Head Coach: Brian Smith is entering his first season as the head coach of the Bobcats, but he has a 1-0 record after he led them to a Cure Bowl win as the interim coach. It’s not often you see an internal route for a hire multiple times in a row but that’s what Ohio did here. He did a great job recruiting a lot of the roster to stay so he’s off to a hot start. His time at Ohio was a diversion but he originally got a lot of run and shoot influence at Hawaii and Washington State.
Program Outlook: For a long time, Ohio was only known for their parties and definitely not for football. This program fell on tough times for a long time, then Frank Solich turned it around, retired, his assistant Tim Albin took over and elevated it. 2024 was a season that will be remembered forever as the Bobcats won the MAC, their first conference championship since 1968. Now with that history out of the way, the Bobcats are now officially in the top tier of programs in the MAC. Now it’s about maintaining that level.
How does the 2025 Roster look?: Ohio ranks 58th in the country returning 57% of their production per Punt and Rally’s returning production rankings. I repeat, Brian Smith did an awesome job recruiting this roster to stay. Key players starts with QB Parker Navarro, he’s one of the stars of the MAC, is already an Ohio legend and another great year away from being remembered as a MAC legend. He can sling it but is also an extremely dangerous runner (ran for over 1k last year). If there’s one thing to work on it will be cutting back on picks. He gets some familiar receivers back in Chase Hendricks, Rodney Harrish and TE Mason Williams. There’s a familiar face back at RB Sieh Bangura who was a great back for Ohio for years, went to Minnesota, wasn’t utilized and came back home. You always want a guy on defense named “Tank” and the Bobcats have one of the MAC’s top corners in Tank Pearson. SS DJ Walker is another great leader for this defense and Adonis Williams plus South Alabama transfer Rickey Hyatt round out a great group. It’s going to be next man up for both the defensive line and linebackers. At linebacker Michael Molnar and Jack Fries are the guys you can expect to step up there. The defensive line is a little more up in the air and the portal will add some competition there.
Screenshot from FBSchedules.com
2025 Schedule Thoughts: Ohio faces a very difficult schedule. The non-conference is a loaded slate they get an opportunity at Rutgers to open the season, the positives about West Virginia is that Ohio gets them at home and early in the season. Playing Ohio State is going to be a challenge. They do get a FCS foe in Gardner-Webb, the Bulldogs went 4-8 last season. The MAC schedule is decent, Ohio avoids Toledo and outside of Buffalo their road schedule isn’t too bad. The only negative is that they miss Kent State and Akron. How Ohio navigates the early portion of the schedule and the aftermath of it will determine their season.
Final Thoughts: For the first time since 1969 the Bobcats enter the season as the reigning conference champs and that’s a great feeling. There’s enough here to make them a strong candidate to repeat their crown. This is a team that wants to control time of possession so reducing their turnovers is a must, their defense was awesome enough to help them get away with 22 of them last year but this season the offense might be carrying the load.
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