Frank Solich, as I’ve joked on the BetFirm blog in the past, has been coaching Ohio for 100 seasons. Levity aside, the fine old coach has now marked his 100th win as head skipper of the Bobcats.
We usually do not quote other blogs in introductions, but this news is cause for celebration. Listen to the high praise for Solich in Hustle Belt following the school’s historic win over Kent State:
A telling stat is that it is very easy to see when Frank Solich started coaching the Bobcats. You just look at the overall record each season over the past 40ish years. Wade through a bunch of suck, look for one bad year followed by mostly success and voila! Since landing at the Bobcats in 2005, he has turned the Bobcats into a bit of a football school.
In 9 of his 13 full seasons in Athens, his team has made it to a bowl game. His teams can claim a division championship or tie in 4 of those seasons. For a team that last won the MAC in 1968, that is quite impressive. That long streak of winning has produced a record of 100-73….In the 36 years between the last Ohio MAC championship and Coach Solich arriving on campus, the Bobcats managed to win 35.5% of their games. 136-250-8.
Yep. That’s the good news.
Now for the bad – victory #101 might be just a teeny tiny bit harder to get, and that’s saying a lot considering what just happened against the Golden Flashes.
4 words: Road trip. Northern Illinois. College football betting boards show enduring respect for the Huskies – MUSH! – despite some episodes so far in ’18.
Who: Ohio Bobcats at Northern Illinois Huskies
When: Saturday, October 13th, 3:30 PM EST
Where: Huskie Stadium, DeKalb, IL
Lines: Ohio (+4) at NIU (-4) / O/U Total: (53)
Ohio (3-2)(1-0) enters this weekend fresh off of a much-needed, 27-26 comeback win on the road at Kent State. It could have been a tough pill to swallow for the annual MAC contenders had things gone another way.
Solich is hoping that this is the week he can get out ahead of a team and pressure a QB, giving the match-up against an NIU offense which is struggling mightily.
Ohio has not played a balanced brand of football, but has beaten the teams it is supposed to so far. A lot of the credit should go to junior dual-threat QB Nathan Rourke, who is completing nearly 60 percent of his passes while running for nearly 8 yards per carry. Also keep an eye on undersized wide-out Papi White, who is elusive in open field and another proven play-maker on the Ohio offense.
There’s only one problem. Ohio can’t stop any worthwhile offense that doesn’t stop itself, and it could be getting worse. The school’s defensive stats per-play are terrible, and UMass scored 42 points on the Bobcats. It’s not characteristic of a Solich team.
I have a fear that my favorite old coaches will all go the way Tom Landry or Eddie Robinson did, respected as a figurehead and a relic while in charge of a losing team. If that isn’t going to happen to Frank Solich, the first thing he’s got to do is get the program back to a decent level on defense.
It may not be a clash of styles, but it’s a clash of give and take. NIU is as hapless on offense as Ohio is on defense, but both teams are just too proud to stop winning.
Northern Illinois returns home at (3-3) after 3 straight road games, including back-to-back conference wins to move them to (3-0) in conference play.
Sophomore QB Marcus Childers has really struggled to this point in the season with a QBR of just 102. Childers will need some help from fellow Sophomore RB Tre Harbison, who played a vital role of the Huskies’ win over Central Michigan earlier in the year.
Some felt that Rod Carey’s team was only struggling to score in non-conference play thanks to the competition, which included big, fast P5 defenses like Florida State. But it turned out that those woeful performances early in the year were just foreshadowing of what we have seen in conference play.
Never fear. The Huskies have a future NFL linebacker in Sutton Smith leading a defense that has no real holes. Smith has been a disruptive force, averaging almost 2 tackles-for-loss a game.
How do you handicap a battle of offense vs defense? Well, we can look to see which of the 2 struggling units is ready to break out.
Ohio’s problems on defense are a result of recruiting issues that are keeping the team’s overall athleticism at a MAC-level. Northern Illinois sports a little more speed and strength in places, but more importantly is showing life in the run game behind a versatile OL and tailback Marcus Jones, who ran for 130 yards against Ball State.
Look for NIU to keep slowly, surely developing an offense while Ohio remains a high-scoring sieve. The over (53) works as well as the Huskies to cover (-4).