Lee Owens completes undefeated season at Ashland

Congratulations to our former head coach, Lee Owens, who's Ashland Eagles completed an undefeated season yesterday by blowing out Notre Dame College 65-0. Also on staff at Ashland are former UA assistants Doug Geiser, Tom Stacy, and Mitch Browning, along with former Miami University head coach Tim Rose. If Owens makes a national championship run he could be looking at another shot at the FBS level, if he's even interested in that, which I doubt he is.

http://www.goashlandeagles.com/sports/fbal.../20121110sjdw5z

Update on Patrick Nicely

Looks like he has continued to struggle at the Division II level, as he is now 0-4 as a starter at Lake Erie College.

His stats thus far:

GANNON- 14-30, 166 yds, 1 TD, 1 INT

FERRIS ST.- 12-25, 159 yds, 2 TD, 1 INT

WAYNE ST.- 7-16, 77 yds, 1 TD

SAGINAW VALLEY ST.- 17-33, 249 yds, 2 TD, 2 INT


With a 4-0 and 13th ranked Ashland squad up next for him, things don't look to get any easier for Mr. Nicely anytime soon. Good luck to him as he finishes out his career.

Attendance Predictions for Opener

I'm going to go off the last time in my memory we opened on a Thursday night at home, in 2003 against Can't State. There was somewhat of a buzz going into that season, as I believe we had our most talented team in the 1-A era (though I'm a bit biased), but there's a bit more of a buzz for this season with the start of Bowden Ball. That night the attendance was around 28,000 if I remember correctly, with about 8,000 Can't people there. I'm going to predict a crowd of 23,000 with better than usual student attendance due to the fact that its during the week and people are on campus.

Top Headline on FootballScoop: The Dawn of Bowden Ball

Pretty sweet being highlighted on a sight read by football coaches and administrators around the country.

Check it out:

http://www.footballscoop.com/

http://www.footballscoop.com/news/6362-vid...of-bowden-ballq

Bowden's Quick Turnarounds Should Give Us Hope

I have to come out of my self-imposed break for a second to say one thing....


Great, great hire for the Zips! I went from the lowest of lows in terms of Zips football depression a few days ago to the highest of highs. This is huge for us.

I'm going to go ahead and pat myself on the back for, I believe, being the first to mention Bowden's name in connection to our head coaching job, as he was my pick for head coach back in '09.

http://zipsnation.org/forums//index.php?sh...hl=Terry+Bowden

If we would've hired him then I think we would've saved ourselves a lot of heartache. After we didn't give him a sniff last time around, I didn't mention him this time because I figured there was no chance. Apparently he was neither on our radar then, nor was he this time around, which is about par for the course with this athletic department. This situation truly dropped in our laps.

All that being said, these stats should encourage us greatly, and were the main reason I recommended Bowden last time around:

SAMFORD:

1986 (pre-Bowden): 3-6
1987 (Bowden's 1st year): 9-1


AUBURN:

1992 (pre-Bowden): 5-5-1
1993 (Bowden's first year): 11-0


Big name recognition, history of turning programs around, head coaching experience out the wazzoo... Perfect hire for the Zips.