Dave in Green

On the positive side, this pretty much guarantees that we will see more PT for the deep bench. This gives us all a chance to see some players in action who may not get much PT against tougher opponents in closer games. I'm ready for another round of watching Green, Egner, Euton, Diggs and Abreu on the floor together. Also wouldn't mind getting another peek at Oldham and Petersen.

We all know that a football team's performance is a combination of coach and player performance. How good or great a coach has Mack Brown been at the University of Texas in recent years? How good or great a coach has Mack Brown been this year without Colt McCoy at QB? Same team with the same coach and some different players, and UT has gone from perennial winners to a sub-.500 team in a single season. Whose more responsible for this, the coach or the players?

Unfortunately, I feel the same way. Everyone touted him as this recruiting god, so I want to see what he can do to improve us for next year. I just hope for everyone's sanity that we win 1 or 2 this year. We really need to. Unfortunately I have yet to see anything this season to indicate that we will. I know its really early, but iCoach will need to produce a damn good recruiting class and put up at least a 4 or 5 win season if he wants any chance of winning back most of us. He's got a VERY steep uphill battle ahead of him and he will need to bring out all the stops if he wants a chance at saving this program. I do know what he'll be telling every recruit this winter: play for us and you'll have a damn good shot at playing as a freshman The thing I look at is the problem that Brian Kelly is having winning with Ianello's recruits at ND this year. Kelly is a proven coach. Maybe those ND recruits that were brought in over the past few years weren't all that good? There was an article about a week ago on CBS Sports asking what's wrong with Notre Dame losing so many games despite having had consistently highly ranked recruiting classes: CBS Sports Rivals.com grades recruiting classes by teams each year, and you can see how Ianello did each year while at ND. Here's a link to 2008, where ND was second only to Alabama: Rivals.com Of course, this will all be meaningless to Zips fans if Ianello can't leverage his proven recruiting ability into a winning record at UA.

IF the Zips can score another TD, they really need to go for 2, as it's obvious they cannot stop BS. EDIT: Too late. The missed extra point did loom large. In retrospect, the Zips should have gone for 2 after their last TD in regulation.

Speaking of "point taken," the missed extra point looms large. Did anyone watching the game see what went wrong?

PN7 with 2 TD passes and Allen over 100 yards rushing. Make that last prediction come through and you are a genius.

Early in the first quarter, and you're already halfway there on the PN7 TD pass prediction.

The coach has to coach and the players have to play.

Because 1 is 50% of 2 and 33% of 3.

I noticed in another thread when KD went from 100% to 50% better on Zeke, so it's good to see that he's back to 100% better. Other Thread

Diggs was a 2G in HS and at UNO. It's the 3F position that's new to him. But the key point is that he's a wing player, and the Zips coaching staff considers the wing F and G roles to be similar in the team's offense. At least that was what we were told by a member of the coaching staff at last season's awards banquet. At one point in the second half, Diggs played a number of minutes with Euton, Egner, Green and Abreu. In this lineup, Diggs was effectively a 2G and looked just fine in his old position. In fact, Diggs brought the ball all the way up the court a couple of times, and had no problem handling JCU's press. In the postgame show, the announcers mentioned that it appeared that Diggs could play the 1, 2 or 3 positions. That's the way it looked to me, also. Diggs seems to be really flexible on what positions he can play, and he will no doubt be used wherever KD thinks he's making the biggest contribution to the team.

Here's what I saw: Nitro was all over the place defensively in the first half, getting his hand on the ball, altering passes, creating turnovers. Even if he didn't start hitting 3s in the second half, he showed that he's trying awfully hard to take over the Linhart/Conyers role. When he did start hitting 3s, they were relaxed and easy, unlike last season. He appeared to me to be the most improved player on the floor. Abreu is the PG we've been waiting for. He's incredibly deceptive because he's the quickest player on the team, but he's so under control that he looks like he's loafing just before he blows by everyone and into the open. Let me repeat the under control part. Abreu is already close to what we all hoped Hitchens would grow up to be. I feel very good about the Zips' PG situation for the next four years. Diggs is a little more polished than the freshmen due to his PT at UNO last season. Given a choice between taking the outside shot and driving to the basket, he likes to take it to the bucket, which is something the Zips have been missing. He can also bring the ball upcourt against pressure. He has the potential to develop into a nice all-around player. His drive to the basket with the behind-the=back dribble brought back memories of seeing players like him burn the Zips in the past. I looked forward to seeing Euton live for the first time, and he was everything I'd hoped he'd be from all I'd read about him. He's a little on the slow side and can't jump too high. But he makes up for that with effort and fundamentals. Since he's not that fast, he tries to make up for it by running as fast as he can all the time to get back on defense. Since he can't jump too high, he focuses on getting position and getting more than his share of rebounds. But the absolute best thing I saw tonight is that he puts the ball in the basket when he's close to the hoop. He doesn't mess around and clank the ball off the rim. He plays the angles and uses the backboard well to get the ball down. We won't have to hold our breaths when Euton gets the ball inside and goes up for a shot. Egner looked a lot like he did in the HS games I saw him play. He may be behind Euton in the rotation right now because Euton has such good all-around fundamentals. But based on what I saw tonight, Egner's tough HS defensive game will translate well to college play. He also had good form on both his jump shot and free throws, and just missed an alley-oop slam when the pass to him was a little bit off. Green looked a little more tentative than Euton and Egner. He didn't stand out the way the other two new freshman forwards did, but he didn't stink up the show, either. He did show nice form on his outside shot, which was one of his strengths in HS. Zeke looked a lot more confident on the floor, especially shooting his virtually unstoppable skyhook. When he got the ball and wanted to shoot, he didn't waste time thinking about what he wanted to do. He just shot with a quick but soft release, and the ball kept falling through. But of course he was shooting over players no taller than 6-6, so we're really going to have to see him against bigger, better players to get a better idea of how far along he's come. Cvetinovic was much more under control. Even when he was hammered or when a questionable call was made against him, he didn't come close to a meltdown. He played under control, and looked good. But he could take some lessons from Euton on how to put the ball in the hole when shooting from close in. Bardo looked slightly more polished, and is still working his butt off when he's on the floor. But it's unrealistic to think that he will ever score more than a few points a game. McNees and Roberts were both steady, performing their roles as senior leaders well. Neither did anything terribly different from what they did last year. But we got a little hint of what the team would look like with Abreu at the point and McNees at the SG, and it looked good. When McNees and Abreu are both in the game, there should be no problem getting the ball up the floor when the Zips are pressed. Oldham looked surprisingly good driving to the basket. He has good leaps, and also played reasonably under control. Petersen did OK in his few minutes. But neither Oldham nor Petersen is likely to see much PT during the season. All in all, I think this Zips team is going to be much more entertaining to watch than recent Zips teams. I think the general ball handling, athleticism and fundamentals are all improved. There will be growing pains, as there always are. But I'm really looking forward to watching this year's players come together as a team.

Already posted here.

One of the things I noticed last year was that Humpty spent a lot of time on the sideline getting in Nik's ear trying to calm him down. Then Humpty ran into a problem where he couldn't seem to calm himself down, let alone someone else. It was after Humpty had some of his own worst meltdowns that Nik seemed to lose focus. There seemed to be a lot of chemistry going on between Humpty and Nik, but I don't know exactly what it was and how it may have affected their play. Having someone on the team with volatility can be a good thing for generating positive energy as long as it doesn't get out of control. Having more than one volatile player who occasionally get a little out of control may not be such a good thing. Team chemistry is one of those mysterious aspects of sports that is always hard to measure and hard to clearly define. But you know it when you see it. I hope this year's team has an appropriate mix of volatility and stability.

Uh oh. We're in trouble now. Just a few days ago, in his media day quotes, KD said that Zeke "is twice as good as last year," and now KD says that Zeke is only "50% better." At this rate, by the time the season starts, poor Zeke is going to be worse than last year.

"We've said"? Are you the official spokesperson for the Anti-Ianello League, or is there a mouse in your pocket? Now let me get this straight. In response to an erroneous claim that Ianello has always been with losing programs throughout his career, I do my homework and find the win-loss records of all the teams where he was an assistant coach that shows exactly the opposite, and this makes me an apologist? So, let's say that someone erroneously claims that Ianello is 90 years old, and I do my homework and find his actual birth date. That would make me an apologist? You are really cracking me up!

OK, I wasn't addressing that point in my original post, and what you say doesn't contradict anything I said. But since you bring up Ianello's association with losing programs his whole career, you should be aware that the record book contradicts your point. Here's Ianello's career record as an assistant coach prior to coming to UA: 1988–1989 Alabama (SEC): 9-3, 10-2 (19-5). Overall winning program. 1990–1993 Wisconsin (Big Ten): 1-10, 5-6, 5-6, 10-1-1 (21-23-1). Program went from big loser to big winner. 1994–2002 Arizona (Pac-10): 8-4, 6-5, 5-6, 7-5, 12-1, 6-6, 5-6, 5-6, 4-8 (58-47). Overall winning program. 2003–2004 Wisconsin (Big Ten): 7-6, 9-3 (16-9). Overall winning program. 2005–2009 Notre Dame (Independent): 9-3, 10-3, 3-9, 7-6, 6-6 (35-27). Overall winning program. To summarize, Ianello had an overall winning record at four of his five assistant coaching gigs, and in the one where the record was just under .500, he helped turn the program around from a 1-10 record to 10-1-1 in four years. So, while Ianello's career as an assistant is not as brilliant as Chizik's, it's also not one of a perennial loser.

I agree with GP1. There are obviously many problems within this team, some related to the players, some related to a rookie head coach, and some related to chemistry between some of the players and a new head coach with a different style than the old one. We saw some of those problems last season, and they are not necessarily quickly and easily resolved. I believe that any new head coach deserves a minimum of two years to start producing good results, especially if inheriting a troubled program. If the first year results are really bad, at the end of the season the coach needs to report to those who pay his salary what went wrong and show a detailed plan of how he plans to correct the problems with a firm timeline. If the coach can't show appropriate progress, it's up to his employers to decide how much of his salary they're willing to eat to roll the dice on another new head coach.

Hilltopper, I'm really disappointed that you focused in on something that was not salient to my post, which was not intended to directly compare Chizik to Ianello. I also looked at Chizik's background and saw that he had a spectacular background as an assistant coach. That wasn't relevant to anything I was trying to point out. The salient point of my post is that, regardless of his sterling assistant credentials, Chizik was a miserable failure in his first head coaching job at Iowa State even though Iowa State had winning records two years before he arrived and the year immediately after he left. Auburn fans apparently didn't think much of his spectacular assistant background. They focused on his miserable failure as a head coach at Iowa State, and went bonkers when Auburn hired him. But the really relevant point of my post is how funny it can be to watch fans get all wound up in protest over a new head coach they think can't do the job when they really don't know how good the coach can be given the right conditions. I'm glad to see that GP1 got the point I was trying to make.

Humor is a good way to help maintain sanity in an otherwise depressing situation. Here's a funny one. I happened to be watching some of the Auburn game last night as the Tigers were beating up on Mississippi to maintain their perfect record and #1 BCS ranking. The announcers were talking about how passionately Auburn fans were against hiring current head coach Gene Chizik. They showed an old video clip of Chizik arriving at the airport to accept Auburn's head coaching position. Fans were going nuts holding up insulting signs, giving him the thumbs down and loudly booing as the aircraft touched down. It was hilarious in light of Auburn's performance this season under Chizik. Chizik had two years of head coaching experience before being selected by Auburn to return the school to football prominence. His record at Iowa State in his only two years as a head coach was 3-9 the first year and a worse 2-10 the second year, including 0-8 in the Big 12. Two years before Chizik arrived at Iowa State, the Cyclones had a winning record. The year after Chizik left for Auburn, Iowa State had a winning record. Chizik obviously proved himself at Iowa State to be a loser as a head coach. How in the heck could the Auburn selection committee have ever picked such a loser? In his first year at Auburn, with higher level players than he had at Iowa State, he coached the Tigers to an 8-5 record. This year, only his second at Auburn, he has the Tigers on top of the BCS standings. The Auburn fans now love the man they initially hated when they underestimated his potential based on his early head coaching record. It's funny now to watch video of how Auburn fans welcomed Chizik at the airport.

As with every sporting event I'm aware of, announced attendance always includes tickets sold (including season tickets), and not actual butts in seats.

PN7 was 15 of 26 for 134 yards with 1 interception. Don't know how many sacks, but he had -26 yards on 10 "rushes." As a team, Zips had a grand total of 20 rushing yards in 28 attempts for a rushing average of .7 yards. The punting game was pretty decent.

You remind me of someone who used to post similar language on ZN.O, but completely disappeared from the forum many months ago.

Lots of loose ends here. Did Tressel out of the blue approach UA to recommend Fickell as head coach? If so, why on earth would a successful head coach voluntarily try to push out a good assistant and hurt his own team? Or did Fickell ask Tressel to recommend him to UA as head coach? If so, it's understandable why a head coach would honor an assistant's wishes. But then why would a successful assistant on a successful team want to try to go to a down and out program at a school with no history of winning when his credentials might be strong enough to earn himself a head coaching gig at a winning program with more resources? Or did none of this really happen? Did someone at UA merely mention Fickell as a potential candidate, and as it got passed on from person to person, embellishments were added and it morphed into a story that Tressel and Fickell did everything in their power to push Fickell as head coach, and UA wouldn't even pick up the phone? Is there any way to separate fact from fantasy on this? I mean, someone almost talked me into believing they had seen Rodgers on the sideline during the first half of last week's game when I was certain he wasn't there, and the reality was that Rodgers was not there. So I'm more skeptical these days when someone's unsubstantiated opinion is passionately presented as gospel on ZN.O.

Little rational thought to be found where LeBron is concerned