Dave in Green

Heating up. WSU goes up 14-3, and MD comes right back with a kickoff return and 2-point conversion to make it 14-11.

No one has done anything here that rises to the level of being banned. I support the right of Zips Win! and Doug Snyder and anyone else to say whatever they want to say within the rules of the forum. All anyone should ever expect on a forum like this is clarity of rules and consistent enforcement.

Wayne State leads 7-3 midway through the 2nd quarter.

The important point is not just how much you spend on an investment, but what you get back in relation to what you spend, i.e. ROI (return on investment). Businesses succeed or fail based on how wisely they invest their resources. The investment in facilities has already been made, and the facilities may not be producing sufficient ROI to pay off the debt at the current rate of return due to lack of fan interest in a losing team. As GP1 often points out, facilities alone do not produce a successful program. The missing piece of the total investment is the coach who brings in and gets the most out of a capable staff and players, and generates the most interest among local fans, sponsors and investors. You can't afford to pick cheaply and you can't afford to pick stupidly. The right coach at the right price will maximize ROI by filling the stadium with paying fans. That doesn't necessarily mean that all higher-price options are better than all lower-price options. But it would not be good business to rule out higher-priced options if they are more likely to maximize total ROI for the facilities plus the coaching staff.

From saferpage.com: The Lake County Sentinel is located in Wickliffe, Ohio. The Lake County Sentinel published it's first edition on April 9, 1997 as the Wickliffe Tribune. In 1998 the name was changed to The Lake County Sentinel. The Lake County Sentinel is now strictly an online news source for Lake County, Ohio and surrounding communities. I can find no listing of the Lake County Sentinel in all the usual places where even the smallest newspapers are listed, such as newspapers.com, onlinenewspapers.com or 50states.com.

Another point that those without journalism experience might overlook is that the Lake County Sentinel did not identify Justin Lada as an employee of UA on his feature story about UA soccer. Major newspapers routinely reveal if a story has been written by someone with ties to the subject of the article. This is considered important to maintaining journalistic integrity.

One overlooked point here is the conflict of interest that Justin Lada had as an employee of both the Lake County Sentinel and UA. A journalist must be free of conflicts that would prevent him from revealing newsworthy information about any entity. A UA employee must not use his position to obtain and reveal confidential information to the media, or be guilty of spreading false rumors to the media involving his employer. It's still not clear if Lada was passing confidential UA information or passing a bad rumor through the Lake County Sentinel. But either one would be valid grounds for dismissal, especially for a part-time employee trying to build a reputation as an investigative reporter who might be expected to have similar conflict of interest problems in the future.

The Zips did start to distinguish themselves beyond the MAC by taking down Mississippi State. They need to continue to distinguish themselves beyond the MAC by proving the Mississippi State win wasn't a fluke. The MAC East is not exactly full of cupcakes this season.

I feel your pain, Zips Win!, I really do. Like you, I find a number of posts on ZN.o to be annoying. The ones that bother me the most are the angry, negative, insulting attacks, regardless of who or what they are directed against. On the other hand, I really enjoy civil, productive conversation with the many positive, thoughtful ZN.o posters such as almost everyone who has posted in this thread. So you and I appear to share a common problem for which I believe there is a reasonable solution: We need to learn to ignore the posts (and posters) that annoy us and focus on the posts (and posters) who better reflect our personal thoughts on what a friendly forum for Akron Zips fans should represent.

Average college soccer coach salary appears to be about $39k. I'd guess that Coach Porter got a fair raise after his National Championship. Average College Soccer Coach Salaries

It's not that you're not allowed to say it. It's that most people know better than to try to convince others that Tressel would not bring more to the football team, the university and the community than any other proven, high-level coach who would realistically consider coming to Akron, Ohio. There's absolutely nothing wrong in trying for the best even if the odds are against succeeding. It's called aiming high instead of walking around staring at your shoes mumbling "we are not worthy, we are not worthy." But if Tressel says no and UA says Tressel says no, then it's best to focus on finding and signing the next best candidate.

Discussing exactly how many wins it would take for each level of the many different potential variations of SOS could result in a discussion running on into infinity, which it probably will.

In addition to their 7-1 record, MTSU is 3rd in the country in team field goal percentage with an impressive 54.1%. But all of that only earns them an RPI of #215 -- way behind the Zips' current #111. We all know that RPI isn't so accurate this early in the season. But on RPI alone, the Zips are favored. MTSU @ StatSheet.com

Not to minimize the importance of any game, but a loss to MTSU would give the Zips a 3-4 record. Last season the Zips were 4-4 after their first 8 games and 10-8 after their first 18 games. Everyone was crying about how their 20-game per season win streak was toast. The Zips finished the season at 23-13. Never write off a KD team early.

One factor to keep in mind is that some kids want to stay close to home when they go to college and others want to get a little further away from mommy and daddy to establish their independence. But that's no excuse for UA not at least trying to get a fair amount of local talent. Fans of local HS stars would help fill some of those empty seats at the Info.

Anyone still think KD's scheduling is too soft?

Speculation over the fine details is starting to get a bit far-fetched. How about a true story: In my younger and wilder days, I spent quite a bit of time in bars. I was a quiet drinker, but the bars were filled with loud, belligerent types. One time a fight broke out at the table next to me, and I tried to step in and play peacemaker. To someone looking across the room, it may have appeared that I was one of the aggressors. All of a sudden I got hit in the head from behind with a chair, and then I got pissed. I started to wade in when a friend grabbed my arm and pulled me out through the front door. As we looked over our shoulders on the way out, the whole bar had erupted into a sea of flying fists and flying chairs. We trotted down to the corner just as the police arrived. Had I stayed behind, I might have been arrested for being involved in a fight when I had, in fact, started out trying to break it up. As has been previously mentioned, the big lesson here is that bad things happen in bars, especially after midnight. Trying to figure out all the details from a brief news story is just plain silly.

How about some good news about Tree that we missed last week: Demetrius Treadwell Wins the StatSheet MAC Sixth Man of the Week - November 21st, 2011

It's a serious case to Zips fans because Zips fans have high standards. But on the scale of what goes on at some other schools it's relatively small. It should be noted that his companion, Eriel Parra, faces the additional charge of "obstructing official business." So Parra is accused of creating problems that Tree did not. Whatever disagreements any of us may have over this, I think most of us want it to turn out when all the facts are in that Tree was not the instigator and that he may have been drawn in to try to break up a dispute and got caught up in it. Most of all we want him to learn from whatever mistakes he made and come away a wiser and better person.

"Resisting arrest" is a very specific charge. There is no such specific charge listed against Tree in the court records.

Some Dayton fans were actively campaigning to get Dambrot.

No question that soccer is still considered by most to be a minor sport in the U.S. But go back a few decades and people were saying soccer would never be as big in the U.S. as it is today. I suspect if you put all forms of sport on a growth chart that the curves would show general interest in soccer has risen at a higher rate than any other sport in the U.S. over the past few decades. No one really knows how fast and how long that soccer interest curve will continue to rise. We only know how far it has come from its humble beginnings to where it is today.

Following twitter is similar to having your dog swallow your wife's diamond ring. It's messy digging through all the crap, but you eventually uncover a gem.

Jay Gruden is a successful NFL offensive coordinator who is being rumored for an NFL head coaching position. Do you think there's even a remote possibility he might give up 15 years of pro coaching experience (AFL and NFL) on the verge of his first NFL head coaching position to consider an offer from UA to coach in the MAC?

Moving too quickly creates more opportunity for error while moving too slowly can result in good candidates getting better offers from schools that move more quickly. Have to move fairly quickly while devoting all your resources to a thorough analysis. If the athletic department had been doing its homework, they would have had a preliminary list drawn up well before the end of the season. There should always be a contingency plan, even if only to cover the remote possibility of the unexpected death of a head coach.