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People always go with a winner. Its easy to be an OSwho fan. I think Meyer only lost a couple games since he's been there. They even have a chance to play for a national championship. Easy place to win when you get all the 5 star recruits from Ohio and other states. Where the MAC schools fight for what's left. We (the MAC) and Cincinnati are always going to be second fiddle to the Columbus juggernaut. I'm not asking much, just have some winning season's, maybe a MAC championship every few years, and a chance to play in the "Famous Idaho Potato Bowl" or some other no name bowl. 12-14 k people in the Info would be fine.

Ohio has 8 D-IA football teams -- 5 more than Illinois or Pennsylvania, 4 more than Indiana, 3 more than Michigan, even 1 more than California. Only Texas has more (11).

University of Akron football coach Terry Bowden announced on Thursday that two junior college transfers have signed National Letters of Intent to play for the Zips next season. View the full article at www.GoZips.com

I think there is something more at work here than just winning or the way the team plays. Yes, there would more butts in seats if we were consistently a championship caliber team and were fun to watch. But, I would bet that this would be a 20% lift in attendance, lifting us from "wtf" to "that sucks", not the doubling or tripling of our average which would be needed to really fill our beautiful newish stadium. I think our consistently championship caliber, mostly fun to watch basketball team demonstrates this. But clearly it's not just UA. All the MAC is facing this as Northern Illinois shows. The landscape of college football has changed. It's paradoxical, really, that even as ESPN has given programs like Akron's more TV time and exposure, and thus more ways to feel like a top tier program, the actual fan interest in that product seems to have waned. I think the 'professionalization' of top tier college sports has created such a disparity between the (formerly) BCS programs and everyone else, that it is harder to entice fans to go to an Akron (or other MAC school) game. I think it is easier now to follow a bigger school closely because of the internets, ESPN, the Big Ten channel, etc. It's like Ohio State is a black hole, and the rest of the state is caught in it's gravitational pull. And this is all going to get much worse as payment to players starts to happen. A school like Ohio State or USC has hundreds of multi-millionaires giving the football program huge support, on top of huge TV money from their conferences, their ticket sales, etc. I just saw one figure that said OSU pulls in over $7M per game in ticket sales alone, which I think is more than half of the annual Zips football budget. We just don't have the scale to compete with that. A few weeks back I met with Arizona State's marketing team, and one topic of discussion was the challenge they were having in getting local alums to their football games. That's a school with 80,000 students and a massive alumni base in the immediate area (something like 400K alum within 20 minutes of the stadium), challenging for the PAC 12 title and ranked in the top 20 nationally. UAB shutting their program is foreshadowing. College football played at our level is on an unsustainable course. Winning would be very helpful. A wide open, fun offense would be great. But just like we had hoped a brand new stadium would dramatically improve the attractiveness of the program, these things are probably only going to improve things at the margins. That won't be enough to help us compete with a tier of programs that are jumping into hyper drive.

Ugh really? Can't fault the Johnny Football hype train since that's what people care about, but (and I didn't see this video) what could have been neater is the interview being presented as the opinion of the Cleveland QB from a different pro athlete from Cleveland. Oh well. It's happened to bigger stars than Darlington Yeah that was a real thing a few years back. Anyway, I came here to post that, for what it's worth (not much really) MLS did a mock draft and had Saad going to LA with the last pick of the first round. http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/2014/12/17/mock-draft-v10-less-month-go-mls-campus-looks-ahead-2015-superdraft

Listening to the end of the game and then the post-game interview, Coach Kest was not happy with the mentality tonight. The fact we still won this game after allowing 25 offensive rebounds and coughing up 23 turnovers is insane. Can't do that in the MAC and win. I know the non-conference slate isn't the toughest, but going 9-0 after losing the number of points(4,000), rebounds(2,000), and assists(all-time assists leader in program history) to graduation. The freshmen have all stepped up big at one point or another. Ball and Burry played well at times tonight. Can't wait to see how this team will do in the MAC.

This is my own opinion and I do agree that some of the responsibility falls on the coaches and I do feel Coach KD takes responsibility when needed. But it also depends on the player and if that player has what it takes to get to that next level. A coach can take a player as far as a player will allow himself to go. With that said players have to be willing to put in the time and I feel that this year despite all that has happen that we have a group of young players that are willing to do whatever they need to do. Yeah... we are going to have some ups and downs and struggle at times. This is a team that will be good once they get through some of the hiccups. These players are coach-able and they want to win. Everyone has seen what they can do...hopefully by MAC conference play they will be ready to do what they need to do get to the BIG dance. I know that my son still has a lot to learn but what I've seen so far I know he will do whatever it takes to help himself and the team win games. Also, I really don't care what school you go to if you are good they will come calling. Coach KD has built a great program with a great fan base. I'm so thankful that Kwan chose to come here. On a side note his sister was just accepted to Akron a few days ago and we are very excited about her attending school with her big brother. GO ZIPS!!!! We are happy to be apart a GREAT PROGRAM

You are correct ... multiple formations and personnel and much more up tempo, unlike the current hurry up to the line and spend the next 20 seconds signalling the play (hell might as well huddle up). It all funnels down to the O-Line ................. That my new friends, will be the key Thus the new S&C program built on strength, speed and agility vs pure strength...................... Even at the O-Line positions, those guys need to be able to get to the second level and recover for the up tempo game to be effective......................... Also need a coordinator that can be thinking 4-5 plays ahead of the current play and set up situations to exploit match up advantages .