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Topic: RE: Observations from the Spring "Game"

Topic: RE: Observations from the Spring "Game"

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Campus Flow
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RE: Observations from the Spring "Game"

Posted: 4/9/2015 11:00:49 PM

Bcat2 wrote:

BuddyLee wrote:

Got to agree with Monroe here. We've had great success and more fun compared to the utter crap of the Knorr era, but not compared to the best Mac programs, which is where I would have expected us to be by this point in the Solich tenure. Still need at least one MACC to cement his legacy here.

Soo at this point anything but a MACC is failure? Such expectations must lead to a lot of disappointment.

While its true that we look better this Spring and there is excitement about increased talent at positions to the point where we can seriously think about contending for the MACC again its inexcusable that the team wasn't ready to compete in the MAC last year. We should be in contention for the MAC Championship every season as a given and often winning it. I get tired of all the roster talk and experience tabulation stuff because it doesn't mean anything if Burrow and Albin keep pitching bad games. This staff may win a MACC if it gets 5 more cracks at it but I don't see it capable of winning an access bowl or beyond. At least facilities are becoming more comparable to rank an file ACC or Big Ten programs so we can get more OHIO kids to stay home in the future.

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L.C.
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RE: Observations from the Spring "Game"

Posted: 4/9/2015 11:07:14 PM

Bcat2 wrote:

BuddyLee wrote:

Soo at this point anything but a MACC is failure? Such expectations must lead to a lot of disappointment.

Sadly, a MACC won't satisfy anyone, at least, not for long. When a school wins a national championship, it satisfies their fans...for about a month, but then they want another. Ohio is no longer any different than other places, so the things that are true elsewhere will be true here, too.

Over the years I have supported teams in various sports that were national champions, and teams that were simply really bad, and teams that were OK, but not likely to ever win championships. I've discovered that it's the journey that is fun, not the destination.

Monroe is right about one thing, though. There was one definite and significant change that happened at exactly the point in time that he begins as his time period for the slump. If you go back and browse BA during that time period, which I did this evening, it stands out as clear as day. Prior to that time, the fans on BA were universally supportive of the players, though thick and thin. Even in bad years like 2005 and 2008 the fans were behind the players. Even after all the arrests back in 2006 the fans never deserted the players.

In 2012, however, that changed. After the Miami loss, the fans turned on the players, and bitterly attacked them. I was shocked at the time, and going back and re-reading the threads from that time, I'm still shocked, because it was so different from they 7 years before it. Obviously the players should not be reading BA, and if they do, they should not be influenced by it. We all know, though, that some players do read it, and that players are people, and are affected by what other say about them.

When the fans turned on the players after that Miami loss, there is no doubt that it did affect them, and affect their morale. I think they took it for granted that they would always have fan support, and it took some air out when they found that they no longer did, and the attitude of those particular players was never the same again, and I don't find that surprising.

The good news is that we now have a new group of players. They know they don't have support here, and they take that for granted, and stay far away from BA. They expect people here to behave just like fans of the big football powerhouses. Therefore BA has become irrelevant, and Social media has replaced it. The players can communicate that way, and they can and do just ignore BA. Therefore, I think this group of players will be unaffected, regardless of what goes on here. It's better this way, with them building a web of support that doesn't include BA.

�We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.� ― Epictetus

Campus Flow
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RE: Observations from the Spring "Game"

Posted: 4/9/2015 11:23:49 PM

L.C. wrote:

Bcat2 wrote:

BuddyLee wrote:

Soo at this point anything but a MACC is failure? Such expectations must lead to a lot of disappointment.

L.C. Post of The Year.

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Bcat2
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RE: Observations from the Spring "Game"

Posted: 4/10/2015 6:03:50 AM

L.C. wrote:

Bcat2 wrote:

BuddyLee wrote:

Soo at this point anything but a MACC is failure? Such expectations must lead to a lot of disappointment.

Former players and parents seem to be gone or very reserved too. I get it if their stomachs sour from BA.

"Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men." JFK

L.C.
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RE: Observations from the Spring "Game"

Posted: 4/10/2015 8:47:05 AM

Bcat2 wrote:

Former players and parents seem to be gone or very reserved too. I get it if their stomachs sour from BA.

It's not that BA is different from other sports boards. It is that BA once was different than other boards, but now is more like them. This was a pretty unique place back in 2005-12. It's still a unique place in that you can still have an intelligent discussion here, but no longer in terms of expectations or unconditional support. I credit that unconditional support for the closeness of the players/parents to the fans, and the early success in 2006, but also credit the withdrawal of that unconditional support the some of the shift in player attitudes in 2012.

They say "you can never go home again", and I think that applies here, too. There's now more of a separation between the players/parents and the fans, and I think that's permanent, and normal, and a probably a good thing. Now the chat and the agreements and disagreements can go on here without any effect, either positive or negative.

The other thing is that, when Monroe talks about "the last 29 games", or whatever the current number is, some argue that it's simply a random time period with no significance. I would argue that it is not a random time period at all, and that it is significant, because that time period matches exactly the time period of the shift here, and the new relationship between players and fans.

Last Edited: 4/10/2015 9:05:58 AM by L.C.

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Monroe Slavin
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RE: Observations from the Spring "Game"

Posted: 4/10/2015 10:15:57 AM

I find that repugnant and silly--the thought that fans here turned abhorrent or had any effect on performance. Hey, we'd've been ranked...or at least broken into the top 100--if you BA'ers hadn't turned sour.

Fantasy.

There must be all of 50 or so regulars here. What a huge, demonic throng we are.

If we've become so horrid, I'm surprised the coach and players at UCLA hoops, for example, can even step on the court if they don't make it to the Final Four.

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The Optimist
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RE: Observations from the Spring "Game"

Posted: 4/10/2015 10:27:12 AM

Wasn't someone (...) banned from BA in the early 2000's when player's "effort" levels were called into question?
If that is true, this certainly is a problem that pre-dates 2012.

I've seen crazier things happen.

OhioCatFan
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RE: Observations from the Spring "Game"

Posted: 4/10/2015 10:45:48 AM

Hey, Monroe, we were in the top 25 just before the bottom fell out after the Brain Fart At Miami (BFAM, for those of you scoring at home).
http://www.ohiobobcats.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/10141...

I agree generally with what L.C. says here. I think part of what happened was the huge disappointment that occurred at the point of the BFAM. We were looking for a possible BCS Bowl game. We had beaten Penn State, had a seven game winning streak. The program looked to be on the verge of returning to the glory days of the late 1960s and exceeding the accomplishments of those prior golden years. It all came crashing down so suddenly that it was heart wrenching. In those circumstances it's natural to ask why -- and sometimes that resulted in find scapegoats. Some blamed TT. Others blamed Solich. Others blamed one assistant coach or another. One way, as I recall, even blamed Halloween. It was a pretty ugly scene, in which I must admit that I participated. Then this was immediately followed by the locker-room-revolt season of 2013, which made the on-the-field situation look even more in disarray. Then, this was followed by the rebuilding year of 2014. Some of us fans just couldn't take this all in stride and began lashing out in the most outlandish ways. We didn't make a dispassionate analysis, we ATTACKED whatever we thought was the root cause of the problem. Well, it's clear now that while we we bitching, those in charge of the program were doubling down and doing the hard work to put a better product on the field. I'm very confident we are going to see that product next fall.

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L.C.
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RE: Observations from the Spring "Game"

Posted: 4/10/2015 11:18:18 AM

Monroe Slavin wrote:

I find that repugnant and silly--the thought that fans here turned abhorrent or had any effect on performance. ...

Just when I agree with you, that there might be some significance to your time period, you find the idea repugnant and abhorrent? If your time period is significant, there is no other event that happened at that time that I can think of.

If fans have no impact on player performance, why do fans cheer? Why do teams have cheerleaders? Why do team encourage fans with things like "black out games"? Why do coaches want fans to be loud when they are on defense on third down? For an example closer to home, why did Ohio fall flat against a not very good BG team in 2006, when the fans sat on their hands after a not very flattering article in the Dispatch talking about their arrest situation? Of course fans can have a positive, or negative impact on players.

Monroe Slavin wrote:

...There must be all of 50 or so regulars here. What a huge, demonic throng we are. ...

I agree completely with this part of your post. BA has less impact these days, and I think no one pays much attention to it.

Getting back on track, I'm certainly not saying that the change in BA was the sole cause, just that it was real, and permanent, and that it had an impact at that time. There have been lots of other issues woven in, like the massive injuries in in 2012, and the poor recruiting class in 2010, plus the internal team issues in 2013. These things all had an effect at the same time. Which was a "cause", and which was an "effect"? Or, were they all interrelated?

The Optimist wrote:

Wasn't someone (...) banned from BA in the early 2000's when player's "effort" levels were called into question?
If that is true, this certainly is a problem that pre-dates 2012.

That's certainly possible, and actually consistent with my point, which was that the time period 2005-2012 was not a normal situaion. Can you find me a 7 year period when fans of any team, when on any forum, in any sport, were almost universally supportive, both in victory and defeat?

Last Edited: 4/10/2015 11:20:01 AM by L.C.

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Paul Graham
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RE: Observations from the Spring "Game"

Posted: 4/10/2015 1:08:10 PM

LC, your observations are that of someone that arrived to the dinner party quite late. When you started paying attention (2005) we were at the bottom rung of CFB. Frank's arrival brought hope and every step we took out of the gutter was exciting and rejuvenating.

Before you arrived, Ohio football from 2001-2005 was a disaster and I'm quite sure the tone of BA during that period was not kind to the program. And should it have been? I mean the whole thing was a mess.

The second half of 2012 and all of 2013 were a mess. The play on national television against BG/Buffalo and others was as bad as anything I saw during the Knorr years. And at times, our play last year had a certain Knorr quality to it.

The University and donors have spent lots of money in recent years on the athletic department. In fact, one could argue that no previous Ohio president has invested more into athletics than Rod. With that increased investment and visibility (nationally televised games several times per year) comes increased scrutiny.

A 6-6 team that only beats the worst teams in CFB is not going to cut it any more. In today's awful MAC East, Knorr could have gotten close to that. If Frank wants a program that has no accountability, where he can start walk-ons and get crushed by Central Michigan...he should either take a pay cut or take a job at a lower division school.

L.C.
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RE: Observations from the Spring "Game"

Posted: 4/10/2015 4:55:57 PM

Paul Graham wrote:

LC, your observations are that of someone that arrived to the dinner party quite late.....

I understand that, and I said as much in my post above. Remember, though, that the players on the team were latecomers as well. Seven years of peace is an incredibly long time in the context of sports, and it's not surprising to me if players and parents of players who arrived during that time viewed BA as a "safe" place. During that seven year span it was particularly surprising how BA weathered the down period of 2007-2008, and I have remarked on that multiple times over the years. The point I was making in this thread is that there was a time period where BA was different, and that that period of being different ended suddenly in 2012. I don't think from your post that you disagree with me, nor do you disagree that the current state of BA is "normal", and the other state was unusual.

You do nicely make one of my points above, albeit unintentionally. That is that, contrary to the idea that "if only they win the the MACC there will be happiness", the more the team achieves, the more the fans will expect. When they won the East in 2006, everyone was happy (for a time), but then they expected it again. Then they won it again in 2009 and 2011, now the expectation is for a MACC, and the East should be won frequently. Once upon a time finishing second in the East, one game behind the leader, would not be a bad year, but now it is not acceptable.

I'm not saying that as a bad thing. It is what it is. That is how it is everywhere, not something unique to Ohio. I'm just pointing out the obvious. The more the team achieves, the more will expected. Now the expectation is that they should win the East regularly, sometimes win the MACC, and they should be ranked from time to time. I also agree with you that Coaches understand how the bar continues to be raised, and they accept it when they take their jobs.

Paul Graham wrote:

...If Frank wants a program ... where he can start walk-ons ...

Now you're just being silly. Out of boredom last weekend I watched a game from a couple decades ago, featuring #1 versus #2. In the course of it the announcers commented that one team was starting 4 former walkons, while the other team was starting one of them. Starting bad walkons because there is no one else? Yes, that's bad, but the fact is that even today some very good players slip through the cracks, and end up proving their ability through the path of being a walkon. I'd put Devin Jones and AJ Ouellette in that class, among current players, and there may be some other players on the roster that someday will rise from walkon to starter. In the process, they will have to work their butts off, all the while having to pay tuition. It's a very arduous path for most of them, and I have tremendous respect for them, even for the ones that never play a down.

Honestly, I don't care if a player starts out as a walkon or a scholarship player. If they are good, they belong on the field, and that is true whether you are at the MAC level or at the Top ten level.

�We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.� ― Epictetus

Kevin Finnegan
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RE: Observations from the Spring "Game"

Posted: 4/10/2015 6:11:44 PM

If I remember correctly, Frank mentioned about the team basically giving up in 2013, or just that there were lots of different agendas, or which you could read into that he was feeling he had lost the team.

As a fan, it's hard to cheer for a group that gives up. I may not call them out, but my support certainly wanes. It seemed to happen some this basketball season with a number of the OHIO fans. If the effort isn't there, that's the frustration. It's less the product.

You say it's the journey, not the destination. That I do agree wholeheartedly with. The thing is that from 2005-2010, it felt like we were overperforming. We were getting the most out of everything we had. The first bowl game in Mobile, I made that an appointment to get down there because it felt so special, so awesome, so unexpected. 2006 was something magical, even though I felt like we were overmatched in talent almost every week. Austin and Kalvin made so much happen with so little. Our defense was opportunistic. The wins against Northern Illinois and Illinois were games of passion. They fought for everything. It was a team to love.

I think that unwavering support dilutes your support. If I'm going to love every Bobcats team equally, the team doesn't really have to do anything other than win to appease me. But as a fan of sports, I like to cheer for the team, what they represent. I think Wisconsin fans probably felt a closer connection to the TEAM that took the court on Monday than the Duke fans did to theirs due to the relationships they'd felt to the players on the court over an extended time. I loved cheering for that 2006 football team. I loved cheering for the 2012 basketball team. They fought through every game, especially late in the year. I'm a fan of teams first, but then the players. It's impossible for me to separate.

Ohio69
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RE: Observations from the Spring "Game"

Posted: 4/10/2015 7:11:30 PM

I tend to agree with L.C. on this one. Is everything he said spot on perfect? No. But, fans do impact players. This place is part of the atmosphere/culture that the players exist in. And, when this place is overly negative, that impacts the overall atmosphere/culture.

That said, winning cures almost everything....

Can somebody hit a pull up jumper for me?.....

BuddyLee
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RE: Observations from the Spring "Game"

Posted: 4/10/2015 8:44:45 PM

Blaming BA seems like a real stretch. I doubt the players or coaches are thinking about us during practice or games.

Injuries > Poor QB play > a few mediocre recruiting classes > unimaginative play calling > bobcatattack posters

Monroe Slavin
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RE: Observations from the Spring "Game"

Posted: 4/11/2015 1:23:32 AM

Paul Graham wrote:

The second half of 2012 and all of 2013 were a mess. The play on national television against BG/Buffalo and others was as bad as anything I saw during the Knorr years. And at times, our play last year had a certain Knorr quality to it.

A 6-6 team that only beats the worst teams in CFB is not going to cut it any more. In today's awful MAC East, Knorr could have gotten close to that.

Any thought that people on this board had any impact on performance--good or bad--is silly.

'Oh, the small handful of people who actually post on BA wrote something not nice about us. Just makes me feel like not playing well.'

Sure.

If that is so, then problems are a lot bigger than anything appearing here.

Win a freaking MAC Championship. That is a reasonable request. It is not asking us to go undefeated or to be ranked very, very high, or to have All-American talent, etc. It's just asking us to once win the title of a pretty weak league.

And speculation that winning one will not satisfy, will only lead to pressure, greater expectations--disagree with that bigtime also.

L.C.
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RE: Observations from the Spring "Game"

Posted: 4/11/2015 8:29:08 AM

BuddyLee wrote:

Obviously there are lots of related factors. The team that Ohio had pre-season in 2012 was the best one yet under Solich, and the players and fans had high expectations. That team looked pretty good against Penn State, but then the player losses began to mount. Even by the Marshall game they were still pretty good. With, I think, 19 players lost for the season to injury by the UMass game, depth became a factor, and the recruiting issues in 2010 made it worse. The team still played with pride, though, and managed pull out close, hard fought wins against UMass, Buffalo, and Akron, and nearly pulled out one against Miami.

The team that won those games during that stretch was in a lot of ways similar to the 2006 team. Thanks to injuries depleting them, they couldn't win on talent, and had to win on heart, and each game was a war. The fans, however, reacted much differently to the 2012 team than they did to the 2006 team. Why? Probably due to the preseason expectations, expectations that were in fact for an entirely different group of players than the ones playing.

What keeps a battling team battling? What powers their psyche from week to week? What things can wound that psyche? Remember, these are not machines. They are not professional athletes. These are simply real, live, young men, mostly teenagers, people with feelings and emotions. The fans can and do affect them. Fans can encourage a player to keep going, when the tank is starting to run dry. I'm not saying something now that I didn't say at the time. I think I have a pretty good sense for how people are feeling, emotionally, and it was my opinion at the time that the team was balanced on a precarious emotional edge. I believe that this is the only thread of it's kind that I have ever posted:
http://tinyurl.com/nezkj79

Did the fans rally to support them? They did get a few threads like this:
http://tinyurl.com/olalbbc
But they also got (and I suspect they got the same reaction in real life from people them met on campus - it isn't just a BA thing):
http://tinyurl.com/p4crqlr
http://tinyurl.com/p45l7mq
http://tinyurl.com/p39fblq

And then, when they pounded EMU 45-14 the following week, did the fans get back behind them? Or did they blast them again?
http://tinyurl.com/l4yypn3

I think we all agree that the team emotionally ran dry at that point, and was not the same for the final three games of 2012. What caused that team to emotionally run dry at that point? What kept the 2006 team going? Partly, no doubt, it is the players involved. As for the rest, there are always going to be points we don't agree on, and this one is one. It was my opinion at the time, and it will remain my opinion, that if the fans had supported the 2012 team the way that they supported the 2006 team, the season would have ended differently. They might or might not have won more games, as their talent was severely depleted from the injuries, but I believe that the games would have had a different atmosphere to them.

In any case, this is water under the bridge. Those seven years were a special period, and no longer apply. This board is now like other boards, and the parents and players don't get involved here anymore. They use social media instead.

Last Edited: 4/11/2015 2:46:48 PM by L.C.

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colobobcat66
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RE: Observations from the Spring "Game"

Posted: 4/11/2015 7:53:49 PM

L.C. wrote:

BuddyLee wrote:

You may be onto something, but I can read another explanation between the lines in what you outline here. I think the large number of injuries caught up to the team. They lost the game to Miami before any of the negativity on this board materialized so you can hardly blame that loss on what anybody said on this board. Frankly, I have have seen other teams pretty much hang it up when they lose their first game after a run of winning. The Miami loss and the mounting injuries combined to burst their bubble and they were unable to get back to the level of confidence that they had before.

It's funny that there is no one on this board that knew team members to perhaps get to the bottom of the collapse. we're just speculating when the facts are out there someplace.

Last Edited: 4/11/2015 7:56:03 PM by colobobcat66

Bcat2
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RE: Observations from the Spring "Game"

Posted: 4/11/2015 8:12:42 PM

colobobcat66 wrote:

L.C. wrote:

BuddyLee wrote:

Something I have seen is that losses are "totally" the fault of the Ohio coaches/players. There never seems to be the slightest credit to the opponent for their effort. No matter the level of the opponent Ohio should have won and won big. Am I making this up?

"Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men." JFK

Mike Johnson
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RE: Observations from the Spring "Game"

Posted: 4/11/2015 9:01:46 PM

Bcat2 wrote:

colobobcat66 wrote:

L.C. wrote:

BuddyLee wrote:

Of course not, but then what you have observed is unambiguous fact. :-)

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Bcat2
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RE: Observations from the Spring "Game"

Posted: 4/12/2015 12:15:02 AM

Mike Johnson wrote:

Bcat2 wrote:

colobobcat66 wrote:

L.C. wrote:

BuddyLee wrote:

Of course not, but then what you have observed is unambiguous fact. :-)

Thanks, for a while I thought I might be imagining things, now I can be satisfied I am a presenter of "unambiguous fact."

Last Edited: 4/12/2015 11:52:28 AM by Bcat2

"Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men." JFK

Campus Flow
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RE: Observations from the Spring "Game"

Posted: 4/12/2015 12:27:44 AM

Monroe Slavin wrote:

Win a freaking MAC Championship. That is a reasonable request. It is not asking us to go undefeated or to be ranked very, very high, or to have All-American talent, etc. It's just asking us to once win the title of a pretty weak league.

And speculation that winning one will not satisfy, will only lead to pressure, greater expectations--disagree with that bigtime also.

A MAC Championship is the first step to a National Championship.

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2010 97-83 win over Georgetown in NCAA 1st round
2012 45-13 victory over ULM in the Independence Bowl
2015 34-3 drubbing of Miami @ Peden front of 25,086

Campus Flow
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RE: Observations from the Spring "Game"

Posted: 4/12/2015 12:41:07 AM

colobobcat66 wrote:

[QUOTE=L.C.]
You may be onto something, but I can read another explanation between the lines in what you outline here. I think the large number of injuries caught up to the team. They lost the game to Miami before any of the negativity on this board materialized so you can hardly blame that loss on what anybody said on this board. Frankly, I have have seen other teams pretty much hang it up when they lose their first game after a run of winning. The Miami loss and the mounting injuries combined to burst their bubble and they were unable to get back to the level of confidence that they had before.

It's funny that there is no one on this board that knew team members to perhaps get to the bottom of the collapse. we're just speculating when the facts are out there someplace.

Jordan Thompson going down with career ending injury on homecoming was the beginning of the slide. I always remember Ted Thompson saying he was pissed when that happened and he was right. From there on out Ohio could only beat schools it was over matched with on the field talent-wise. For whatever reason the program lost something when that happened.

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2010 97-83 win over Georgetown in NCAA 1st round
2012 45-13 victory over ULM in the Independence Bowl
2015 34-3 drubbing of Miami @ Peden front of 25,086

Monroe Slavin
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RE: Observations from the Spring "Game"

Posted: 4/12/2015 1:25:26 AM

Considering that we haven't beaten a MAC team with a winning record (for the season) in almost 2.5 years, then if we credit the other team for being better than us...then maybe we are not so good--especially given the generally low caliber of ball in the MAC...then maybe the so many here who think the program is just in fine shape ought to re-consider that opinion.

The ultimate fact: 10 years and no MACC.

I'd love to have to change that tune at the end of next season.

Campus Flow
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Member Since: 12/20/2004
Location: Alexandria, VA
Post Count: 4,952

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RE: Observations from the Spring "Game"

Posted: 4/12/2015 1:26:50 AM

finnOhio wrote:

You say it's the journey, not the destination. That I do agree wholeheartedly with. The thing is that from 2005-2010, it felt like we were overperforming. We were getting the most out of everything we had. The first bowl game in Mobile, I made that an appointment to get down there because it felt so special, so awesome, so unexpected. 2006 was something magical, even though I felt like we were overmatched in talent almost every week. Austin and Kalvin made so much happen with so little. Our defense was opportunistic. The wins against Northern Illinois and Illinois were games of passion. They fought for everything. It was a team to love.

That Pitt win in 2005 a miracle with Brian Knorr's recruits. 2006 was an over performance all the way with great senior leadership. The team had to run through brick walls for Frank to obtain those achievements. There was a big change in 2007-2008. The records were not good in those seasons but the losses we did have were close. For the first time Ohio was running a conventional offense that could challenge a MAC defense with athletes. Ohio suddenly started cranking out quality WRs in mass quantity. Receivers that could catch balls in traffic and YAC. The kind of receivers you would see on national TV on Saturday that Ohio could only dream about having before. By 2009-2010 Ohio had more talent than most MAC teams and was legit MAC Championship contender. The second MAC title game against CMU was more closely fought than the first back in 2006 where it was almost a foregone conclusion that it would go down as a loss. The program has slipped for the last couple of years and L.C. says its partially the fault of the 2010 recruiting class being a bust. Ohio finished November decently in 2014 with Buffalo and Miami wins and only a 7 point loss to MAC Champ NIU. 2015 Spring camp picked up where 2014 November left off so it looks like the team may be back to title contender form.

Most Memorable Bobcat Events Attended
2010 97-83 win over Georgetown in NCAA 1st round
2012 45-13 victory over ULM in the Independence Bowl
2015 34-3 drubbing of Miami @ Peden front of 25,086

Paul Graham
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Member Since: 1/18/2005
Location: The Plains, OH
Post Count: 1,424

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RE: Observations from the Spring "Game"

Posted: 4/12/2015 2:12:00 PM

Some random thoughts

1.) The myth of the 2012 team. Even BEFORE Thompson went down something was off. They almost lost to a terrible UMass team on the road the week before. And, they were in a fight for their life against Buffalo (a 4-8 team) even before Thompson went down. They were a paper tiger...sorry folks. They never had a chance to win the MAC that year. Injuries were probably responsible for the major butt kicking at BSU...but did not prevent a MAC title.

2.) Why do we complain? 0-10 against top tier MAC teams since Lavon left, with an average loss of 20+ points. That is odd and new, and worth understanding.

3.) The Frankites now want us to keep our opinions to ourselves. That is silly. For some of us, this is one of the only ways we can talk about Ohio Football. Some of us follow this team closer than any other (I follow no other sport and no other team) and have no other outlet for expressing our opinions.

For example, when all the backup linebackers appear to be ex-walkons I'm going to mention that because that is weird. For those of you living in a reality where that is not weird...I don't know what to say.

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