kreed5120

The athletic arm race just in general is out of control. The P5 schools for the most part can afford what they are spending. Everyone else is going broke trying to keep up with the joneses. http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances/

BGSU took advantage of an easy early MAC schedule to start 3-1 and have gone 1-5 since. They perhaps have the most brutal MAC schedule remaining as their final 8 games Akron 2x, UB 2X, NIU, Can't, OU, and their only MAC bottom feeder left WMU. I see them finishing MAC play going 6-12 and being 1 of the bottom 3-4 teams.

I don't see a 5th year transfer QB going to a school that has an established starter. I'm expecting Kato to be redshirted. If Woodson goes down and none of the other QBs on the roster can perform, it's not like they can't burn his redshirt.

I'm going Zips by 15.

Don't forget Marshall is sitting at #3 in C-USA with a 8-3 conference record. We just need to keep winning to boost our potential March Madness seed. Right now Lunardi has us slotted as a 14th seed and facing MSU in round one. With a strong finish I feel a 10th or 11th seed is attainable, which would put us in a much better position to get our 1st March Madness win. It's fun to speculate about an at-large bid, but I don't want to put our tournaments hope in the hands of the selection committee. Odds are even if we did manage to pull off an at-large bid, we would get placed in one of those play-in games. Our goal should be to win the MAC tournament.

Zips 77-73

Because controversial headlines sell better than feel good stories. Sports news has turned into TMZ.

Every program loses assistants to higher paying jobs. It's a small price to pay for on the field success.

I feel recruiting rankings carry more weight at the top and become more meaningless the further down you go. It's kind of easy to pick out those blue chip studs that everyone is salivating over. It's much harder separating the 150th corner from the 200th corner. Half of Akron's recruits weren't even scouted enough to be given grades. Whose to say some of those guys aren't 2* or 3* players that just happened to be overlooked? Edit: Let's hold off judging this class until we actually see some of these guys take the field.

It very well could be. I'm not ready to mark down any of these games as a guaranteed "W" besides Miami, who I admit I'm already looking past. Ken+ looks a little lost since they lost Pollard. The game @Ken+ is still 2+ weeks away so they have a chance at righting the ship beforehand. Getting Jaylin Walker back healthy would be a good start for them.

I'm looking at the Zips 2015 roster and I'm counting 9-11 linebackers listed (2 are listed at multiple positions and I subtracted Lane who is still listed as a LB). 3 of those were seniors and 2 of them will be seniors this year. For depth alone it would make sense to add a couple. I don't want to go into next offseason with potentially only 4 LBs on the entire roster.

We could use some LBs as well to replace some of the ones we lost this year.

I don't want to count the chickens before they hatch, but the Zips final stretch run doesn't look as challenging as it did 1-2 weeks ago. 4 of the Zips final games are against BG, who isn't good, and Ken+, who just lost their 3rd leading scorer, best 3 point shooter, and team leader in assists. A big blow for a team that has struggled from long distance even with Pollard. From there we have CMU, NIU, UB, and OU, and MIA. I'm ready to mark MIA down as a win and NIU has looked very exposed after a hot start. Our 3 most challenging games remaining are CMU, UB, and OU. All of which are at home. I don't expect Akron to run the table, but I feel we are set up nicely for a strong finish.

With how bad OU started, the Zips had an opportunity to put them in a much bigger hole heading into half, but I can't complain about a 7 point lead on the road vs. a solid MAC opponent.

Athlon Sports & Life is ranking Woodson the #58 QB of 2016. The 3nd highest ranked QB in the MAC behind NIU Drew Hare who lands at #44 and CMU Cooper Rush #22. http://athlonsports.com/college-football/college-footballs-pre-spring-1-128-starting-quarterback-rankings-2016 Edit: I incorrectly listed Woodson as #2 QB in the MAC when he is #3.

I could be wrong, but I just don't see semi-pro football team surviving in Akron.

OU has had points in MAC play where they have looked pretty good and others where they have looked extremely bad. I expect Akron to cover the spread and walk away with the W 72-66.

Yeah, I agree with skip-zip on bracketology. I like to follow it more for seeding purposes. There won't be any discretion in picking the MAC team that makes the tournament. Either you win the MAC tournament and you're in or you lose and are forced to settle for a lesser tournament. Now if MAC teams, in particular Akron, began entering the conversation as an at-large team, I would be more interested.

I feel bad Aaron Jackson had his season cut short, but his absence shouldn't impact the team much. In 7 MAC league games he has 5 points, 0 assists, 7 boards in 34 minutes of play. On a per game basis that is .71 points 0 assists and 1 rebound lost per game.

As a counter point you also have to remember that the Zips target a lot of JUCO and transfer players. Kevin Gladney is coming to the Zips and only has 2 years of eligibility left. You can bring in 2.5 Keven Gladneys over the course of 5 years compared to 1 RS freshman recruit over the same time frame. The Zips should be able to sign 20-25 players per year as they tend to cycle thru players quicker than an average program.

Hopefully we can close out this recruiting class with some defensive players, namely in the front 7. We could also use a quality back.

Nice to see we are now adding some local kids to the recruiting class. Should be a busy next couple of days.

You see managers intentionally get ejected in MLB to fire up their players. I'm surprised you don't see coaches pick up a technical more often in basketball.

I wouldn't have guessed Akron to be favored as much as it is vs. a NIU that has gotten off to a great start. Then again how unpredictable MAC play has gone so far, I'm not going to pretend I know how this game pans out.

Good, good. Let them sleep on a team and coach that has made it to at least the semifinals of the MAC tournament every year for the past 10 years.