more
Everything about this transition has been wildly disappointing ... and quite frankly embarrassing.

According to reports, Albin signed his contract on July 9th. That means there were at least 5 days to organize something ... and yet they throw together a Zoom presser with a few hours notice to media to announce the retirement of arguably the greatest coach in Ohio football history? Huh?

Why would you not take this opportunity and do a fitting send-off to Frank? Invite local media? Get TV cameras from Columbus, Zanesville, Parkersburg and maybe elsewhere to attend? Invite football donors? Really make this an event? Maybe even do something at the stadium and invite fans?

We looked like a D3 school announcing the retirement of a JV wrestling coach. It was a MASSIVE missed opportunity to grab the spotlight (at least regionally) during the slowest few sports days of the year. Or even get some airtime nationally on ESPN, Fox?

Frank Solich is/was the BIGGEST thing Ohio football had going for it. He was a name brand that reverberated nationally. And we treated his retirement like a random Tuesday in May.

Sad.

Very little coordinated social media efforts. No pre-produced thank yous from former players. Nothing.

For a school that prides itself on having on of the best sports marketing programs, this was a masterclass in failure to capitalize.

This was a great chance to market the football program. Remind people how steady and successful they've been for 16 years. Instead, it was barely a blip. A few nice articles on The Athletic ... but otherwise went unnoticed.

It's now Sunday ... and Tim Albin hasn't even changed his Twitter profile to say he's the head coach?!?! Julie Cromer has tweeted nothing about being excited for a new era of Ohio football. She doesn't even have Ohio University Athletic Director in her twitter bio!?!? How does this happen??? In a world DRIVEN (like it or not) by social media and this is how we handle this? Albin has 22.7k followers and his first week as head coach and all he can tweet is a picture of Frank with TJ Carrie and kids. SMFH.

Why do we continue to operate like a third-rate organization. We're supposed to be the class of the MAC, right?

It's just frustrating to see how this all played out. Not a lot of confidence in Cromer after seeing how this played out.

I hope things turn out well ... but from a marketing and promotion standpoint, this was atrocious. A complete swing & miss to capitalize on the passing of the torch.

... and if it was Frank who wanted to downplay this, you have to override that for the good of the program.

I just expect better from my alma mater. Regardless of the decision to elevate Albin (as much as I don't agree) ... this could've been handled sooooooo much better.
You are totally ignoring the COVID scare on this campus.
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BobcatPride
9/11/2021 10:11 PM
BobcatPride wrote:expand_more
First off, BIG thank you to Coach Solich for his years at the helm of Ohio Football. When the athletic department decided to take the football program seriously and hire him, I then decided to take the program seriously too and purchased season tickets. Had them ever since. The field should be named after him.

I have no doubt that it was understood, perhaps even put in writing, that Albin would get the job after Frank left. Frank was not going to allow Tim's loyalty to go unrewarded. We all know that. Fingers crossed that he takes the program to even greater success, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried.
^^^^^^
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