"This class will be rated low" Probably, but, by the same people who had no clue about LaVon, Travis Carrie, Khalil Mack or that #1 pick Erik Fisher or that Heisman finalist Jordan Lynch, so that means squat to me. You say "the coaches have to start winning in the living room." Your implication is that they are not. Recent classes are being settled earlier and earlier which is a clear indication that they are winning in the living room and getting players they, not necessarily the services, have highly rated. This season Ohio's LBs Johnson, Poling and Brown were all like that. But, if you really have to have stars and offers check out Lowery and McCray. This class has plenty of players who chose Ohio over Toledo, Bowling Green, Western Michigan and the rest. Will Evans' video is one you need to watch. Not sure why you seem to finish almost every post with a dig of some kind. Your cherry on top I guess.

We need to win in the living room, period.

It used to be that Ohio rarely was able to recruit a kid that had another MAC offer, and they had to rely on identifying kids with talent that had been overlooked. These days they win more than they lose. I think they just need to keep setting higher and higher targets for what they are after.

Get back to you on Wednesday about this.

I'd say I agree with you both. The recruiting now is way better than it used to be; that certainly is undeniable. But there are other MAC teams that seem to win more head-to-head battles against Ohio and definitely others that are able to convince a few more guys to pass on lower-level "power conference" offers. Ohio has been above average at identifying under-the-radar guys, which is important too, but if Ohio can keep doing that, plus throw in some guys who are more highly rated to begin with, that would really be a great combination. I think it would add to the roster's depth, which would be a big boost.

Or maybe we need to win in the driveway: http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/14672796/n...

So, in a sense, Solich has won a MACC.

Doubt it. I think he saw the type of offense and qb that BG had and saw bigger numbers there. We don't emote that type of excitement to skill players.

No one said that they couldn't post negative stuff. I won't even venture into the realm of the question of whether it would be a good thing to have taken him or not; some people may believe that it's just as well he didn't come. My only comment was that it wouldn't be right for the specific people who said that they didn't want him to come back later and complain because Ohio didn't get him. If one's principles are that people accused of rape are not welcome, then those principles should be unaffected by how good or not good a player is.

Getting back on track, in recent years Ohio has won about 75% of recruiting battles against other MAC schools. I kind of expect similar results this year, when all is said and done. If they want to raise the quality of the class, winning more will help a little, but raising standards is the real answer.

I can't find my numbers for last year, so I may have to make them again. Here are the numbers from 2013 and 2014:

2013:
v. Toledo 3-2
v. Akron 3-0
v. Ball St 4-0
V. Kent 1-0
v. WMU 3-0
v. Miami 1-1
v. Buffalo 0-1
v. CMU 2-0
v. EMU 0-1
Total 17-5 77%

2014:
v. Akron 5-0
v. Buffalo 3-0
v. EMU 2-0
v. Ball St 2-0
v. Kent 6-1
v. WMU 4-1
v. Toledo 4-3
v. Miami 1-1
v. BG 4-5
Total 31-11 74%

Note - these numbers include only players that actually chose one school or the other. If, for example, a player had an offer from Ohio and and offer from Toledo, but chose to go to Illinois, it would count as neither a win or loss.

As a comparison that shows that Ohio is making progress, I also found these old numbers for 2009:
v. Ball St 0-3
v. Toledo 0-3
v. Miami 2-5
v. BG 1-3
v. Akron 1-2
v. WMU 0-2
v. NIU 0-1
v. CMU 0-1
v. Kent 0-1
v. Temple 0-1
V. Buffalo 3-0
v. EMU 4-0
Total 11-22 33%

I can't find numbers for 2006-7, but I'm sure they were worse than these. On the win side there were none in 2005, 7 in 2006, 10 in 2007, and 15 in 2008, and 7 in 2010, but I have no record of the losses.

To show how the math works, suppose you have 4 teams and 4 players, and each team offers each player. If each team gets one player, they each beat 3 teams on that one player, and lost to three teams on the other three players. Thus they are each at 50%. Thus 50% doesn't mean you get half the players. It means you get the same share as if choices were random.

If one team gets 2 of the 4 players, they beat 6 teams (3 on each player), and lost to 2, so they are at 75%, so 75% doesn't mean they get 75% of the players, but it does mean that they get about twice their share if choices were random.

Maybe....But this doesn't tell us how much either school (Ohio or other offering school) wanted a guy. Also doesn't do much to tell us the quality of the guys that a school did get.

It's mildly amusing but more getting caught up in stuff that doesn't matter.

What matters is MACC and wins against the teams who are not gimmes.

Interesting, these geniuses give minimum scores of .70 to Wells, Basham, Johnson, Powell, McQueen, Lucas and had no rating for Provitt, Ouelette or Blair Brown. Tell me why they have more credibility than Ohio's coaches?