GJGood

That was what I thought was pretty much the case too but then again we were the only Division 1 school to offer a scholarship to Brian Wagner, he almost got missed. How many of those are out there at smaller schools like Springfield Catholic Central? How many don't get the recognition they deserve because their own high school coaches are misevaluating for that matter?

I was actually thinking about Wagner and how he was not offered by any other FBS when I was posing the question. I know I live in a school district that every year fields a 6 to 8 win football team but never has anyone go higher than D-III for college ball. In fact two years ago the Ohio high school Division III player of the year played here and ended up going on to Lake Erie College I believe. I just wonder if he'd been more highly recruited if he was at more of a 'name' school. I understand what you are saying about the problem with recruiting from "name" schools but couldn't the opposite also be true? Couldn't the good player make his teammates look "great" and BCS-worthy? And if that was the case wouldn't it be good for a school like Akron?

There are a couple of recruiting questions I hear discussed from time to time and I'd like to see how my fellow Zips fans feel about it. How important is the size of a high school program when looking at potential Zips recruits? Would you rather see more focus on getting good talent from huge high school programs that send their very best palyers to BCS schools regularly or do we need more focus on getting the very best players from those schools that a lot of FBS, and especially BCS, programs tend to overlook or pass by? Also, how important do you feel the success of a high school program is in choosing whom Akron should recruit? Do you think its possible that there is some great high school football individual talent out there on mediocre or even below average high school football teams? Should a school like Akron take a closer look at some individuals at those types of schools? Obviously the final answer is that you probably want to find the right mix of all the above types but is there one of the types you'd like to see Akron pay more attention to than they have recently? Just interested to hear your thoughts.

I believe that a lot of times people have the wrong focus when it comes to improving the SOS and RPI numbers. So many people want to replace the opponents on the schedule with high major and top 40 RPI type of teams. Personally, I don't think it is necessary for the MAC to schedule many more top teams at all, as long as each school schedules a few of them like they pretty much do now. The problem comes with MAC schools scheduling way too many dreadfully bad teams. The MAC needs to start shying away from scheduling teams that are likely to have RPIs in that 275 and worse range. If every MAC school would replace two or three of its 250+ RPI opponents with schools ranked in the top 200 or so, you'd see the MAC numbers take a big step up. It may not get the league to where the MVC or Atlantic 10 is right away but it should at least get the MAC champ a seed better than a 14 or 15 in the NCAA tourney. I understand the point about it being difficult to get the top teams to play in MAC gyms, but is it really that difficult to get teams in that 125 to 210 range of RPI to play in a MAC arena? I think KD has done a lot right in his scheduling philosophy... maybe play one big-time school on the road and then any others you can get on a neutral court. Schedule as many games as you can with good mid-major teams. The part I can't stand is the playing of two or three teams a year out of conference that are in the bottom 40 or 50 nationally. I could see playing one like that early on for confidence but not much more than that. Also, if we are going to schedule near sure-thing wins against the likes of North Carolina A&T wouldn't we get higher RPI numbers for doing it on the road than at home?

Why do the new divisions have to be based on geography? Why not realign them with overall competitive balance as well as top rivalries in mind? It doesn't pain me to see Akron in the same division with a Ball State or Northern Illinois, but we must be in the same division with that Portage County school.

I don't understand when it comes to playoff tournaments why everyone always wants to say the tournament should be 4,8.16,32,64. or 128 teams depending on the sport. I say in basketball 128 is too big, they'd let something like 15 teams in out of a league like the Big East some years. If it gets bigger I see no reason to go to more than 80 to 88 teams at most. With first round byes it is possible. In football for years I have proposed a 14 (yes, 14!) team playoff that featured all 11 conference champions and three at-large teams. That keeps almost every regular season game relevant and allows teams to try all season to get to the top 2 like they do in the BCS now. Just in this case they'd get a bye instead of a golden ticket to the title game. I'd also seed all conference winners better than the "wild cards" like the NFL does. But I digress...

OSU fans do feel disrespected if you call them Ohio. Try it once in a while. Living just outside Columbus, I have to say I agree OSU fans take humbrage to being called "Ohio" but yet their fans do that dumb and contradictory O-H-I-O cheer. I am always quick to point out that they are spelling out the name of a school in Athens that wears green.

I am watching the Division IV state championship game on STO and watched the D-II game featuring St.V-St.M earlier and I am just wondering if anyone knows if the Zips' are looking closely at somebody playing today. You'd think the Zips would be looking at the SVSM program with all the ties there and it looks to me as if Berlin Hiland seems to have a lot of tall ecellent shooters including the D-IV state player of the year. Anybody I should be paying particular attention to in this D-IV game or the D-III and D-I games later? Anybody you'd hope the Zips are looking at?

VCU, Richmond, San Diego State, Butler, or if it must be a power conference school that wins in the end then I'd be pulling for Marquette.

I agree either NCAA or NIT is better than CBI or CIT. I disagree though that CIT format is better than the CBI. In the CIT you are at the whim of tourney organizers who basically decide each round who plays who. This resulted in a MAC matchup in the CIT quarterfinals with WMU and Buffalo. I would always prefer a tournamnet with a bracket. In fact, I would prefer one with a bracket and an impartial system of determining who is home and who is away. At least the NIT has known seeding which determines who is where. I always seem to disagree with their seeding order but its still better than just always giving the larger school the home court advantage. Another plus for the CBI over CIT is that the final is a best of 3 series, this guarantees both participants a home game.

I believe the title of this topic should be CIT update and not CBI update. Miami was the only MAC squad in the CBI and lost in the first round at Rhode Island. No mention yet of our arch rivals being 40 minutes away from Madison Square Garden in the NIT? Who is pulling for them and who is a big fan of the Colorado Buffaloes at present?

I don't agree with most of what EA said but I do think that the top of the West is getting closer to the top of the East, won't quite be there next year but maybe the year after the better West teams can at least beat the bottom half of the East. The bottom of the West teams, though, who knows? I imagine Toledo will get better eventually but EMU, CMU, and NIU are huge question marks for the foreseeable future.

Well, I'm not devastated by the matchup but I am just looking at the seeding compared to how we and similar teams was done in the past. Are we really that much worse than we were two years ago? or Ohio was last year? Should we really be a worse seed than Long Island U? What time slot does everyone want? Will the fact that its ND make it more likely to be in prime time?

Actually I think Louisville would be a good football opponent to try to work a home and home with. I know thats off-topic, but my thoughts.

Still not sure why we are a 15 seed when you think about it. How many times has the MAC Champ ever been seeded that lowly? I know even though only managing a 9 seed in the MAC tourney last year OU was a 14 seed. In 2009, we were the MAC #5 and got a 13 seed, this year we're a MAC #6 but a 15 in the Dance despite playing a tougher non-conference slate than in 2008-09. It defies logic.

Any MAC Champion that was able to also put up at least 20 D-1 wins should get at least a 14 seed at worst. The MAC may not be the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, or even as good as the MVC or A-10 but it isn't some bottom-feeder conference ranked in the bottom 7 or 8 leagues either. The only way a MAC Champ should ever get a 15 or 16 is if it was a true Cinderella team that won the conference tourney. By that I don't mean a 20+ win Akron, I mean if somebody like this year's Central Michigan made an unbelievable run to a title.

I would think some of the possibilities include Arizona, BYU, Purdue, and Florida State. Keep in mind if we have a 13, 14, or 15 seed that we will likely be playing an opponent that is close to their fanbase as the one thru 4 seeds are geographically protected as much as possible. I liked it better before the "pod" system inn the tourney. It used to be that if an underdog was competing well that the whole arena would start to side with them. I'd love to make it up to a 12 seed but also know that something that high is just a pipe dream THIS year.

I wish you were right, but do you really think that having wins over teams ahead of us in the standings outweighs the fact that we finished behind them in the standings? I really think our hopes rest solely on whether someone thinks that half of the teams in the MAC deserve post-season bids. I think that the selection commitees look at overall record as much as, if not more than conference record. 21 D-1 wins would be tops in the MAC of all teams not in the NCAA if we were to lose the title game. I also thinl one of the absolute largest factors is record down the stretch, so with a loss in Cleveland Saturday, Akron would still be 9-3 in their last 12. How many mid-majors with 20+ wins and not in the NCAA or NIT can say that? At tis point, though, I don't even want to say much more on this. Just win Saturday and none of this matters, at least not this year.

I'm not so sure that we aren't in the mix for at least the CIT. Keep in mind that the NCAA and NIT are comprised of 100 teams. The CBI, which many programs turn down invitations to, has another 16. Then there is the CIT which is for mid-majors only, so there will be no 16-16 "power conference" schools in the mix here either. Akron has 21 wins, 20 against D-1 teams, and has 5 wins against the Top 4 seeds in the MAC tourney. It may be close but I'd have to think Akron is at least in the discussion if it comes down to that.

While we all hope for a MAC title and NCAA berth, what will our resume get us as it stands now? I sicerely doubt we will get a sniff from the NIT, but what about the CBI and CollegeInsider.com tourney? Have we already done enough to earn a bid in one of those 16 team events?

I'll be interested in seeing the times for all these Saturday home games. Personally I prefer those late afternoon and evening games. Actually, if you really want attendance to be maximized (as much as I hate this to be true) you'd want to have all the games at times when Ohio State is not on TV.

So, how do you think we'll play this game since it is a nonconference tilt and really has no significant postseason ramifications (other than maybe CBI consideration/ seeding potential) for the Zips? Will we see more minutes logged by guys like Egner and Euton than usual or will KD play this one much like we would a tough MAC East game?

I agree with you. Great game tonight, but still how will we fare in a game when the threes are not falling like that? I wonder if KD is planning on going inside more to Zeke, Serb, and even McKnight once the MAC tourney starts? In the back of his mind right now he has to be thinking it is best to put as many different things on film as possible for our tourney opponents to have to prepare for. After tonight I think teams will guard our outside shooters a little closer, that should open up the inside game a little more as well.

Watching this video I am wondering if we can recruit any of those offensive linemen too. Didn't see a lot of QB pressure or collapsing pockets on the video

One of my favorite MVC schools is Evansville. I think they were somewhere similar to us in RPI too after last week's games.