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We got into Madison Friday morning and took a tool around the stadium first thing and saw Barry Alvarez at the main gate doing a photo session. The campus is a true city campus and parking is at a premium. We ended parking on a residential side street a couple of blocks off Regent Street and walked over to Lucky's to grab a couple of beers and something to eat. Awesome bar. It is an old automotive repair shop with a pretty wide open floor plan. A spot like this would be so awesome on Exchange Street. They serve up a mean soft pretzel. It's equivalent to about 2 loaves of bread, I think. We ventured across the street to the Big Ten but we're a little disappointed there. It is pretty much a restaurant. After spending a couple of hours off campus, we drove downtown and hit The Great Dane Brewery. We are spoiled by the breweries we have in NE Ohio. I'll leave it at that. Just down the street was the Tipsy Cow and we sat on the street there and drank a couple of Surly beers. Finally got to try "Todd the Axe Man" while gazing at the beauty of the Capitol Building. A couple of doors down was the Maduro cigar bar that ate up a couple of hours where we met a nice couple that led us over to The Old Fashioned where we ordered the official drink of Wisconsin, the Brandy Old Fashioned. Great place. This basically wrapped up day one. We drove back to the hotel, ate pizza and hit the sack. Saturday we Ubered down to campus and left the truck at the hotel. Parking is so limited we thought that would be best. We did not see a whole lot of traditional tailgating going on. It is very much a bar scene for pregaming. Literally thousands and thousands of people were partying in not only the bars but the parking lots as well. People were great. Very friendly and cordial. There were a few random assholes that felt the need to say something inflammatory but they were outnumbered 100 to 1. Only place I have ever been with a more welcoming fan base was Tennessee and I think the Vol fans set a pretty high bar there. I hope we can schedule the Badgers again in the future. Much more enjoyable trip than Penn State. The game was a big disappointment because we didn't show up. I did not expect to win, but I was hoping we would give them a game. Bright spots were few and far between. For the first time in years we have someone to return punts. That was great. I am looking forward to seeing Ball in the conference schedule. Offensive play calling and flow was awful again. I don't forsee that getting any better. Those who were hoping to see the TE involved in the passing game have to be disappointed. 2 games 0 catches for the TE's. Defense is in trouble. The replacements for Grice, Coe, Monroe, Evans & Brown are not remotely close in talent level. I was very worried before the season started about the front end and now I know why. Hopefully Amato can do some scheming to help compensate for the defiencies but I think it will just have to play itself out as these guys get more experience. If the Zips get a victory against Marshall or Appalachian State, it will be a pretty big upset. The offense really needs to make some great strides very quickly to have a shot, I think. The defense is not going to win many games this year. We will just to have to wait and see what happens because sometimes good things happen from out of the blue. It's happened before and it can happen again. One more thing. Sorry I get so worked up sometimes. I have a lot of Akron in me. Go Zips.

3 tackles and one pass defended in his first pro game. I'll keep an eye out for snap count and grade when pff releases. Should show up at Bolts From The Blue.

Hey guys many of us at Marshall do not disagree about the MAC. Just look at our past few years with former MAC opponents. Ohio has owned us and Kent State took us down to the wire in overtime last year. CUSA has weakened itself with the addition of teams they probably should not have taken. As for Morgan State - we should not even be playing teams like that. The past three years home openers have been against Gardner-Webb, Norfolk State, and Morgan State. Winning a game 62-0 proved nothing for us but game experience for a lot of players we will need down the road. We expect a very good game Saturday against Akron. We are not the team you last played as most of those guys (Cato and Devin Johnson) are gone. It is a four hour drive down I-77. Come early - noon kickoff! Weather for now looks like upper 80s and chances of thunderstorms.

Our six game winning streak ended at #10 Wisconsin. Six game winning streak. When is the last time Akron Football had one of those? I love our chances in the MAC.

Most (all?) on this board wish you guys were back in the MAC. Myself included. It's a good rivalry and I hope it's a good game. We're not yet sure what we've got with our team either.

Maybe they should let Natson return kickoffs sometimes.

Ya know, I thought of this same lineup. I'm not a Boxen distractor, however, and I'd like to see him playing next to Hamilton. Boxen reminds me of Nico Caponi for those that have followed the Zips for a few years. Copeland is very serviceable too and seems to play his heart out. I think the DL will be OK (now that Hamilton is in the mix), it's the offense that needs to get it together. I thought the offense would be the strength of this team this year, but they can't seem to find what works for them (hint - it may be more Warren Ball).

Special teams: pleasantly surprised by delivering a solid performance. Nice punts by Gasser, one would have gone another 10 but our guy picked it up. O'Leary seems to have adequately exercised his demons. Good coverage on punts and kick offs and finally one to the house...the first one since 2004. Offense: Natson has come to play. I watched his catch in the end zone a couple of times that was ruled out of bounds. Pretty darn close and nice catch. He has lived up to expectations. Lane has such potential, but it seems like he slips into lazy football play. The penalties on Lane seemed a little ridiculous and he was held on plays that were not called. Last week might not be the best week to evaluate him. I thought the OL was OK - and that is probably a compliment considering the match-up. I am not worried about them. Ball looked good when he had opportunities. As previously mentioned, he wasn't sloppy with the ball, it was an excellent strip. BTW, did anyone watch Ritz take out the WI player on that play? Wow. I would like to have seen us try a jet bubble sweep or QB draw. I think Woodson has taken his game to the next level. I am not worried about his accuracy. The interception he threw was not inaccurate, it was that Lane was held. It looked like we were lined up for a little trickery when we had the ball around the 5 and WI called a TO. The announcers missed it, but there was something different about our line up. I will have to catch it on the replay. It was also nice to see Anthony Young come up with a tough catch. Defense: Brock Boxen is likely to small to be great at DL. He plays hard, but not sure that will be enough. We did a better job stopping the run when Hamilton was in the game, but it looked like he saw limited action. The announcer said he had been injured. Marcus was not impressive. I really don't understand that NFL prospect is still lining up in the NZ. The LBs were not impressive. Gilbert seems to be the only one aggressively pursuing the ball. I would be OK if we sat Bell. He doesn't seem all that motivated. Pittman played OK, but he wastes too much time flexing after plays that are not all that impressive. The secondary dropped some balls that could have really had an impact, early on in the game. Larry Hope played hard and seemed to be playing hurt. Scott doesn't seem as good as we has last year. Bryce Jones is working his tail off. I liked the new road game uniforms. They looked very sharp. I think we will win at least one of the next 2 games, which has us coming out of OOC play at 2-2, right where I thought we would be entering into conference play. I think we will be competitive in the MAC but I don't expect that we will have any cakewalks. The teams we blew out last year have mostly improved. If we stay healthy and if we can improve our Defense, we can compete for the MAC East.

Herd fan here wondering if any Zips fans are making the trek down to Huntington on Saturday, September 17? Noon kickoff (does not make us really happy either). Long range forecast calls for temps in the upper 80s and thunderstorms. If you are driving come early. Parking around/near Edwards Stadium for visitors is a nightmare. Travel safe. Hope to see you at the game.

Jatavis Brown and Justin March-Lillard both made their NFL regular season career debuts today. Ironically they both did it in the same game as the Chargers were in Kansas City against the Cheifs. Brown finished the day with 1.5 tackles in sporadic playing time. March was the Cheifs leader in tackles with 8.5. Hopefully this is the start of a long and successful careers for both.

I was only able to watch the first half, but it doesn't look like anything changed in the 2nd half. We're going to be okay. This was just a bad matchup. We're not going to face another OL or DL like Wisky's the rest of the season... bowl game included. Wisky's an elite-of-the-elite program. I'd rather play Minnesota... Northwestern... Purdue... Illinois... Rutgers... Maryland... Penn State... Iowa... almost any B1G school (save OSU & Mich.) than Wisky. Going forward, we may not beat either Marshall or Appy St., but I'm betting they'll both be great games. I still think we'll win the MAC East. I think we'll get run in the MACC game (man, the west is stacked!), but we'll still go bowling. Shake it off, Zips. No shame in getting out-athleted by Wisky.