Miami Ohio Redhawks Season Preview

Oxford has been known as the “Cradle of Coaches” with a list of hall-of-fame greats that have paced the sidelines. Woody Hayes, Sid Gilman, Ara Paresghian and Bo Schembechler have all graced the sidelines and coached Miami Ohio.

Don Treadwell takes over and his resume is longer than my grocery list. He once was the OC at Youngstown State (’86-‘91) with a man named Jim Tressel.  

Also, he was OC at Michigan State (’07-‘10), Cincinnati (’05-‘06) and Ball State (’03-‘04). The OC is now John Klacik, who has coached for 25 years in college and the DC is Pete Rekstis, who was at Kent State and Youngstown State.

From ’95 to ’05, Miami Ohio had eleven consecutive winning seasons, but then had a terrible stretch of four straight losing seasons. Steve Montgomery took over in '05 and his 7-4 record finally broke the streak. He then went 2-10 before going 6-7, and the following year 2-10 again.

When Haywood took over, he went 1-11 and made the biggest one year improvement in NCAA history by going 10-4 the following season. Going from 1-7 to 8-1 and becoming MAC champions just shows how watered down and parity is in the landscape of college football.

Eight starters return on offense and there is quite the battle under center between Zac Dysert and Austin Boucher. Dysert was injured but still threw for 2,406 yards along with 13 TDs and 12 INTs in the ten-win season. Freshman Boucher led his team back from a few deficits with 6 TDs in four games.

The backfield is wide open for carries with the loss of Thomas Merriweather, but the receiving core should not leave any doubts about how talented this squad was in 2010 and will be again in 2011. Nick Harwell was a tremendous No. 2 receiver and will take over duties as the go-to-guy for whoever is threading the needle downfield.

Nine starters return on defense and this might be the best in the MAC. They have a pair of linebackers in Jerrell Wedge and Evan Harris, who combined for over 190 tackles a season ago. The front four is solid as well with three returnees. Jordain Brown had two sacks and four tackle for losses and those numbers should only increase.

The secondary returns three with FS Pat Hinkel and CBs Dayonne Nunleu & DJ Brown. The three are quick, feisty corners who are among the best DB corps in the MAC.

The schedule starts out rough with Missouri and Minnesota on the road. They host Cincinnati and Army before they start conference play.

Toledo, Temple, and Ohio are all tough road tilts that should determine if the Redhawks make it back to the MAC Championship. I will call for them to fall just short and I also believe they will fall short of a bowl game.

Predicted Finish: 7-6, 5-3

Predicted Bowl: BBVA Compass Bowl

Predicted order of finish in MAC: Fifth overall, Third in East Division