Re: Ohio State Next Coach?
Good years? Too few and far between. OSU's athletic dept. has cited dismissal as a lack of CONSISTANCY. 3 trips to NCAA= 3 first round losses and last year we were totally blown out and embarrassed at the NCAA, great recruiting tool that one was. I don't know how we got the last berth but in all honesty, there were better teams that should have been considered over us. As proud as I am of the effort made by OSU when they won the Super Six does a 3 day tournament make a champion or how you finish in the regular season? Kessler was a one and done, no significant long term impact. RJ left thinking he was all that and would play right away in the NHL and it didn't happen. It was actually a good thing he left when he did as resentment was brewing as Markell turned and looked the other way too often with RJ on things other guys were getting disciplined for. Fifteen years and never could he even place in the top five of the conference 3 years in a row. Everyone has an occasional "off year" but Markell was mediocre compared to expectations to be able to do as well as Michigan or Michigan State and always have a good chance at the conference title and making the NCAA's year after year.
I get it - the university wants the consistent performance expected of a Big Ten hockey school. If you look at what I was replying to you'll see that I was refuting that he never developed talent or produced results. It's simply not true - there were some good and some bad years.
Consistency comes from a three major areas.
1.) Ability to reload with good talent every year
2.) Ability get your recruits to play to their best potential
3.) Ability to develop, implement, and get players to buy into a successful system
1.) Talent - a few things here. First, OSU simply cannot compete for depth of talent with the other BT schools. I'm talking about the 3rd, 4th, and 5th line guys. The other 4 schools sit in talent-rich localities and can attract players at a cheaper price than OSU can. Red and Don could probably compete with 10 scholarships because of the quality in-state depth players they attract. Second, the musical assistant coach jobs at OSU over the last 4 years had to have played havoc in the recruiting arena. Some of that turnover was due to the cloud of impending doom the AD cast over JM. I'd run at the first opportunity too if I suspected I had 1 or 2 years left at best. Third, and this speaks to OSU vs. non-BT hockey powers, OSU cannot cut players and take away their money - OSU and BT rules. Other schools over-recruit and cut those who don't pan out - OSU cuts them and loses that money until they leave school (Nick Fillion anyone?).
2.) Development - This was probably JM's soft spot. If you can't fill your roster with talented players when they step onto campus (above), you need to create good players from your bottom lines and underclassmen. This did not seem to be a strength of the OSU staff under JM and certainly hurt the ability to compete every year. Also, when you go through the injury bug as OSU did over a few of the last years, you need other players to step up and fill shoes. This didn't seem to happen very often.
3.) Systems - well OSU used to have a style and a system. It was based on hard-nosed defensive hockey and strong special teams (especially penalty killing). It feels like in an effort to step up the talent level, OSU changed the type of player they recruited. OSU lost it's identity and moved from the JB Bittner, Rod Pelley, Nate Guenin type of player to the world of Tom Fritsche, Cory Elkins, and John Albert - talented players for sure, but certainly not the style OSU had success with in the past. These players either would not buy into the system or the new system needed to evolve faster than it was.
Was it time to move on - probably. A new coach may be able to solidify #2 and #3 above and create success. However, I think we all agree that if OSU wants to contend with the other hockey schools EVERY YEAR they probably need to do more than just make a coaching change. They need to commit to complete with other schools on a number of levels.
