I have never been the person to scream "Fire the Coach!," because I am not a coach and know I am not am expert on the subject. I also understand that this program is part of a school of higher learning and, unlike the NFL, doesn't exist solely to satisfy the fans. So, I am still not going to utter those words.

I was also one of the few, if not the only, person to project a losing season this year because I understood that the non-conference schedule was a little more difficult than usual and that the late coaching change was a lot to suddenly deal with. I also understand that the athletic department had no choice but to hire Albin and give him something akin to the contract they gave him. I am doing the best I can to take all that into account.

I know BTC knows a lot more about coaching football than I and is more familiar with the internal state of the program than I. I respect his opinion.

Having said all that, I find it difficult, as an extremely analytic person who is doing his best to be as unemotional as possible, to not lay a lot of the blame for this year's debacle at the feet of Albin. In 2001, when Knorr took over for Grobe, we had the most returning starters in all of FBS and somehow managed to to lose 7 more games than we did the prior year with the same players. I could only place that blame on what HAD changed which was the coaching staff. This year is similar. Most G5 teams have most of their teams back. And while we really don't know how good Ohio was last year there are a lot of other things we can look at. The oddsmakers expected us not to fall off. We went off as favorites to beat Syracuse. We beat BGSU 52-10 last year. Will we even be favored to even win this year? While we have improved a little of late I still think we are about 20 points worse than realistic preseason expectations. While the picture is somewhat blurry, the head coach is the main thing that chanced and I find it difficult to not lay a lot of the blame for this on him.

With all due respect, Larry Hunter was never over his head. This is a mission of mercy. Albin is clearly over his head and drowning.