Dave in Green

Akron to Hoover = 707 miles.

Within the context of my original statement 5 days ago, it was that I thought based on what I knew then that Winters could make UA competitive in the MAC, but I wasn't confident he could make UA a big winner in the MAC. I would define "competitive in the MAC" as a team that wins half or more of its games on a regular basis. I would define "big winner in the MAC" as a team that contends for the MAC championship on a regular basis. After further research and consideration, I now believe there's a greater likelihood that Winters could do for UA what he's done for Wayne State -- not take UA to the national championship game, but contend for the MAC championship on a regular basis. I also believe that all signs are now pointing toward Winters getting the job. If that's the case, I want to be part of the fan base making him feel welcome here, not part of the fan base crying about how UA could have done better.

Anyone making a living in the news media business hates that news can now be transmitted directly and instantaneously from the news source to the public without going through the filter of the news media.

@hiroad1, thanks for the fact check on where the term "safe choice" originated. In the long series of quotes, I said I looked at Winters as the "comfortable choice" and thought he was likely to do well but not necessarily turn UA into a big winner. I'm still not 100% certain that Winters is the best all-around choice. But after looking at what he accomplished as a D1A OC, I'm more open to him being one of the top candidates to turn UA around. Maybe one of the up-and-coming young coaches could do better, maybe not. There will never be unanimous agreement on who the best available candidate is. But one thing is an absolute certainty. If the coach who is selected doesn't pan out, the Akron Zips Football forum is going to become a really unpleasant place to visit.

ZN.o search results for the term "safe choice" at any time over all forums

I would think UA would be in charge of determining whether or not there should be a meet-and-greet with a new head coach, and that it would not be the coach's decision. If Ianello in fact personally rejected having a meet-and-greet, then shame on him and also shame on UA for not requiring him to do it. The fact that UA has announced a meet-and-greet even before the new coach has been announced is a positive sign. This is the way they need to handle these situations in the future if they are at all interested in building an enthusiastic fan base.

Then why does it appear that you spent your evening digging up everything positive that you could find to support Winters? His D-1A "accomplishments"? Those "accomplishments" must have been pretty incredible if they landed him a job at a D-II school in the pits of Detroit. Apparently myself and 120 D-1A schools all missed an opportunity a few years ago. I don't agree with you that he should be a D-1A coach, for many reasons. What else do you want me to say? I didn't spend an evening researching that. It was all in one place. There was no emotion involved at all. I do not know Winters personally and have no emotional attachment to the man. There have been plenty of emotional statements about Winters on this forum, both pro and con. So I went looking for facts and found them in 5 minutes. There are pro and con facts to be found about Winters and every other potential candidate. Like you, I do not find Winters' WSU D2 accomplishments by themselves to be compelling. But adding consideration of his previous accomplishments as a D1A OC begins to paint a more complete picture. I expect the UA search team will dig even deeper into the facts on all the candidates before making their decision.

Zips Athletics ..... will also provide information regarding an open reception to meet-and-greet the coach for all donors, season ticketholders, fans, University faculty and staff, and students. Can't recall if they had a similar meet-and-greet with Ianello?

Campbell said "no one from Akron contacted him directly." The qualifying word "directly" would not be required unless perhaps the formal process of initiating contact with him had in fact begun but was still in its early stages. Here's an interpretation of what he said: Someone associated with the UA search began the formal process of contacting Campbell. Toledo decided to name Campbell head coach before anyone from Akron had a chance to speak directly with Campbell. Campbell's first choice was the Toledo position. Once offered that position he felt no need to listen to any offer from UA.

I suggest that we remove from contention any candidate who has so many siblings in the coaching business that no one can keep track of who or where they all are.

I suspect that the possibility of losing Campbell to UA may have helped cut short the "national search" that Toledo announced just 2 days ago they were going to conduct.

@skip-zip, forget about D2 coaches for a minute. What would you think of an experienced D1A (FBS) offensive coordinator who ran an offense that ranked 7th nationally in passing offense (311.3 yards per game), 9th nationally in total offense (470.2 ypg) and 11th nationally in scoring offense (36.2 ppg)? What if that OC was so good that he was twice nominated for the Broyles Award, a national honor recognizing the nation’s top D1A assistant coach? What if he had accomplished all that at a school with no history of winning in D1A? Now, would you hold it against that successful D1A OC if he went to D2 to get head coaching experience and had the same success with a D2 school that previously had no history of winning? At some point you probably caught on that the person being described is Paul Winters, a man who has accomplished much more in his long career than just taking a perennial loser D2 team into the national championship game as a head coach. The man has a long body of work that deserves to be considered alongside all the other candidates' bodies of work. Toss out the D2 work if you think it's irrelevant. Compare only his D1A accomplishments to the D1A accomplishments of other candidates who have no college head coaching experience at any level and whose D1A assistant and coordinator successes have been largely accomplished at schools with much stronger football programs than UA. No emotion here. Just the facts.

Grant's top assistant is ex-Zips head coach Dan Hipsher.

One new and original item: When contacted by the Beacon Journal, Winters said: “I really don’t know what’s going on there. I’m taking care of what’s going on here.” Winters isn't talking, and apparently no one in the know at UA is talking, either. Even FootballScoop.com admits they're just "speculating" about who UA is going to pick. No good sources = no news, just speculation.

@Zip_ME87, I agree with your assessment. There's no guarantee that Speas would have performed as well this season under Porter's system as he did at NC. It happens all the time in pro sports where a player gets traded to another team and suddenly blossoms in a way he couldn't with his original team. I still have confidence in Porter's decisions.

The issue of whether or not Winters would accept the UA job if offered has already been addressed in another thread by the only person in this ZN.o discussion who appears to still have an active relationship with Winters. Unless someone else has a better source who contradicts this, I'm inclined to believe the following:

Really, it appears that all the stories are drawing on the following FootballScoop item: Akron: Sources close to the program tell us the finalists include Paul Winters, Mike Johnson, Pat Narduzzi and one other person we have not confirmed. The reporters who aren't comfortable mentioning the "unconfirmed" candidate are only mentioning the 3 who have been named.

And here's a late update from Elton that mentions a short list of 3 -- Winters, Johnson and Narduzzi: Wayne State coach Paul Winters interests Akron Zips

And an interesting comment in that article, if true: His next stop may be at Akron, where he’s one of four finalists for the Zips’ head coaching job.

I thought there were several noteworthy comments about Harney and Tree in Rasor's blog of the CSU game. First, KD on Harney: “I love Nick Harney. He’s going to be a good player for us. He made a mistake. He’s going to pay for it. I believe Nick Harney’s going to be a good person. It’s our job to make him better people. I think he’ll come back.” All the information on Harney's suspension is that it is for violation of team rules, which is not good. But it could be worse if it was a violation of university rules, failing to maintain a qualifying grade point average or a legal issue. It sounds as if he may miss a game or two as punishment. But KD believes he will learn and not be a repeat offender. That's very good news. Next, KD on Tree: “Tree is a perplexing individual. He’s very bright. He really knows how to play. And he has a really good heart. And he has trouble with authority issues. But he’s with the perfect guy because we can help him, and he can help us. He’s as talented as Wood and Rome were. Can he get everything under control? I don’t know yet, but I’m going to bet on him. I’m asking him to do things he’s never been asked to do before. If he was a bad guy, I’d cut my loss. I think he’s a good guy.” And Tree on Tree: “I definitely learned my lesson. I’ll never put myself in those situations ever again.” And, finally, Rasor on Tree: By the way, I’ve heard that the witness accounts from that night are not quite as the police report portrays it. There's a lot of good news there. KD still believes in Tree, Tree is at least saying the right things about his bad experience, and Rasor appears to have heard what's been hinted at from various sources -- that Tree was not the instigator and may have gotten caught up in someone else's mess. We've all seen what Harney can do. He was the team's leading scorer going into the CSU game. Tree's game continues to grow at an amazing rate. And Zeke played like a dominant center against CSU. Honestly, if Harney and Tree have learned their lessons and stay focused, and if Zeke plays more games like he did against CSU, the sky is the limit for a Zeke-Harney-Tree frontcourt late in the season. There's no way that Can't out-athletes that frontcourt. Things can always go wrong and result in disappointment. But if everything goes right, the results could be pretty amazing. Rasor's Blog

Here's the key quote I see in that story: "I love L.A.," Johnson said. "L.A. is a place I grew up and a place I've always called home and I like it here." Zips will have a much better chance with someone who can make the same statement about Akron or NEO rather than L.A.

Knowing GoZips, he would not want me to say this. Knowing me, I'm going to say it anyway. I've known GoZips on this forum for about 7 years. More importantly, I've known him as a real, live person for almost a full year now. We've seen some games and practices together and spent a lot of time just shooting the breeze. I can tell you some things about GoZips that I couldn't if I hadn't spent time with him. First, the man truly does bleed blue and gold. He truly loves everything about UA and the Zips teams, and is always thinking and talking about what's best for them. Second, he puts God and family above all else. He can't talk about anything, even UA and the Zips, without references to his faith and the importance of the family. It's who the man is. GoZips also has great respect for Paul Winters. More than a year ago, long before the current conversation, InTheZone posted Terry Bowden, Danny Rocco and Paul Winters as his top 3 choices to replace Ianello at the beginning of Ianello's first season at UA. GoZips responded as follows: And two weeks ago, when Ianello's firing was announced, GoZips' first reaction was as follows: Somewhere, somehow along the way, GoZips got the terribly mistaken idea in his head that Winters had small children in Michigan who might somehow stay in Michigan and not be able to see their father as often if he came to Akron to take the Zips job. I think this probably created a big conflict in his mind and in his heart about the importance of family versus the Zips getting a great football coach who GoZips personally respects. The result of all of this was a clumsily and awkwardly worded post that everyone found inappropriate and objectionable. Knowing GoZips as I do, I'm absolutely certain that he did not intend to say what his words appeared to say. But it's like getting caught speeding and saying you thought the speed limit sign said 55 mph and you were trying to go 55 when the speed limit sign actually said 35 mph. You still get the speeding ticket even though you had the best of intentions. Poor choice of words on a forum is no more an excuse than poor eyesight when driving. GoZips made a mistake in judgment. For that he is paying the price of being excluded from contributing to ZipsNation for a month. The man is down. There's no need to pile on.

Good point, Districtballer. I like the Zips' chances without Abreu a lot better against Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Florida A&M, Youngstown State and North Carolina A&T than against VCU and Marshall. I recommend surgery this Monday if it's required.

I said in another thread that I was going to keep my eye on Gilliam to see if I thought he was putting in the kind of effort on defense that I thought KD looks for in deciding who gets PT. Even though he only got 7 minutes in today's game, I saw Gilliam put in a lot of effort on D in his time on the floor. He was always trying hard to stay between his man and the basket. One of the quicker CSU guards got around him at one point, drove to the basket and scored, and got the plus one on a Gilliam foul. But this can happen to even the best defensive player in any game. Overall I give Gilliam high marks for putting a lot of energy into his D. He also had a steal. On offense, he obviously did a nice job on 2-2 from the field plus an assist during an important time when the Zips were trying to come back from a big CSU lead. Overall, I'd say that his performance today has Gilliam on his way to earning more PT. He will just need to continue putting forth similar effort in future games, and also doing the same during practice, as KD also rewards those who play good D in practice.

How cool is that! Committing to a team without a head coach. Let's reward Rodney's confidence with a great head coach hire.