Leaderboard

There's no doubt in my mind that two unforeseen events badly damaged what was an otherwise sound plan to replace the crumbling Rubber Bowl with a new on-campus stadium. The first was the big recession, which unfortunately struck after the project had been approved and was already underway. The second was the unfortunate hiring of a disastrous head coach who sunk the Zips to the absolute bottom of the FBS. It almost brings tears to my eyes to imagine where we might be right now if the new stadium had debuted in 2009 in a healthy economy and Coach Bowden had taken over the team in 2010. I honestly can't believe that if Dr. Scarborough was leading UA in 2007 that he wouldn't have looked at all the available data and agreed that building that stadium was absolutely the right thing to do under the existing circumstances. I will continue to be perplexed by that infamous one-liner in the ABJ until some kind of clarification is issued.

From all I've read on the subject of the newly enacted budget, Ohio lawmakers increased spending for public universities by 4.5% in 2016 and another 4% in 2017 with the specific goal of reducing costs to students and making college more affordable. As part of this funding increase, public universities are required to freeze both tuition and fees for in-state undergraduate students at current levels for these 2 years and also look for ways to reduce student costs by 5% over the 2-year period. This latest story cites UA officials describing the new charges for juniors and seniors as "new fees," which appears to be at odds with what Ohio lawmakers are trying to accomplish.

No, in the 2005-2007 time frame when the previous administration was comparing the cost of a new stadium with the cost of rebuilding the Rubber Bowl they did not have information that has developed over the past decade. The overall outlook and trends have changed rather dramatically in many ways. Based on the information available at the time they prudently downsized seating capacity about 15% from the Rubber Bowl's 35,000+ to less than 30,000 with an option to add seats in the future if warranted. We've discussed in these threads many of the things that have changed over the past decade. How many Zips games were available on TV 10 years ago? How many on the internet? How much time were students spending on social media instead of social events like football games? How strong was the economy? How advanced were the Power Five conferences in dictating the football landscape to knock down future Boise States and TCUs? Etc., etc.? Hindsight is the understanding of a situation or event only after it has happened. When looking back at and questioning past decisions, it's important to filter out data we now take for granted from prevailing data of the time of the actual decision.

On the bright side, SS has stated that attendance will be a key metric in evaluations of the new AD. It gives me a glimmer of hope that he will hire someone with some creativity and marketing skills above all else.

I agree to nothing yet. Who is the replacement, and what are his goals? A great artist once wrote, "meet the new boss, same as the old boss." I won't get fooled again.

Nick will score 2 in the next game and stay in his seat and sulk during timeouts when he's not in the game. Nick's issue has never been talent, it has been his attitude. No ZIp has EVER frustrated me as much as Nick Harney and my blood pressure welcomed his departure.

Everything Scarborough has dones has pretty much shown he's a poor leader. This recent bumble is just icing on the cake. The problem with the NCAA article is that it didn't address, or bring up the other factors that likely were the biggest contributors to the decrease in attendance. As written the article would leave the reader to believe that Akron has lost attendance because it's...well, Akron. Kick them while they're down who cares about facts? Where as the like contributor to why Akron was worst is the weekday games, and not the team. If that weren't the case, Akron should have won the title of least attendance after 3-33.

I think it is stupid to avoid Ohio State conflicts. It isn't like there are tens of thousands of fans sitting at home watching Ohio State that would otherwise be at the Zips game. They don't come anyhow, so f 'em. I love 6 pm starts. Night games are always a blast. And all the family/kids events are long-since completed by 6 pm.