I agree that Brian Burke got a raw deal. Admittedly, it's easier to recognize in hindsight, but he was by far the best coach we had in that period of time until we hired Jim Grobe. Sad to hear of his passing.

The history: In 1961, the year after winning the College Division National championship, OHIO transitioned to the University Division. We had been placed in the College Division when the NCAA created those two divisions in 1957. So, we were in the College Division for about four years. There was also a year later on when we were reclassified downward for one year due to some technical issue, the details of which I don't recall.

The Division 1-A desgination came with new scholarship reductions and placement in an exclusive group of 105 programs. Before the MAC in football was more like basketball another mid major conference competing mainly against the mid-majors. In the year the MAC outside of Toledo and CMU moved down to 1AA for 1982 was in the middle of Burke's tenure. The evolution of recruiting in a changing environment then I would say parallels the evolution happening right now around NIL and revenue sharing. My opinion but I like keeping a coach in place during a fluid landscape a little longer until things settle down.

they definetly shouldve kept him for more years. we ended up with cleve bryant as coach and started a bad streak where we had many seasons with only 1-3 wins. its true that prior to grobe and solich we were a losing team. the only good thing about this is we had a paw for a mascot which i thought was way cool.