Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Heck with this thread ( nothing personal Medina).

Bad Karma.

If we’re doing the upset thread this year I’m picking them to lose their first game. Thursday night, on the road in a hostile environment against Minnesota, who has been planning this game for months, with a quarterback who has never completed a single pass in a college football game.

There's NO WAY Minnesota beats OSU!

(That should do the trick...)

all comes down to coaching. Ohio State has been on a serious run of excellence in coaching hires.

Woody Hayes (HOF, all-timer coach) to Earle Bruce (81-26-1 in 9 years - 75% win pct) to John Cooper (couldn't beat MI, but he was 111-43-1 at OSU- 72% winning pct % ain't terrible) to Jim Tressel (83% win pct%, 1 NC, 3 NC appearances, dominated Michigan) to Urban Meyer (one of the GOAT football coaches- 90% win pct% & 1 NC at OSU) to a young up and coming hot-shot Ryan Day (92% win pct%-).

Ohio State has knocked it out of the park with it's coaching hires. Even their two "bad coaches" Bruce & Cooper won 75% & 72% of their games while at OSU. There isn't another school that even comes close to that kind of consistency and track record in hiring football coaches.

Meanwhile Michigan's last 3 coaches?

RichRod - 40% win pct. OUCH.
Hokie - 60% win pct.
Harbaugh - 69% win pct.

Harbaugh isn't even winning at the same clip as the coaches OSU fired for not winning enough. Crazy.

I mostly agree but not completely.  

Coaching is definitely important but there are limits.  I think Wisconsin has had just about as good of coaching as they possibly could have hoped for from Alvarez-present and they've been very good but not "tOSU good".  Personally, I don't think that is because Alvarez wasn't as good as Cooper/Tressel/Meyer/Day.  I think Alvarez was much better than Cooper and at least in the same ballpark as Tressel but Wisconsin's underlying situation simply isn't as good as Ohio State's.  Great coaches at tOSU win NC's.  Great coaches at UW win league titles . . . unless Ohio State, Michigan, or Penn State has a great coach at the same time in which case they mostly finish second.  

You listed Ohio State's last five coaches and they all have winning percentages north of 72% then attributed that to Ohio State just basically being REALLY lucky in their last five coaching hires.  I'm not so sure.  They definitely did REALLY well with Hayes, Tressel, and Meyer but did they really hit five straight homeruns or is Ohio State's underlying situation a big factor here?  

Personally, I think that Ohio State's underlying situation is a big factor.  As of 2020 here are the States that the most NFL players graduated from HS in and the P5 schools in those states:

• 194 Florida - UF, FSU, Miami:  65 per P5 school
• 192 Texas - Texas, aTm, TxTech, TCU, Baylor:  38 per P5 school
• 170 California - USC, UCLA, Cal, Stanford:  43 per P5 school
• 134 Georgia - UGA, GaTech:  67 per P5 school
• 71 Ohio - tOSU:  71 per P5 school
• 60 Alabama - Bama, Auburn:  30 per P5 school
• 60 Pennsylvania - PSU, Pitt:  30 per P5 school
• 59 Louisiana - LSU:  59 per P5 school
• 59 North Carolina - UNC, Dook, Wake, NCST:  15 per P5 school
• 57 New Jersey - Rutgers:  57 per P5 school

Resorted by most NFL players per P5 school in the state:

• 71 Ohio
• 67 Georgia
• 65 Florida
• 59 Louisiana
• 57 New Jersey
• 43 California
• 38 Texas
• 30 Alabama
• 30 Pennsylvania
• 15 North Carolina

Now I'm not saying that Ohio State is in absolutely and indisputably the best possible situation.  Alabama, for example, has the advantage of being solid at home and adjacent to or near other top talent states Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas.  

That said, Ohio State's underlying situation is REALLY good.  Ohio State is the unquestionable #1 football program in a state with a LOT of talent.  In that regard, Ohio State is unique.  Other schools such as LSU are the unquestionable #1 football program in their states but their states have less talent.  Other schools such as UF/FSU/Miami have more talent in their states but they have more in-state competition for that talent.  

I think that creates a REALLY solid underlying situation for Ohio State.  Any reasonably competent recruiter in Columbus is going to get the bulk of Ohio's talent and any reasonably competent coach with that talent is going to win at least around 70% of their games (long term, not necessarily every year).  

My thinking is that it generally takes a great coach to win NC's or go say .800+ at Ohio State but any reasonably competent coach will end up around .700 because the underlying situation is just THAT good.  

One note, Alabama:
Right now the Tide are OBVIOUSLY #1 in the state of Alabama but that can and has changed.  When they have mediocre coaches, Auburn is able to challenge that.  That is a threat that Ohio State simply doesn't face.  Even when Ohio State has mediocre coaches there still isn't another school that can seriously challenge Ohio State's in-state supremacy.  

like this...........

In six seasons, Solich led the Huskers to a 58-19 record (.753 winning percentage)

You know you’re tempting the ECFG (evil capricious football gods) with this post right? 

There isn’t anything special that makes tOSU incapable of hiring a doofus head coach. The top and best helmet teams in the land have all done it. You’ve just really IMO been extremely lucky.

At some point it becomes difficult to attribute something to luck.  If a guy flips a coin twice and gets two heads, that is probably just luck but if he flips it 10 times and gets 10 heads then something is going on beyond luck.  I think the same here.  I do agree that Ohio State has been lucky at least with Hayes, Tressel, and Meyer (Day is TBD) but I think Cooper and Bruce were basically "ordinary" coaches who demonstrate that Ohio State's underlying situation is REALLY good.  

I totally agree with you about Ohio St situation being really good and somewhat unique.  One question I have is why does Ohio produce so much talent relative to their population?  

All that being said it only takes one bad coach to spin things out of control.  A couple of sub-par years, lose a few key recruits, a coaching change where the new guy has to start over.  tOSU is not immune like you think.  Luck has definitely played a part, and using NFL talent stats is not necessarily the end all be all for success in college football.  

Even the five before Woody were pretty solid. 

• Schmidt won his first four Michigan games, and two Big Ten Titles in seven years
• Paul Brown had a NC in only three years. 
• Widdoes went undefeated in one of his two seasons, with only 2 losses the other. 
• Bixler was their Luke Fickel, a one year band aid that face planted spectacularly. 
• Fesler won a Big Ten Title and produced a Heisman winner in two of his four seasons.

Personally, I think that Ohio State's underlying situation is a big factor.  As of 2020 here are the States that the most NFL players graduated from HS in and the P5 schools in those states:

• 194 Florida - UF, FSU, Miami:  65 per P5 school
• 192 Texas - Texas, aTm, TxTech, TCU, Baylor:  38 per P5 school
• 170 California - USC, UCLA, Cal, Stanford:  43 per P5 school
• 134 Georgia - UGA, GaTech:  67 per P5 school
• 71 Ohio - tOSU:  71 per P5 school
• 60 Alabama - Bama, Auburn:  30 per P5 school
• 60 Pennsylvania - PSU, Pitt:  30 per P5 school
• 59 Louisiana - LSU:  59 per P5 school
• 59 North Carolina - UNC, Dook, Wake, NCST:  15 per P5 school
• 57 New Jersey - Rutgers:  57 per P5 school

Resorted by most NFL players per P5 school in the state:

• 71 Ohio
• 67 Georgia
• 65 Florida
• 59 Louisiana
• 57 New Jersey
• 43 California
• 38 Texas
• 30 Alabama
• 30 Pennsylvania
• 15 North Carolina

I was thinking about it and these two lists may help to explain Ohio State's remarkable consistency both from the perspective of the ceiling and the floor, allow me to explain:

There is a LOT more talent available in the states of Florida, Texas, California, and Georgia.  Consequently, schools in those states may generally have a higher ceiling than Ohio State because if one school is able to dominate that recruiting, they have local access to more high-end talent than Ohio State could ever achieve.  

OTOH, I think that those schools each individually all have lower floors than Ohio State because they have the in-state competition.  

Consider the three Florida schools.  When any one of them dominates recruiting within the state of Florida that dominant school is going to probably out-recruit Ohio State.  However, Ohio State will inevitably out-recruit the other two.  

Ie, if FSU sucks those Florida recruits will mostly go to UF or Miami or out-of-state.  If Ohio State sucks they'll obviously lose some recruits out-of-state but they aren't realistically going to lose all of them and they aren't likely to lose more than maybe a handful to in-state competition.  Thus, Ohio State's floor tends to be pretty high but their ceiling might generally be limited which would provide an explanation for why Ohio State has BY FAR the best "worst decade" among helmets over the past ~80 years but they are nowhere close to the best "best decade" among helmets over the past ~80 years.  

Then there is the issue of regional competition.  Michigan has certainly pulled a lot of talent out of Ohio over the years but they, ND, and PSU are the only helmets in the region and while Michigan is fairly close to the Ohio border, PSU is way over in central PA and ND is way over in NW IN.  Compare that with Georgia where you have Clemson just over the GA/SC line, UF and FSU both in Northern Florida, Auburn just over the GA/AL line, and Bama not all that far away.