Dave in Green

UAZip0510, don't forget that Justice will be just be a freshman player this season because of his redshirt. So he could play some minutes this season, and then make the rotation in his sophomore season. Ibitayo got enough experience playing as a true freshman last season to potentially make the rotation this season, depending on his progression. Ibitayo's reputation in HS was as a lockdown defender. His 6-9 wingspan could make life miserable for other teams' guards. Also forgot to mention that walk-on CJ Oldham appears to be transferring out. It's been noted that CJ could be a starter on some D-I teams that lack UA's depth. Don't know where CJ is headed. Could be the source of Zach's rumor about a basketball player transferring to Lake Erie College. CJ could be a real force in a D-II program like Lake Erie's, should he end up there.

Speculation ended: Team sources confirm that Hunter will be a walk-on. He's pretty talented, but the Zips just do not need another scholarship PG right now. Justice, Ibitayo, Egner and all other scholarship players on the 2011 roster will be back, and will be joined by the three new recruits -- Carmelo Betancourt, Jake Kretzer and Reggie McAdams. Betancourt has already impressed the coaching staff with his abilities as backup PG, and is expected to have similar performance to Rico as he gains college experience. He's already earned the nickname of Melo, and it's almost certain that he will not redshirt. The Zips should be solid at PG. The search for 2013 recruits to fill the expected three open scholarships continues to focus on bigs -- centers and power forwards. There's a chance that the Zips could possibly take a talented wing or guard if one is available. But this would most likely be a late decision only if the coaching staff can't sign three quality bigs.

My apologies in advance to Malakiah Hunter if he has huge hidden talent. But he simply does not have the resume of recent Zips scholarship players. Most recent Zips recruits have been all-state players with at least fairly high rankings on the recruiting websites. The Philadelphia Daily News named 32 players to their first through sixth All Public Teams, and Hunter did not even make the sixth team. He was just an honorable mention. So he certainly did not show the level of talent in HS to match recent Zips scholarship recruits. The least highly awarded HS player the Zips have signed in recent years was Ibitayo. But there were a number of articles about Deji in Illinois newspapers describing him as a late bloomer who was one of the top sleepers in the state. I can't find anything on Hunter that suggests he has shown even hints of playing at the level of recent Zips scholarship players.

Previously being discussed in the recruiting forum starting here.

@skip-zip, I agree with you on the assumption issue. Of course we see a lot in the media about the ones that go wrong, and especially the ones that go terribly wrong. But that's the way the media works. They only rarely report on one of the many airliners that lands safely on time. But every airliner crash gets covered in the media, and the bigger the crash the greater the coverage. So the bigger question to me is what's the real percentage of situations like this that don't work out vs. those with happier endings that never get reported? I haven't been able to find that stat on statsheet.com . I suspect the results vary significantly based on the specifics of each individual case. That's why it's so important that the coaching staff and admissions office do their due diligence.

A quick search shows that there's a Malakiah Hunter playing HS basketball (PG) and football (wide receiver) in the class of 2012 at Furness Horace HS in Philadelphia. He appears to be a somewhat above average (Philadelphia Public League all-league honorable mention) PG who might qualify as a walk-on at UA. Maybe one of UA's basketball walk-ons is transferring. EDIT: Malakiah Hunter claims on Twitter that he's a future PG at the University of Akron.

Doesn't make sense unless something has gone wrong with Rico or Betancourt -- both highly regarded by the Zips coaching staff -- or someone else is leaving and opening up a scholarship. The Zips have three scholarships to give, and an urgent need for bigs in the next recruiting class. KD has stated that he is focused only on power forwards and centers with those three scholarships. I suppose it might make sense if either the rumored PG is a walk-on or a real stud.

While I personally believe it's fair to point out risk potential in generalities, I don't think it's fair to assume the worst about any individual based only on sketchy, circumstantial evidence without a more thorough analysis of all the facts. Of course, no one knows better how unfair life can be than kids who, through no fault of their own, were forced to survive in the wild jungle of the toughest neighborhoods while other kids, through no merit of their own, enjoyed the advantaged life of the protected suburbs.

All of Ohio, Michigan and western PA is precisely the recruiting area that Coach Bowden told the audience at Breakfast with the Bowdens that he is focusing on for recruits, along with Florida for players with speed. From everything I know about Coach Bowden, he should be at least as good in recruiting as Solich, if not better. The Bowden family has a network of coaches they've worked with that's probably bigger and more far-reaching than the one Solich has.

@scottditzen, thanks for posting the SDSU comments about the importance of TV revenue. That reminds me that I wanted to focus in on a comment made earlier in this thread by @wadszip: I think it's really important to acknowledge the significance of UA being in the largest TV market in the country currently without a BCS (major conference) school. On the Big East's website, they make a big point in the section About The Big East to state the following: BIG EAST institutions reside in nine of the nation's top 35 largest media markets, including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Tampa, Pittsburgh, Hartford, Cincinnati and Milwaukee. With its newest members, BIG EAST markets contain almost one-fourth of all television households in the U.S. When Texas Christian University joins the conference in the 2012-13 academic year, the conference will have a footprint in 30 percent of the nation's television households. Obviously the TCU statement needs to be revised. But the point is that TV audience is a critical issue to college conferences because it can help generate badly needed income. Other conference websites also make mention of their TV markets. The key point to remember is that the Cleveland-Akron TV market is an important asset for UA to play in gaining admission to a more prestigious conference than the MAC. UA needs to leverage this to its advantage.

According to court testimony in the second shooting incident, the 18-year-old Turner was watching TV with a 17-year-old girl in a house where she was babysitting for a 4-year-old child. He had met the girl several years earlier at a church function. The girl's jealous ex-boyfriend showed up with a gun and shot them both, killing her and wounding Turner. No question that Turner had a rough childhood in a rough neighborhood and made some mistakes. But at least in the case of the second shooting, court testimony in the trial of the shooter -- who was convicted of murder -- suggests that Turner did nothing wrong.

There's some risk with every recruit. How high is the risk with Jamel Turner? A quick check of Youngstown and Mahoning County court records shows no mention of Jamel Turner. He has not been cited for so much as a single speeding ticket. I'd expect that the UA coaching staff would have done an even more thorough job of checking into Turner's background, and would have a fair degree of confidence that he's not a bad kid. Unfortunately, way too many youths get gunned down these days in tough neighborhoods, and not all of them are bad kids. I'm OK with UA taking some reasonable risks with some kids as long as it doesn't result in a high percentage getting in trouble after enrollment as we've seen with the Can't basketball team.

Proving that the NCAA does make exceptions, they just decided that Trey Zeigler can join Pitt immediately without sitting out for a year. The reason given is because his daddy coach was fired from CMU. Well, the reason that Walsh transferred to UA from Xavier is because the coach who recruited him left and the new coach flat out told him he was not in the new plan. Is it fair that the NCAA gives favored treatment to players who happen to be sons of coaches because it might be awkward for the son to continue to play for the team from which his daddy coach was fired? If I were KD, I'd sure as heck cite the Zeigler case among others when applying to get Walsh his lost year of eligibility back. Pitt basketball transfer Zeigler will be eligible this year

Lake Erie College was established in 1856 and remained a women's college until 1986. It's best known for its equine studies. Enrollment is about 1,200 -- about the size of a large high school. If Nicely is up to it, there's an opportunity for him to be a very big fish in a very small pond there. I appreciate him trying his best to produce results under terrible conditions at UA, and wish him only the best of luck.

It's both. You make some good points about specific teams and conferences. But the bigger story is that the bigger fish are creatively maneuvering to ensure that no matter how the BCS is changed, the conferences at the top of the food chain will stay there and the little fish will have even less opportunity to break through. This is all about creating a bigger gap between the four strongest college football conferences and the rest of the pack to lock up the newly created four national championship playoff positions before a game has been played. This is all about reducing the possibility of a Boise State growing bigger and emerging from a smaller school of fish to snatch food out of the mouths of the big fish. By the way, Boise State has reportedly reaffirmed its decision to move to the Big East. Official: Boise State firm on Big East

More big fish eating small fish. New bowl a death knell for ACC?

@UAzipsMan, the discussion about UA moving up to a more prestigious conference has been going on a long time. It's a common discussion point on all sports forums for all schools that aspire to higher things. Who doesn't want to improve their status? Obviously it becomes a more timely discussion when so many other schools are switching conferences and when so many conferences are looking at adding new schools. Bottom line to me is that you move to a new conference when the right opportunity arises where the benefits outweigh the risks. That time may be when no one else is doing it or when everyone else is doing it. I can't think of any time when it shouldn't be discussed as an option.

There isn't much stability anywhere right now, as today's annoucement of VCU joining Butler in moving to the Atlantic 10 demonstrates. There's an awful lot to consider in order to form an educated opinion. For example, my first reaction after learning that Navy was joining the Big East was that this was not a very strong addition for football. Then I read the following: The addition of Navy gives the Big East some national flavor and also a fairly decent on-the-field product. In the last nine seasons, Navy is 75-40. That's certainly much better than anything Pitt and Syracuse have accomplished. Navy's 75 wins in the last nine seasons rank as the 20th most in the nation -- the only current or future Big East schools with more are Boise State and West Virginia. Navy also has been to a bowl game in eight of the past nine seasons and it has 18 victories against teams from the AQ BCS leagues in that time frame, easily the most of any non-AQ BCS team. No, Navy is never going to be playing for the national championship. But they've put together a fairly impressive record over the last nine seasons. They're certainly an upgrade over most of the teams the Zips are currently playing in the MAC.

To say that the Big East is unsettled right now is putting it mildly. They're losing and adding schools faster than I can keep up. TCU would have been a major football addition if they hadn't withdrawn from the Big East right after committing to join. Boise State would be a great football addition, if they don't pull a TCU. Even with its lost schools, the Big East would remain a major upgrade over the MAC in basketball, soccer and some other sports. But football is a question mark. The Big East commissioner just resigned because he was under fire from member school presidents for not doing a better job of keeping some schools from leaving and having a sound plan for replacement schools. Maybe a new commissioner can pull the Big East back together, or maybe it's too late. I would certainly not want UA to rush into signing up for a cruise on a listing ship. Following is what the Big East is projected to look like in 2015 if there are no changes in what schools have said they're going to do, and in the current environment of daily changes, this has to be considered completely hypothetical: 10 football members: UConn Rutgers Temple Cincinnati Louisville Memphis UCF USF SMU Houston 3 football-only members: Boise St. SDSU Navy 8 non-football members: Providence St. Johns Seton Hall Villanova Georgetown Notre Dame DePaul Marquette

@wadszip, you make some good observations on connecting dots. There are other points that could be added to that. For example, there's the point about the Big East having already had their conference indoor track championship at the Stile Athletic Field House, which demonstrates that UA already fits the Big East in that department. Then there's the Big East's commitment to being a better soccer conference than the ACC. In the final 2011 college soccer standings, the Big East had 7 of the top 25 teams -- best in the country. They're losing a couple of good teams, and adding Akron would go a long way toward keeping them competitive with the ACC. There's lots and lots of circumstantial evidence out there for anyone who wants to try to gather all the data and analyze it. It's all speculation, but some is more educated than others. I have not heard any recent updates on how fund-raising is currently going at UA. More funds would be required to participate in a more prestigious conference, but being in a more prestigious conference also tends to help generate more funds. So I suspect that wealthy UA donors may have more details on the prospects of a conference move than the rest of us.

Back when most thought there was no chance of Tressel coming to UA, I was hearing that it was a more realistic possibility than most imagined. After Bowden was hired to fill the head coaching position and most stopped talking about Tressel, I continued to hear that he might end up at UA. The possibility of UA and the Big East is coming to me from the same sources that had the Tressel story right all along. We'll see what happens

@SeeTeeZip, rumors never come with guarantees. But I continue to hear from good sources that a number of prominent people at UA whose names we all recognize have hinted off the record that the Big East would be the top choice if UA were to move to a more prestigious conference. I believe that contacts have been made and discussions have been had, but I can't confirm that. While I don't have access to any details, I've heard enough to convince me that there's at least a spark of fire where this smoke is coming from. It's not surprising than many consider this to be an unlikely scenario. But think back a year ago and ask yourself what your honest response would have been if you'd heard a rumor that Terry Bowden, Chuck Amato and Jim Tressel would all be working for UA in the near future. UA is on the move in many different ways, and I expect there are more surprises to come.

Why would a soccer hater bother reading a soccer forum?

Funny, someone gets a good thread going about conference realignment and pretty soon it gets distracted into reinventing college football. Sorry for getting distracted on that. Back to reality, a number of prominent UA executives continue to refuse to go on record affirming that there's something Big going on in the East.

@lance99 and @trimmy10, thanks for the explanation about the tiered system. I agree that's the kind of thinking that can help spark interest. I was a big fan of the ABA when it was going up against the NBA. I especially liked the ABA's pioneering use of the 3-point shot, and the fact that they encouraged more of a finesse game whereas the NBA was letting the big bodies batter each other in the lane. There are ways to do that in football, as well, as the Canadians have shown. Of course, the wrong rules could also totally screw up the game.