Some on here claim that the last two recruiting classes have been the best of the Solich era.

Others claim that during the same time period, there's been a downgrade in quality of recruiting.

Can't both be correct. Which is correct and why?

That's an interesting question, Jeff. It's hard to use recruiting ratings over time because so many recruits don't ever really get evaluated, and because of things like inflation. Another way to look at things is based on the number of other FBS offers that the recruits had (keeping in mind that each recruiting class has the most impact 4-5 years later, when they are Juniors and Seniors):

2005 (Jrs/Srs in 2008-2009) - 0.40 (25 freshmen)
2006 (Jrs/Srs in 2009-2010) - 0.93 (15)
2007 (Jrs/Srs in 2010-2011) - 0.84 (19)
2008 (Jrs/Srs in 2011-2012) - 2.00 (15)
2009 (Jrs/Srs in 2012-2013) - 1.24 (17)
2010 (Jrs/Srs in 2013-2014) - 1.08 (12)
2011 (Jrs/Srs in 2014-2015) - 2.50 (22)
2012 (Jrs/Srs in 2015-2016) - 2.71 (14)
2013 (Jrs/Srs in 2016-2017) - 2.28 (18)
2014 (Jrs/Srs in 2017-2018) - 2.28 (18)
2015 (Jrs/Srs in 2018-2019) - 3.46 (13 so far)

By this measure, the 2008 class and 2011-2015 classes were all better than the others.

Another measure would be the number of players that were playing significant roles early in their career (by their second year):
2005 - 24% 6/25 (Stuck, Morsillo, Parson, Mitchell, Hartke, J. Meyers)
2006 - 33% 5/15 (Price, McCrae, Garrett, S. Jackson, Luchsinger)
2007 - 26% 5/19 (Davidson, Brazill, Dunlop, Keller, C. Meyers)
2008 - 67% 10/15 (Carlotta, Herman, Thompson, Bussey, Moore, Payne, Lewis, Huynh, Weller, Carrie)
2009 - 24% 4/17 (McGrath, Lechner, Woseley, Jones)
2010 - 33% 4/12 (Foster, Carpenter, Kristoff, Ingol)
2011 - 41% 9/22 (Fisher, Bass, Wells, Russell, Crutcher, Purdum, J. Johnson, L.Smith, Roback)
2012 - 57% 8/14 (Gibbons, Watson, Patterson, Reid, T. Davis, W. Johnson, Laseak, B. Brown)
2013 - 56% 10/18 (Mangen, Morgan, Cope, S. Smith, Quallen, Poling, Alexander, Basham, Sayles, Wood) plus Smart and Porter have played in 4/7 games
2014 - >53% 10/19 (Lowerey, Langenkamp, Pruehs, McCray,OUellette, Brunis, Walker, White, Brunson, Nelson) plus more by next year, I would guess

Interesting. This comes out the same, which I didn't expect. By this measure, 2008 was the best class, but 2012-2014 have all been very good, and 2014 may be even better than 2008.

Now, let's look at performance of the classes. The 2008 class would have mostly affected 2011-2012, and 2011 was a very good year, and 2012 should have been except for the incredible number of injuries). The weaker 2009-11 classes foretold the dip in 2013-14, and the stronger 2012-2014 classes will mostly affect 2015-2017 which should be strong years.

I did the same kind of analysis from a different perspective previously, which was how I came to predict that 2014 would be weak year, followed by stronger years in 2015-16. From the above, I think 2017 will be strong as well. Futhermore the close match between the second method and the first makes me think that 2015 will turn out to be a good class, too.

Given the timing of the jump, I'd say that there are a couple possible explanations that I can think of. One is that it is related to the IPF, and the other is that it is related to Haines. To me, recruiting quality has risen every year since 2011, and then in 2013 we saw a big shift to early verbals, and to recruits from in-state. In 2014 that trend continued.

Haines theory:
Haines took over recruiting sometime in early 2010. His first recruiting class was the 2011 class. It wouldn't be surprising if the longer he was in his job, the better he got better at identifying quality recruits, the more ties he has built up to high school coaches, and also the better he is at getting the players to commit, especially if he likes recruiting. That would explain steadily increasing quality, and steadily increasing local connections to recruits.

IPF theory:
The major contribution to fund the IPF was announced on Dec. 17th, 2010, too late to affect the 2010 class, but it would have probably started to affect the 2011 class, even though the IPF was a ways off. Slowly since then the design was refined, and construction was originally scheduled for November 2012, but delayed into the summer of 2013, with completion in early 2014. Certainly the IPF would have affected the 2013 class, since the plan was finalized, and the 2014 class, since construction was underway.

Either of these would explain the improvement. It could also be a combination of the two. Given the announcement of the new Academic Center, perhaps we'll see the quality of recruiting rise again next year.

I have mixed emotions about that. Recruiting Ohio players does build additional support for the program. For example, Ohio now has a cluster of support in Covington. If garnering more statewide support is part of the goal, recruiting from Ohio does help that.

I think the reason why Ohio recruited so much out of state in the early years is that Ohio was at the bottom of the ladder in those days. The only recruits from Ohio that Ohio was able to get were ones that had no other offers. Today that is no longer true. If Ohio and two other MAC programs offer a player, that player most likely will choose Ohio (if he chooses a MAC program).

If you look at the players from Ohio that Ohio made offers to, most of them that did not choose Ohio went to P5 schools, not another MAC school. As a result, I think that Ohio is getting a better quality of Ohio recruit than Ohio was getting even as recently as a few years ago.

Like you, I hope they keep getting some quality recruits from out of the state, but I don't mind seeing the class coming predominantly from Ohio.