GP1

Pro: Funny when someone accidentally gets shot in the groin area. Con: Reminder that humans will fight for anything that is free and if those cannons shot out jars of free cancer cells, humans would fight for them.

You got that right. It's a better program than Akron. In every way, Akron should be the better program. What do they do differently? 1. They have an AD who isn't very bright, but doesn't make catastrophic decisions. 2. They play at a day and time that is convenient for students, alumni, fans and the general community to attend. With the exception of one week 1 game in the past two years, every regular season game has been on Saturday. 3. Even in difficult financial times, uncc promotes the positive accomplishments of their students, faculty and staff. 4. Oh, they put an ok product on the field. Nothing great, but you don't want to vomit watching them. Other than these three things, Akron is equal or better than them in every way. Akron has a clean/better stadium, decent tailgating if you choose, good seating and clean bathrooms. It is almost impossible to be this bad, but "making the impossible, possible" should be our tag line. We are the only football program that could take that tag line and make it a negative statement.

For crying out loud, how old is Katie?

Dambrot was a great coach for Akron. Groce is a better coach. Groce wouldn't be stupid enough to coach at Duquesne. It is one of the many graveyards of coaches in college basketball along with places like St. Bonaventure.

I had a lifetime of the "building process" years ago. You are right. If a coach isn't winning after 3 years, he never will.

Seems like we are always in a total rebuild.

You're on to something here. There is a saying in sailing that goes like this...."The faster you go, the faster you go." When a sail is lifted and fills with air, the boat begins to move. It's a whole physics thing, but the movement of the boat causes other accelerating pressures on the sail that causes the boat to go faster. You go faster because you are going faster. This is not infinite. The teams you mention win because they win. The more they win, the more they win. The more they win at this point, the more they solidify their positions at the tops of their conferences and the college football world because they get the best players. What does this have to do with recruiting? Imagine being a 5 star defensive line recruit and the coach from Indiana comes to your home and tells you, you will immediately be the best defensive lineman on the team the coming fall. Sounds pretty good doesn't it? How could this story get better for the kid? The OSU/Clemson/Alabama coach comes to your home and tells you that you will have significant playing time in the fall. In addition, there will be another 5 star defensive lineman next to you on the defensive line and a 5 star linebacker right behind you. Unlike Indiana, where you will get double teamed every play, you will never get double teamed at OSU/C/Al and you will make a ton of tackles, win conference championships, compete for national championships and produce a ton of plays that will be on video and shipped off to NFL teams before the draft making you a high round draft pick after your JR year. That's how they win. Not the sailing, but the rest of the ideas above I heard listening to Rick Neuheisel on ESPNU Radio. He is worth listening to during college football season because he is just so freaking smart. He is a kind of "lens of clarity" about all things college football that makes you more informed but less enamored by the sport because he lays things out as they really are and not, as fans, the way we want them to be.

This story seems to have gone pretty cold.

You have the biggest concern of mine. Trying to watch the talent level of the Zips, or lack thereof, is why I simply can't bring myself to watch. I don't care who is coaching the current level of talent, that person is never going to have a .500 season. It has never been easier for bad teams to be good in the history of college football and we still can't seem to be able to do anything. Coaching is the most overrated thing in sports. If we could just get better talent, we would be in a better position.

Half of the data analysists working in corporate America today would say that Ryan Day took a pay cut, there was an increase in Ohioans being late for work on January 12th; therefore, Day's pay cut caused increased tardiness in Ohio on January 12th.

It's amazing how much data gets misused in a data driven society. Every coach in the MAC, with the exception of Buffalo's, took a pay cut last fall. There is no correlation between pay cuts and the transfer portal.

He's the guy who would make opponents wish they were beyond the realm of death.

It would be breaking the law of college football hiring, but why not?

The term I would use is "educated guess" in that you do the best with what you know with a lot of unknown around your final decision. Far more than the candidates for P5 schools. It's tough for G5 schools these day. No money to compete even against coordinators or high level assistants pay at P5 schools. Bowden at LMU is an educated guess. There is a lot to know about him and you are making an educated guess that there is still some gas left in the tank and the Bowden name still means something. Charlie Frye would be a good educated guess that he could be the coach. We know he has played at a high level so he as been exposed to at least two different NFL teams. We know he coached at an SEC school so he was exposed to life at a place where they have the resources to field a competitive team. We know he coached with a guy who really knows offenses and was a coordinator for the guy. He's a safe, likeable guy from Ohio who would never do anything to embarrass himself or the school. What we don't know, and is the guess, is whether or not he is capable of taking what he has learned and turning that into a successful leader of a program. College football is results driven and there isn't evidence he can lead a program, but there isn't much evidence many of the G5 coaches getting hired now are capable of leading a program to success either. Other than Frye graduating from Akron, there is little difference in resumes between him and Arth. Is the connection to the school enough?

Off topic, but the Zips football program is so uninspiring I'd rather talk about tribute bands than that program. Back when I used to live in Akron, there was a band he started called Seattle Band. They were an awesome tribute band. He wasn't the singer when we started to follow, but they were still great. Fast forward to today, the luckiest woman in the world, Mrs. GP1, and I go Grunge Fest every year in Charlotte. Throughout the year the cover bands that play in it play at the Music Factory in something called Road To Grunge Fest https://www.fillmorenc.com/EventDetail?tmeventid=2D0056A3B58E8CC6&offerid=0 . I always think of Seattle Band when I go. Akron was/is a fun place. Anyone who says differently is a boring person.