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The more money that's spent in college sports, the more it becomes like professional sports. When professional football, basketball, baseball, etc., had problems with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, they came up with things like the draft, salary caps and luxury taxes to create more parity. Now that we've reached the point in college sports where players want to be paid salaries and form unions and some college football coaches are being offered bigger salaries by universities than professional NFL coaches, it's fair to start considering similar measures for college sports. If the big universities want to be like the pros in terms of spending big money, let them also be like the pros in terms of having to abide by rules that reduce the ability of the rich to buy championships with cubic dollars and create more parity with the have-nots.

We will be fine I'm sure .............. When Coach Stroud was down a few weeks ago, his answer when I asked him how things are shaping up for the 2015 class, he told me that they were "about done" and working on a couple of kids from Florida ....................... We also discussed the Bowden and staff philosophy and that they would much rather have three solid kids with no stars than one 5 star kid that has his ego inflated by some recruiting service.............. Zach the Zip is correct in that the UA Coaches have no time or trust in the recruiting services and pay no attention to "stars" Coach Stroud said in his 25 years of coaching, he has seen far more "no star" kids develop and succeed than he has "multi star" kids These recruiting service guys are pure vultures and if you're not attending their camps and don;t pay to have a profile for your kid ............... forget it. Hell one of those services had my son rated as a 4 star ................... Until I wouldn't pay him the $3000 for his "services", which was basically a data base of email addresses, form letters for emails etc, and a computer generated schedule to email and make calls to Coaches. Dude said, "All I do is talk to Coaches all day about kids and am very successful at getting kids scholarships" ................. When I asked him why I would pay $3000 to get email addresses when I can go onto the school web page and get those.......... Dude says "those email addresses are the school email addresses and the coaches don't look at those much, I have their personal email addresses and phone numbers: .............. Right LOL ............ Never heard from the dude again after that. When my son emailed his film around and reached out to Coaches via social media, there was plenty of dialogue with Coaches and offers ............... Coach Stroud called him the same day he sent his film, and offered him. I'm pretty confident in the Coaches ability to see talent and am pretty sure that the tenure of some of these Coaches tells you that they must do a pretty good job to be around this long C'mon Spring ball !!!!!

Temple Ponders New Stadium Wistercill proclaims (Laughably): 1.) No, people aren't flocking to ESPN3 to watch MAC football. No one watches it. While there is some merit to the argument that modern television is sapping a small sector of college football's game day attendance, that point is absolutely irrelevant to Akron's attendance issues at InfoCision. 2.) Why doesn't he mention his hiring of Rob Ianello as a contributing factor to InfoCision's poor attendance? I did a little more research that the lazy reporter from Philly and from what I can tell, Rob Ianello's pigskin holocaust was the #1 reason the stadium has been 80+% empty. November Tuesday night games with 7/8pm starts placed a distant 2nd. I am confident that Bowden will do the impossible and make Akron a winner in football, as long as UA doesn't do anything stupid to impede him. Thank God a search committee reached out to the guy. It just sucks that he was given such a big hole to fight out of.

I don't think anyone really thinks the schedule as a whole is that bad. The main complaint, or mine at least, is the home cupcake lineup.

This is the good old chicken and the egg dilemma... More fans and larger arenas come after success not the other way around.

If interest in this type of thing is widespread amongst Zips fans, there is opportunity to get to know and become friends with the families of football players during tailgating. As just one example, we all had a great time with Nico Caponi's family during his time as a Zip. Bad part is that you miss 'em when their time is over. The Switzers and the Rossis will certainly be missed next year. Good people.

I think both of you have shown that you are good Zips fans who want the best for the men's basketball program. In previous discussions we established that no one is asking for Coach Dambrot to be fired and everyone wants to see the Zips take the next step up from what they've accomplished over the past decade. So we shouldn't even have to debate those points. I hope we can continue to have productive discussions without misinterpreting each others' positions. Fair criticism is fair, and it's also fair to question the reasoning behind various criticisms. It's fair to point out what we perceive as negatives in the program, and it's equally fair to be reminded of the positives.

This lethargical attitude is the biggest problem to our programs and it scares me to think that our coaching staff are thinking along the same lines. Did we run out of excuses inside the university so now it is the city of Akron that has nothing to offer? What does spokane, WA have to offer? what does Indianapolis have to offer? and Wichita, KS... Or let's get closer to home. What did Can't have to offer for K.S.U to make an elite 8 run? and what did Athens have to offer for 3 NCAA wins in the last 5 years? Seriously people, for the millionth time: NO ONE HERE IS ASKING FOR DAMBROT TO BE FIRED. All what some of us are saying is that the guy does not walk on water and the program hasn't made any progress in the last 5 years. Someone should take a look at why that is. Is that blasphemy?

Small pool of potential example teams. Akron only has 1 Men's BB team.

One more thing....no inside guy is bumping up his players ranking. They went from 1-11 to a bowl game with great young talent. He is killing bowden in recruiting and with results on the field.

Poster for Zips Mens Soccer reunion at the Mens Basketball game tomorrow. Thanks to Coach Dambrot and Zips Mens Basketballfor making this reunion happen.

I buy the fact that the big schools are separating themselves from the non-Power 5 conferences. Even a K.e.n.t. grad can figure that one out. I buy that the cost of running a D1-A football program is escalating somewhat dangerously. UAB is tangible evidence. I don't buy Power 5 schools increasing scholarships and leaving table scraps for the non Power 5. Do you really want to be the 8th string DE at Alabama? Or the 6th string RG at Pitt? I don't buy that dropping down to 1-AA would do anything for the Zips long-term. 1.) You can still stink at the 1-AA level if you have a crappy coach hires and poor leadership 2.) You only save 22 football scholarships by going to 1-AA (vs. 1-A). 22 scholarships is a joke, even at Akron. The Zips need to start winning some football games. I wish you can turnaround a program as decimated as Ianello left us in 2 or 3 seasons, but is just isn't possible. Hopefully the new play makers we'll have at WR, RB and QB next season, and a solidified OL will bring the offense up to the defense's level and we'll start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel in 2015.

I get a little Dambrot and Zips basketball feeling when I read about Mike Brown and the Bengals. One line in particular stood out.