mrelegazna

To our visiting Penn State fans,The line on this game is in the neighborhood of 16-17 depending on where you look. So it's not INSANITY to honestly, legitmately predict that Akron will keep it close, anymore than it's insanity to predict PSU will win by twice the spread or more, which a couple of you have. To be sure, most of us are predicting a close Akron loss with well-thought-out and -written reasons, so I suspect that's why you are mostly picking on the one guy who didn't. The talent gap between an elite school like Penn State and a MAC school is dwindling. It will always be there, and it will probably make the difference in this game, but a close game that's in doubt throughout is very, very possible. A lot of Akron's strengths and experience (like at quarterback and the defense in general) match up well with the Penn State's counterpart units being new starters, and we are not obligated to regard those guys all as awesome superstars in the making. Not saying it will happen again, but lord knows Penn State has needed a rebuilding year or two after losing a ton of talent in years past.Penn State 27, Akron 21.

What's nice is that 10 the 11 MAC games will be broadcast either on TV or on the web opening week, with Indiana-Western Michigan the only exception (You have to live in the proper market to see BSU-EMU though). My source (get ready to drool, by the way, if you like comprehensiveness. To call this a "TV listing" doesn't do it justice):http://mattsarz44017.tripod.com/football2006.html

wow! calm down. that was just my understanding and there is nothing wrong with having a female mascot. personally i think it's kind of cool to be only one of two in the country. I live in Newark, Delaware, not far from the University of Delaware, who are the Fighting Blue Hens. That's right, Hens! And yet, somehow, all the guys around campus aren't mincing little pansies, and they even won the Division 1-AA football championship a couple years ago. So Zippy is, as much as mascots can have a gender, a girl. Who....cares?

Does some one understand this? I don't think I fully do. Does it mean that if we don't hit 15 thou this year, we must for ten straight years? And what if we don't? We lose D1A status? Or we are just "restricted" from bowls? And what does that mean? Barred from bowls, or only "restricted" from certain ones?

I was also thinking how familiar this all sounded (somebody in the original scheduling thread, I mercifully forget who, went off the deep end and said the AD should go to jail for allowing this schedule to go down, and he was serious.)The lateness of our first home game is definitely a bummer, hopefully the whether stays decent into November. Also, just going with my gut here, I don't have any research to back it up...but I suspect that the Wednesday/Thursday games on national television are more of a financial and recruiting boon to the program than having a full stadium (not saying a full stadium isn't hugely important, don't get me wrong)....I suspect it's still better even if the cameras catch those embarrassing shots of empty sections. You've got to get on television. Akron football is a fine product and it needs advertised.

That must be a new thing, I never heard that in my three years in Columbus (campus area).

Z.I.P beat me to it. I don't think anyone outside the Akron area ever says "Akron U." It's a local term to distinguish from Akron, the city, proper.

This is the kind of denial/delusions of grandeur I'm talking about. The Cavs and Chicago/Detroit are on the same plane. They are equal competitors...I know some of us like to pretend that so it is with Ohio State and Akron, but it's just not the case. No one here can argue that Big Ten is significantly more talented than the MAC, and no one here can argue that a MAC school hasn't beaten Ohio State in the better part of the century. That's not the case with the Bulls and the Cavs. That's not the case with the Clippers and the Lakers, or even the Devil Rays and the Yankees....the difference, the fact of the matter is, is greater for Ohio State/Akron.If Ohio State ceased to be tomorrow, I know that a lot of you have convinced yourselves that some of the blue-chippers they sign would instead choose Akron, but they wouldn't, or any other MAC school....they'd go to schools offering them the visibility, exposure, and/or a chance to win National Championships that OSU offered them. I know that there's isolated incidents of students being offered by elite schools and signing with MAC schools, but they are a slight minority to a vast majority...but these are still minority cases and not adequate to prop up a theory of "Ohio State is holding Akron down!"The only example of a school truly raising it's profile from semi-obscure to elite and sustaining in the last 35 years is Gonzaga. They share the Spokane market (a lot closer than Akron and Ohio State, which are in two different markets, mind you).(Pitt and Louisville were mentioned, but Pitt has been competing for National Championships since the 70's and football, and Louisville has for about as long in basketball).Can someone still root for both Gonzaga and Washington State? Well, they play in different conferences...Gonzaga, in spite of their success, has not been asked to join the Pac 10, even though they are outstanding and one-sport admissions to conferences is more commonplace these days) or even the WAC. One rooting for both only would have to make a "choice" when they play their annual battle, and in the unlikely even tthey meet in the NCAA tourney. So based on lack of a common conference alone, of course you can root for both (this is another way the Cavs/Bulls comparison falls flat).Now, that's an example where a school HAS achieved equality (surpassed, even) the high profile school it shares a state with. I don't know exactly how they did it, but I don't think it was because they landed a bunch of recruits that would otherwise be headed to Pac 10 schools, or because students at Gonzaga refused to support Washington State in any way. Really, it's a great example of a)How you can succeed in spite of having a "big brother" at your doorstep." God, I'm not even halfway through my thoughts on this matter but, gotta get back to work....

I am definitely a big fan of both, being from Akron (North '94) and attending Ohio State.To answer your question, I would definitely prefer to see Akron beat Ohio State, for one simple reason: A win would mean so much more to Akron than the loss would for Ohio State. Us Ohio State fans have already seen them win a NC, and will probably see them do it again. They are one of about ten or so elite programs in the country that are pretty much assured of never being down for too long a term. That's true whether the OSU haters here like it not.I don't mind the guys here like Zip Watcher who hate the "Suckeyes." I do mind these loyalty tests (isn't this about the 8,000 OSU vs. Akron post we've seen in the last year?) that suggest either you can't or you shouldn't be a fan of both.Akron can be the next Gonzaga, they can be the next George Mason, but the MAC will always be on a different plane than the Big Ten, a big enough difference that rooting for them both is hardly mutually exclusive. And that's okay! Ohio State is not holding the Zips down anymore than U-Dub held Gonzaga down or Virginia/VT held George Mason down. We all would like to see the Zips acheive the most dizzying heights imaginable. But I think some of you are unhappy about having allegiances to a school that's not among the uppermost elite, and you're looking for a scapegoat. It's silly and unnecessary.

Thanks, guys! I am Kevin Beane!Not immediately sure how I can prove it but...I am. :)I've mentioned my love of the Zips in my column before, I believe. I'm sure I will again....But now that you know my secret identity....PLEASE no PM's messages saying, "So you have mentioned the Zips in months! Give us an entire column! If you were a true Zips fan, you would!" Actually, saying that occurs to me how I CAN prove it...I will mention zipsnation in my next column! :DMy columns are published every other Thursday, so look for that in two weeks.The column is called Slant Pattern, and if you click on "Slant Pattern" on the left-side of the column, you'll get my last several columns. Plug plug plug.

I would say all five road games are very winnable. I realize ORU was Mid-Continent champs, but the Mid-Con is arguably the worst DI hoops conference these days, thank God we got out. With the group of guys we have returning, if we can't beat ORU, even on the road, we can't argue too much about a lack of respect. Not that that will stop us. I'm honestly more worried about a bad team from a good conference (Duquesne) than the best team of a terrible conference.

Reminds me of a few years ago, a guy was standing outside of the BankOne building downtown holding a sign that said, "Don't bank at Bank One."I thought! "Oooh! A protester! What's his crusade?" So I asked him why he was protesting against Bank One."They screwed me out of some money."Oh.

Thanks, guys...

Don't mean to be lazy and use you guys for research, but before I try fishing around stats websites, does someone have this info at arm's length? For last year?*Akron's total defense ranking (YPG) in the MAC?*Akron's run defense ranking (YPG) in the MAC?*Akron's pass defense ranking (YPG in the MAC?

I might've interpreted it wrong, but I don't think those second-tier Big Ten games are moving away from ESPN Plus. I think they will probably "share" those games, and probably the only games the Big Ten network will show exclusively are the super-clunkers like Illinois vs. Indiana that even ESPN Plus won't pick up.

Looks like they accidentally put Ball State's "key game" in that spot.

I read the first paragraph of this thread and wondered, "How much farther down the thread until we hear, "How dare it not be Akron?!?!"Answer: Second paragraph.I basically second everything CK says. This is no recruiting coup.

Neat.A year or two ago, I actually bought a MAC mini-football helmet complete set (super-mini I mean, just slightly larger than the ones you get in those gumball machines for 25 or 50 cents) at one the mall sports-collectable stores (I forget if it was the one in Chapel Hill or Summit).They now all reside on a shelf on my desk at work, withthe MAC East teams facing the MAC West, with Akron in the middle mounted on a bottle of white out...king of the hill!

Wow. Chill out everybody.I seem to be the only Zip fan on here with no inside information ("The players loved her! "No way, they hated her!"), but I think it's always pointless to bitch about departed coaches. If JD left to become assistant backup quarterback coach at Malone, I'd still rather focus on the feature than piss on the past.Wright may or may not have been a "bitch" in terms of her demeanor, her likeability, whatever, but she made a choice (to move on) that was hers to make. It might've been a dumb move, but she wasn't a "bitch" to make it. All this complaining is just a long-winded way of expressing shame that anyone would ever voluntarily resign from the school we love that we would rather keep. It feels like a slap in the face. But we're not Ohio State, we're not Duke. People are gonna go to higher echelon programs. We'll deal with it. Rise above it.And if it was a guy we'd be saying "asshole" or something instead of bitch, I don't understand the purpose of the gender-specific slam. Yeah, I know, go root for Can't you PC hippie....

Why stop there? Let's fire JD if we go 9-3 or 8-4. Or at least give him a"final warning" for 2007.

(Warning: Boring and irrelevant if you are not from the Akron area. Still boring even if you are).Thanks, UA fan, for posting this. To me it's big news. Since I no longer live in the area, Akron news that would be interesting to me only gets to me accidentally (like this).I grew up going to Central-Hower cluster schools and while I ultimately attended/graduated from North, I almost transferred to Central-Hower about 8 times because of their broadcast journalism vocational program. But it always still be the flagship high school of Akron to me....it never was in any real sense, but given the amount of friends and family I have who went there, and its approximation to downtown, it still felt like it to me.They had truly abhorrent football programs for most of their existence, but if IIRC they won as state championship in boys' basketball in the 80's. I know they went very deep in the tournament if they didn't. My cousin was a student there at the time, and even then, they were always hearing stories about UA's perpetual interest in buying CH from the city. It didn't start with Proenza.Sad, if for no other reasons than nostalgia.

The GMU/Larranage situation shows that it CAN be done.But still, that's the exception, not the rule. I would never begrudge JD for taking a big BCS job and I wouldn't hold it against the Athletic Dept. or University for "not doing enough" to keep him here either. Let's do all we can to keep him and hope that he doesn't define happiness by BCS bowls and boosters. But even if he does, we can and will move on and recover.

:blink: 26 wins??What has Cribbs been giving you? I'm all about confidence but... It wouldn't surprise me if we held our own next year against Syracuse or Pitt next year. I'm just saying that beating Mississippi State last year is hardly ANY kind of barometer of that competitiveness. It's a BIG stretch to say that Miss. State was "basically the same" as Pitt and Syracuse over the scope of the last ten years (and I didn't even bring West Virginia into it, so there's no point elaborating on them), but even if I grant you that point, last year we beat a team that finished one game clear of the SEC basement. Syracuse, by contrast, won the Big East tournament. Pitt spent much of the year in the top ten. The gap between Pitt/Syr amd Mississippi State is BIIIIG, no matter how many players they lose. They are on a different recruiting plane.That said (Zipsbandman), why is 26 wins next year such a big stretch? Everyone returns except Futch, Peterson, and Preston, and that loss is somewhat offset by the return of JW. 26 wins is only three more than last year. It's definitely doable.Again CK, I agree we could have a squad that could compete with almost anybody next year. I couldn't be more excited. I just don't think Mississippi State illustrates our progress very well. That's all. Anything we take out of beating them, Southeast Louisiana can take out of it, 'cause they beat them too. By the same margin we did. In Starkville, no less.

I think he was kidding. I think.

I'm not sure there's much to debate here. If the Big East were to invite us, 90% of us would want to make the move and I am positive that the administration would jump all over it.But I don't know how much sense it should make to have this as a "goal" because it's out of our control. We can't just show up at the Big East offices one day and say, "Hi, we are moving in." They have to invite us. And they wouldn't invite us now. I am as optimistic about the future as anyone, but not only are there CUSA schools, but several other MAC schools that put more butts in the seats in all sports than we do and have a longer record of success than we do, and would (AS OF TODAY) get invited before we would.So the only "goal" we should be setting is to do whatever possible to put more butts in the seats and win as many championships in as many sports as possible. Then we will be in position to get an invite. Since getting an invitation to any conference isn't promised to any school, all we can and should focus on is building a successful and profitable athletic department and let the chips fall where they may.Just as annoying to me as the cynics who would stay in the MAC are the people who are acting as though our promotion to the Big East is a foregone conclusion. If it happens, I'm sure those same people will say, "So when will be making the move to the Big Ten and assume our rightful place as the flagship university of Ohio?"And CK, you're not seriously comparing Mississippi State to Syracuse and Pitt, are you? I think we were even favored in the Mississippi State game.Ryno, the reason Texas, Florida, and California have more perennial top 25 teams than Ohio is that all of those states have populations at least 50% greater than Ohio, (and over 100% in the case of Cali and Texas). More people, more students, more booster $, etc to spread around. Actually, we an in BETTER college football shape overall as a state than some states ahead of us in population (New York, Illinois, and Pennsylvania, at least when Pitt is having a down year).