Dave in Green

I don't need to drive to Barberton for Barberton chicken. There's a Belgrade Gardens Chicken Restaurant less than a mile from where I live in Green.

As much as I want to see the Zips practice, I'm thinking some of the later practices might be more interesting to watch than the earliest ones.

I can understand someone predicting that WMU could have the best regular season record in the MAC. They return a lot of experienced players from last year's winning team, and they play two games each against the weaker MAC West teams and only one game each against the stronger MAC East teams. So while the stronger MAC East teams are beating up on each other, WMU could fatten up its record with lots of wins over the weaker West teams. If WMU racks up the best regular season record in the MAC, that would make them MAC champions without necessarily being the strongest, best overall team. Then comes the MAC tournament, and WMU is one of maybe a half dozen teams that could get hot and run the table at the Q.

I'm more than happy to be wrong about Zeke's weight. Pushing 240 and strongest in the weight room is music to my ears. But in one year for Green to go from 200 to 230 pounds and Gilliam from 235 to 195 pounds is flat amazing. If Gilliam was 40 pounds overweight while playing for UMBC, no wonder he was playing so far above the rim in the Canadian games if he's down to 195. Really, I don't care how much each player weighs as long as the strength conditioning coach considers that to be each player's optimum weight for his body type.

Thanks. I was hoping my eye for sports would carry over at least a little for soccer. The more soccer I watch, the less boring the lack of scoring gets. There's a lot going on outside of scoring that's both interesting and entertaining. Others have already made the point that the Zips are more of a finesse team, and the teams with bigger, stronger players try to counter that with physical, intimidating play. PSU did seem to be playing a similar style to UCSB, only without the same talent level that allowed UCSB to come out on top. While I'm a little concerned about what one of the top physical teams might do to the Zips if we were in postseason play right now, there's still time for the young Zips to gel. Watching the webcast last night, there were clearly times when the Zips' quick passing, ball control offense was almost there, but continued to falter with minor breakdowns. It's easy to imagine this Zips team with a little more experience together and fine-tuning being able to control the game and score more often against even the top physical teams.

I was just looking over the Zips roster, and it seems that the weights of various players are all mixed up. For example, Michael Green is shown to have ballooned to 230 pounds while Chauncey Gilliam has shrunk to 195. Then there's Zeke, who is listed at 235 pounds, which seems like a big gain for him. From previously listed weights, I'd guess Green is around 195, Gilliam 235 and Zeke perhaps 230 at most. Seems like a good game to be played with the roster as currently posted: Match Zips Players With Their Correct Weights. Zips Roster

I recall last year's Zips team passing all the way back to the goalie more than once, and at some point developing a freight train that roared down to the other end and produced good shots on goal. So I don't have a problem with that strategy. It's just that this young team isn't yet coupling up all the cars in the train. We know the Zips have a great coach, and we know the Zips get good players, so it may just be a matter of time before they get that train highballing. It's just a littly scary to be halfway through the season with the defending national champs still not playing with a full head of steam.

Well, Zips win 1-0. But it sure wasn't a confidence builder for me with PSU dictating all the action at the end. I'll wait for the soccer experts to dissect this one.

Wish I understood soccer better. I just can't understand how a team like PSU that's obviously not great can be a man down on the Zips home field and be taking all the action to the Zips' end. The Zips appear to be a skilled team, yet they're playing flat. It's almost as if they're playing conservatively for a 1-0 win, and taking a big risk that one of the PSU attacks is eventually going to score and even things up. You'd think a team of the Zips stature would be focused on putting the nail in the coffin and scoring another goal. Yet they just can't seem to get connected at the other end. The more I watch soccer, the more confused I get!

Ponchos are better than umbrellas all around. Ponchos are better at keeping you dry, better at not inadvertently blocking someone else's view, cheaper to buy, easier to carry folded up in a pocket, etc., etc. Seems like a no-brainer to encourage fans to bring ponchos any time you tell them they can't bring umbrellas.

The Zips have a lot of potential that needs to be realized before they will catch the attention of a New York City-based sportswriter like Matt Norlander. At least Norlander has the good sense to rate Javon McCrea as MAC Player of the Year, which is pretty hard for those of us who watched McCrea play last season to argue against. The Zips have at least four new players to work into the regular rotation this season, which will take some time to get working smoothly even considering the Canadian exhibition games. The only thing I'm counting on for sure from the Zips this season is that they will be a little more dynamic and fun to watch on offense. Whether or not they develop into a superior team on both offense and defense remains to be seen. At this point they only have the potential to be a better overall team than last season.

Pretty cool software. As sophisticated as it is, I'd still want to have experienced talent evaluators view the footage looking for intangibles. A college soccer goalie probably faces fewer than 200 shots on goal per season. If you look at, say, 6 seconds of video for each of 200 or fewer shots, that's only about 1,200 seconds (20 minutes) or less per goalie. At that rate you could review all shots on goal for the top 30 college soccer goalies in the country in about 10 hours.

I think it would. Belonging to a higher-profile conference would be a clue even to the clueless that UA is worthy of more coverage than other area schools in lesser conferences. Looking at the top TV markets, I was a little surprised that Cleveland-Akron is only ranked 17th. But that's still not bad being ranked just behind Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, and ahead of such hotspots as Denver, Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne, Portland, Charlotte, San Diego, etc. Columbus is way down in 32nd, just ahead of Cincinnati (34th). Another way to look at it is that Cleveland-Akron represents the 4th largest TV market in the midwest behind only Chicago, Detroit and Minneapolis-St. Paul. Top 100 Television Markets

Well, I think everyone who belittles statistics will just love this inconconclusive analysis. But, really, how can one conclude anything other than the fact that no statistic totally captures the full capabilities of a soccer goalie? As one who believes that stats are useful and shouldn't be ignored, but that they represent only part of the total data picture, I appreciate the problems of trying to measure a soccer goalie by stats alone. I've only recently begun paying much attention to soccer. But it's already obvious to me that there is no stat that captures the quality of shots on goal. The more difficult the shot, the more skilled the goalie must be to stop it. So stats may show that one goalie stopped a high number of shots, but fail to show that they were all relatively easy shots to stop. Yet a goalie who stopped fewer shots that were more difficult may be rated lower by stats while actually being more skilled. My initial thinking is that I would want to closely analyze video of every shot on goal against every goalie before I started making any evaluations of which goalie had the greater skills. Fortunately, there aren't that many shots on goal in a typical soccer game. So it should be manageable for someone with reasonable resources to do this. And I would assume that it is being done by someone in the pro soccer business who's evaluating college and other amateur soccer goalies for potential pro contracts. So I guess my inititial inclination would be to look at the raw stats, but then place greater emphasis on what the pro soccer analysts concluded from studying videotape of shots on goal, and how each goalie handled each shot according to its difficulty.

Great opportunity to improve over last season's 28-point embarassment.

Good info, Big Zip. Much as some folks don't like to lump Akron in with the Cleveland area, the Cleveland-Akron-Canton market taken together could have a lot of marketing clout.

The thing about QB controversies is that they almost always start with losing teams that lack a proven winning QB, and they almost never end until the team starts winning consistently behind one QB. In between, fans desperately scour the earth for any shred of evidence that one QB might offer even a sliver more hope of winning than the other. The closer the results under two different QBs, the harder it is to make a strong case for one over the other.

The best teams win the most games and championships, not necessarily the best QBs.

Now this is an ugly charge that should create a buzz: Did ESPN fuel Big East's demise? You can bet Big East thinks so

Hey, there's an "i" in Zips, too.

@bobbyake, great work on the attendance numbers. I know from past experience it can take up a lot of time researching good numbers. Gotta be careful with the "butts in seats" references, though, as there aren't nearly enough seats for all the butts at soccer games. The only thing better than "standing room only" from an attendance point of view would be to have all seats and standing room filled and a big SOLD OUT sign at the gate. UA soccer is at least starting to approach that, which is great news for all Zips fans.

Thanks for posting the Oct. 14 date, Zip2Go. I'd like to attend some of the practice sessions if they aren't closed.

All other stats aside, I like QB efficiency ratings as the best overall measurement of a QB's effectiveness. For example, here are the current top five NFL QBs according to efficiency ratings: 1. Aaron Rodgers, GB, 122.9 2. Tom Brady, NE, 109.5 3. Alex Smith, SF, 104.1 4. Eli Manning, NYG, 102.3 5. Drew Brees, NO, 102.3 If I thought PN7 could produce better QB efficiency ratings than LR8, I'd be inclined to believe PN7 would give the Zips a better chance of winning games than LR8.

Thanks to Doug Snyder including some Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA to his cooler for my lot 9 enjoyment, you can add one more to the October list.

One area where there has been clear progress is in the Zips' discipline to avoid silly penalties. The motion penalties and other silly mistakes such as late hits were, thankfully, absent from the Zips' performance. Instead, it was FIU making those mistakes with 10 penalties to the Zips' 5. The most glaring lack of progress to me is in the area of missed tackles. Brian Wagner is a fine linebacker. But there's no way he should be put in the position of having to make 22 tackles in one game. Decisive tackling is one area where the Zips really need to focus their attention. If I don't see progress in the next couple of games, I will be terribly disappointed. I enjoyed meeting Doug Snyder for the first time and sitting with him during the game. He made a number of thoughtful and intelligent observations throughout the game that showed me he knows his football. For example, early in the game when FIU was piling up yards, Doug said not to worry. He said FIU's offense would pile up lots of yards between the 20-yard lines, but would not be as effective in the red zone. Doug predicted that the score would be close and that the Zips would be within striking distance in the 4th quarter. Sure enough, the Zips trailed by only 3 points (17-20) early in the 4th quarter, and ultimately came up short by just a couple of plays against a team favored by 20 points. Yes, it was yet another loss, and losing stinks, period. And when you've bottomed out as Zips football has, no progress seems fast enough to turn pessimism into optimism. But as long as the Zips continue to improve in other areas of the game the way they have in the discipline to avoid silly penalties, I'll continue to attend the games and watch for further signs of progress. You can't get from losing to winning without progress.