Leaderboard

This is a respectable pre-season ranking. Even at our peak, our typical pre-season rankings put us ~100 (+/- 10) at the highest before working our way up to the 50s-60s. The four teams ahead of us... KSUcks (118) BUGS (117) Buffalo (93) Toledo (82) Regarding Groce's comments... - I like hearing the team chemistry seems to be good - WE HAVE DEPTH?! - I would be shocked if we aren't one of the best - if not THE (sue me, OSUcks) best - conditioned team in the MAC. Following the team's social media, they hit fitness HARD this off-season, including Orange Theory Fitness which I've done; it's no joke on the public class level, and I can't imagine how it was tweaked for the team. - Who was the scrimmage against? He said, "Andy's program."

Robert Morris, coach Andrew Toole https://watchstadium.com/news/not-so-secret-list/

2002 victory over ranked Marshall. Leftwich being carried down the Rubber Bowl field. Still shown as classic college football game to this day. Owens best win for me.

Good stuff. The faster pace should make things fun. Also like the continued stressing of defense.

Offense: I would rather see more 12 personnel (thinking protection) than 22, not sure we have the roster right now to run 22, plus I don't want to see it (boring). I thought Decavilon Reese has looked good in his ten carries averaging 4.3 yards a carry. I would like to see more of him. Not a big fan of all the motion, and trying to disguise our personnel pre-snap. Lineup, and let the QB read the defense. Simplify. In my limited viewing of Gibson, it seems like he knows where his options to throw are, and makes the most of it. Get him some time to do so. Defense: What a shame for our defense to receive little encouragement from ZN members after holding a team to 7 points while spending the majority of the game on the field. Yes, they need to get more pressure on the QB, but did they need to pressure Vantrease? The defense limited him to 65 yards passing the entire game. Six...five, when was the last time that happened??? They were actually very effective switching between the 3-4, and 4-3. Lost in a poor performance by the offense, was an effective defense. I could point out some minor things, but this group was by far the best of the team last week. Special Teams: Get better at making field goals, and getting positive yards on punt returns. Momentum and field position are dependent upon this group. Go Zips!

According to 247sports Janirr Wade committed to Akron yesterday. According to the site he had offers from BGSU, Purdue, and Rutgers.

Nelson is not he future of this program at this point. He is what he has been and is, good or bad.

U have about summed it up! The offense looks lost. Not sure why they just don't line up with 2 backs, a TE and commit to running the ball. If nothing else it might keep the D off the field for a while. The O line is still awful. There is still no run game no matter who is toting the rock. Yep,no pass rush. U can't can't play that Tampa 2 stuff if your front can't rush the passer and your front can't stop the run. Exposes some weak DB's who can't cover nearly that long. Gibson MAY end up being a good thrower,but he can't run at all. He will need a competent running game to make him competent. No wins this year folks.. Hope its not another Ianello era all over again!

Honestly I don't see it having a huge impact, at least at the G5 level. At the end of the day there aren't that many players in the nation that are going to make a material amount of money off of their likeness, and they're going to go to the blue blood schools that they would have gone to anyway.

Gene Chizik was hired at Iowa State and brought his fishing buddies with him. It was terrible. He recruited pretty well and the fan base got energized, but he coached horribly once the games actually started. Despite his claims of "being firmly entrenched" (which in Ames means "to lie to your face"), he was on a plane to Auburn within a few days. At the airport, he was greeted by someone with a sign that had his Iowa State record "3 and 19." Apparently, he needed to be in the right place with the right team. Give him Scam Newton, he wins a national championship in his first season there. So perhaps you need better bagmen! Seriously, Chizik stands out to us as a bad coach who got moved along by circumstances without us having to fire him. Maybe there is some hope in that for you. Here is a specialty beer can to commemorate our experience: Note the phone with Auburn colors that is ringing at the "firmly entrenched" press conference. There was talk about it having an ABV of 3.19, both to commemorate his record and to mock him as being weak. Even in our losing, our fans find a way to be energized. Hoping the same for you guys.

Even a blind black squirrel finds an acorn...

Not saying Les Miles will eventually pan out at Kansas necessarily, but I would have liked to see something like that. Don't sit on a lame-duck for too long.

This entire disaster is on Williams' shoulders.

It's called sarcasm.

So, back on October 6th I asked the question "I don't know the answer to this, and I'm too lazy to check it out, but how many of the 130 NCAA D1 schools have kids on their current roster hailing from say, I-70 as the southern border and Sandusky as the western border, as an indication of how the rest of the nation views NEOhio high school football talent?" It's a rainy day and I was bored so I did a little research. Instead of looking at the whole 130 D1 schools (I'm not that bored!) I looked at the current rosters of all the MAC Schools, all the Big 10 schools, and threw in Notre Dame, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Marshall and West Virginia too. I went from the PA border to Elyria, and from Lake Erie to Canfield. Now this is just based on being on the roster, not if they are starting, getting any PT, riding the bench, practice squad fodder, whatever. I do have to say, we sure have a helluva lot of long snappers and punters/kickers on this list from NEO! Here's what we have - The MAC has 110 players from the area selected. Akron leads by far with 37, and that's after taking Burkhart off the list. Here's the list: Akron - 37 Kent State - 21 Toledo - 17 Ohio - 14 Bowling Green -7 Miami - 6 Buffalo - 5 EMU - 3 Ball State - 2 NIU, CMU, WMU have none on their roster The Big 10 (or 14) have a total of 50 players from the area selected. Here's how they stack up: Ohio State - 17 Michigan State - 11 Michigan - 7 Northwestern - 5 Penn State, Purdue and Minnesota each have 2 Rutgers, Indiana, Nebraska, and Wisconsin each have 1. Maryland, Illinois and Iowa do not have any. The "other" schools have 24 players from the area. I was very surprised to see that Cincinnati leads with 16! Notre Dame has 4, Pitt has 3 and WVU has 1. Marshall has none. So the idea of Akron "not recruiting locally" seems to be debunked. Both Terry and Tom have done it. Where did the recruits come from? You'll not be shocked to see that St. Ignasius leads with 13 players, followed by Hoban and St. Ed's with 10 each. Massillon Washington and Mentor each have 9, and I remember Arth addressing the Mentor market as one to go after when he got here. Cleveland Heights, Hudson and St. Vincent-St. Mary each had 6 players on these rosters, followed by Avon, Glenville, Canton McKinley, Padua, Solon and Stow with 4 each. Benedictine, Brush, Copley, Lorain and Strongsville each added 3 to the list. Aurora, Bedford, Brecksville, Coventry, Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy, Euclid, Firestone, Warren Harding, Jackson, LaBrae, Medina, Midpark, Nordoonia, North Royalton, Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin, Perry, Springfield, Ursuline, and Westlake each had a pair, and 40 other schools had 1 player each. So, this is what currently populates the rosters of 14 schools from the Big 10 and 12 from the MAC, plus 5 "Bigs" in our area. I guess the three surprises for me were 1) how much we have tried to mine this area and how little we have to show for it during both coaching staffs; 2) the numbers at Michigan State; and 3) the numbers at Cincinnati! I know I might have missed a few players playing farther away, and I'm sure there's enough ammo here to post a lot of "Yeah, but's", so have at it.