Source: Northern Illinois' Rod Carey likely front-runner for Temple coaching job

Looking at EMU Coach too: https://www.hustlebelt.com/2019/1/10/18176854/eastern-mic...

This is an interesting read on MAC coach hirings/firings: https://medium.com/fosat/mac-football-coach-changes-rod-c...

My friend ... I'm not really sure how much clearer I can be ...

I AM NOT SAYING OHIO SHOULD FIRE FRANK SOLICH.

PERIOD.

My point is:

A) I'm not sure this staff will ever deliver a MACC. It's been 14 years. We all know the numbers

B) Frank is 74 ... they're going to have replace him at some point when he retires in the next 2-3 years I'm guessing.

Thought this was interesting in The Medium article ...

"Bottom line: replacing championship level coaches is really damn hard, and mostly everyone sucks at it.

Now for the sunnier picture. If a program is already consistently dominant, its floor tends to be a lot higher. So even if there’s a noticeable decrease in overall quality, the results are still pretty damn good. This is the Rod Carey Problem."

Well, by definition Solich isn't a championship level coach. BUT ... he's built a pretty strong program. I hesitate to say consistent dominant because of the lack of titles ... but my point is, he's built a very strong foundation that should be able to handle a transition to a new coach and not bottom out like weaker programs in the league like Kent or Akron.

Ohio is consistently good ... and that's because of Frank.

It won't be a Knorr/Grobe thing. Grobe had a couple good years, but wasn't here long enough to really build a strong program.

Frank has ... and if Ohio hires correctly, whoever they hand the keys to should be able to keep the ship afloat and even build off that strong foundation.

From the article,

"The Good Football Coach is Gone. What’s Next?
Intuition tells us that things are obviously going to get worse when a good football coach leaves. This is largely correct, but it’s a mixed bag.

First, the bad news. Of the 13 coaching changes identified, seven resulted in a program in recession within three seasons. For all programs that ended up in recession eventually, it took about 3.1 seasons to get there on average."

"Unfortunately, even if the first season of a new coach is better than average, doom is still lurking."

"Bottom line: replacing championship level coaches is really damn hard, and mostly everyone sucks at it."

"14 coaches were fired or retired in the MAC since 2005. Eight of their replacements went on to win division titles and three won MAC titles. For those seven it took an average of 3.6 years to do it. This makes sense for the same reason it takes about three years to destroy a program — the first recruits are contributing significantly at that point."

I appreciate the response and the healthy debate my friend!!

Let's hope so, but in time we will find out. Here are a couple quotes from the article that pertain to that question:
"If a program is already consistently dominant, its floor tends to be a lot higher. So even if there’s a noticeable decrease in overall quality, the results are still pretty damn good."

"While in-house hires usually mean you’re sacrificing the opportunity to get a program transcending rising-star in favor of someone who actually wants to stay at your program, it seems to work for the dominant teams of the last decade and a half in the MAC. Basically, if you have a culture or formula you like and it seems to work, it’s probably a good idea to keep it."
And this quote is no doubt an anathema to Ohio fans because of the Knorr hire. I would maintain that it really doesn't apply to Knorr, however. Knorr did not take over the existing staff, and maintain the culture or formula. He was a member of the former staff, left behind to start things from scratch, as everyone else moved on.

Or bcat2 could just cough up some cash ... and we could freeze Frank so he'll be coach forever.

Hell! He could probably coach bcat2's beloved Nebraska Cornhuskers too if frozen!

Frank got wrongfully let go at Nebraska .... get over bcat2. It's been nearly 15 years. Huskers got a good guy in there now with Osborne/Solich blood. I think he'll be fine. But if you're expecting NU to become a dominant Ohio St power in B1G ... you're pretty delusional. This isn't 1999 anymore. Nebraska is at best a tier 2 B1G team like Wisconsin.

And if you read on instead of cherry picking the bad parts ... it also says programs that have been consistently dominant have had success with new hires.

Does Ohio not have a consistently good program (not dominant based on no titles)? Has Frank not accomplished that? Again ... seems that ideology goes against your pro-Frank agenda? No?

The idea that the program will automatically fold up and go 2-10 is silly. I think most here would agree.

Between the schedule Ohio typically plays and how weak the MAC East is, I think 5-7 would be the floor.

.... not to mention Ohio doesn't have a championship level coach now. Sorry. Frank has been beyond successful at Ohio, but there's still a big goose egg in that column

As I recall, Nebraska was also bragging about the superiority of their weight training program at the same time that the rest of the football community had discovered the concept that "speed kills."

I think it's incredibly hard to make an apples to apples comparison to college football programs in 1950s to 2010s.

And yet, the more things change, in some ways they remain the same. When the program is dominant, it means they have good players, and that means that the successor is going to come in, and should win some games. The more dominant the team is, the better the players, and the better the success of the following coach should be. But, over the course of a few years, those players leave, and the new coach recruits players to replace them. That's where things diverge, and can take different courses. Note, that it isn't always true. Knorr inherited good players, and had a bad first year.

Note that the above is similar to the findings in that article, where programs tended to reach peaks or valleys 3-4 years after new hires.

There's so much more than good players that go into a successful college football program in 2019 compared to 1950s.

Find me a dominant program that hasn't invested in facilities, has a administration that supports them, national TV exposure, etc.

I'm not sure those things mattered as much in 1950. Recruiting wasn't nearly the same.

The game has changed. I don't think you can compare the Don Peden era to the Frank Solich era no more than you can draw comparisons from the Vince Lombardi era to the Bill Belichick era.