Blue & Gold

No official word.

With Guthrie at least we're coming back to average with our social media presence. This is par for the course but had been lacking in our department. Well done!

It's hard for me to imagine having low energy & a lackadaisical effort -v- OSUcks. But I guess the vast majority of the team is from out of state - even out of country - so they must not get how much we hate that school in Columbus.

Good postgame comments from Coach Embick

It really seemed like he was wasting time & deflecting. He talked about the Duquesne/OU game for 5 minutes. Don't really care.

Umm... help me out, @Illini Zip 🙏

@Illini Zip, are you still up to maintaining the scholarship chart? I know it’s greatly appreciated. 💯

The “Daisy Chain.” I remember, Idk, 20 years ago (a year when the national champion was not undefeated, obviously), you could daisy chain the national champion down to a D-2 or D-3 school who only had a few wins on the season. 😂

You're right about Childs. It looks as if he's their #2 RB. Against Washington (his first game as a Grizzly) he had 9 rushes for 39 yards (4.33 average). His transfer was, to me, the most unexpected, surprising transfer I've ever seen. His senior year in HS he chose us over Kansas State, and on social media was 100% all Zips up to his eyeballs. I thought he'd be a team captain by the time he was a junior. Then he got to campus for summer training/fall camp, and transferred out before the season even began (IIRC). Totally weird. But following him on social media he really seems positive and level headed; not at all flaky; a future Mr. President type of young man. (Much like LePear Toles, if you're at all familiar with his social media presence.) Big red flag for the UA staff? I still don't know what to make of it, as he seems to be precisely the type of athlete/person the current staff is targeting, and there are other positive, mature, true student-athletes on the team who seem to be loving it (e.g., Snowden).

Week 2 MAC Scores: Minnesota 31 Miami 26 Wyoming 50 N. Illinois 43 Duquesne 28 Ohio 26 🤨 KSUcks 60 VMI 10 Notre Dame 32 Toledo 29 CMU 45 Robert Morris 0 Penn State 44 Ball State 13 Nebraska 28 Buffalo 3 South Alabama 22 BUGS 19 WMU 28 Illinois State 0 Wisconsin 34 EMU 7 After 2 Weeks KSUcks 1-1 Buffalo 1-1 Ohio 0-2 Miami 0-2 BUGS 0-2 Akron 0-2 Toledo 1-1 Ball State 1-1 EMU 1-1 WMU 1-1 CMU 1-1 N. Ill. 1-1

Duquesne is beating Ohio 28-20. OU w/ the ball near the goal line w/ 1-minute to play. Toledo only down 22-24 to Notre Dame w/ the ball & 7:48 left in the game.

Gotta be a close, competitive game today. I'm guessing the plan will be to give Kato the start w/ DJ coming in for the 2nd quarter. Whichever performs better will start the 2nd half. Let's go D... and OL.

Players Auburn had in the game during DJ's TD drive: NT - Tony Fair - 1st string DE - Derick Hall - 1st string LB - Chandler Wooten - 1st string CB - Roger McCreary - 1st string (who Jonzell beat on his TD catch) CB - Nehemiah Pritchett - 1st string S - Bydarrius Knighten - 1st string DL - TD Moultry - 2nd string DL - JJPegues - 2nd string DL - Zykevious Walker - 2nd string LB - Wesley Steiner - 2nd string CB - Ro Torrence - 2nd string S - Zion Pucket - 2nd string DL - Romello Height - not listed on 2-deep DL - Eku Leota - not listed on 2-deep S - Eric Reed - not listed on 2-deep S - Devin Guide - not listed on 2-deep I'm sure there are others I missed. This is just what I could gather by pausing the ESPN replay feed. But the point is DJ wasn't doing this against scrubs.

We may want the Owl's starting QB to play. Watching Temple-Rutgers highlights, into the 2nd quarter the announcer said the Temple QB was something like 3-of-11. The next highlight showed the Temple QB badly sail a pass over his receiver's head for an easy pick-6 for Rutgers. This article from ESPN dot com sheds a little light on how the game got out of hand for Temple... and they may not be as bad as the score indicates. They had a number of TO's which put Rutgers in excellent starting field position. Temple's D doesn't sound all that bad; Rutger's QB, Noah Vedral, was 15-of-27 passing for only 138 yards and was also Rutger's leading rusher with only 58 yards (on eight rushes), so Temple's run defense must be pretty stout.

GT has a hard-on for Kato. Apparently Auburn's 2nd teamers suck balls so it's basically like DJ was just putting up numbers against Mount Union.

We gotta focus on the last 1 & 1/2 quarters -v- Auburn when DJ was in the game. 13-of-13, 129 yards & a TD. Outscored Auburn 10-7. That's the trend I'm excited to see continued this Saturday -v- Temple! Get excited! Go Zips!

Good point. I can also live with just 5 penalties for 35 yards. Love a clean game. The least we can do is not shoot ourselves in the foot.

Pitt is really good.

Hey fellas, thanks for stopping by. DJ Irons looked fantastic. I haven't been this excited about a Zips QB in a long time. He was JUCO last season and this was the first that any of us on here were able to see him. He looks like the kind of QB who could save Arth's job & be a true program changer. He was in control of the huddle, cool, calm & collected; the game certainly wasn't moving too fast for him, which I find difficult to believe it being his first D-1 experience. Simply unbelievable debut. I want a "0" jersey! Go Zips!

Irons was 13-of-13 for 129 yards and 1 TD. He was inserted into the game at 4:58 in the 3rd. From that point on we outscored Auburn 10-7. That's our silver lining. And it's a big one.

Other Week 1 MAC Scores: Ball Sweat 31 Western Illinois 21 Buffalo 69 dude Wagner 7 Tennessee 38 BUGS 6 EMU 35 St. Francis 15 Michigan 47 WMU 14 Cincinnati 49 Miami 14 Missouri 34 CMU 24 Syracuse 29 Ohio 9 Toledo 49 Norfolk State 10 Northern Illinois 22 Georgia Tech 21 Texas A&M 41 KSUcks 10

Well, game's over. Time for me to go pay the piper & suffer through the night with heartburn. Start Irons and I think we're on to something in the MAC. Bring on Temple! See you guys - along with about 2000 players' and band members' friends and family - there next Saturday.

Good point & I agree. I love the "Z" logo and the script "Akron," Sort of like the Indians used to have Chief Wahoo as the primary logo but script "Indians" on the front of the jersey. I would like to see the "Z" somewhere. I especially liked it on the helmet.