MDZip

That was an all-time Zips classic game. You can still find highlights of it on YouTube too. Andre Jones was the one who returned it (after Alphonso Owen tossed him a lateral).

As much as you hate to see quality players move on, this truly is a sign of just how talented and deep Zips soccer is. Most likely he saw that playing time was going to be reduced this season and opted for the path where he could play. While not a good event, it probably is a very good sign for the soccer team. The Indiana soccer/football double dip on Sep. 18th and 19th should be awesome. Go Caleb and crew!

I appreciate al of the effort that went into writing this, but set to that song? Might as well have just picked Shania Twain's "Feel Like a Woman".

I'm more worried about aliens tracking our recruiting.

Certainly glad to see another good recruit but I can't say I see what maybe some of you see. Both profiles listed that he had interest in BCS type schools but I didn't see any interest the other way. Akron appeared to be his only offer. Did we just get in so fast and good that we beat everyone to it?

Though apparently they renamed the arena after Mack (Rhoads Arena) instead of Rhodes Arena.I also noticed that many of the sponsoring organizations begin with the word "Young". That leaves me out.

If this one turns out anywhere near as well as the first, I'm all for that policy.

If you're in a potential one-bid league and you believe you have the talent to compete you owe it to your team to at least let them take a shot at it. I'm not sure about the down-side, maybe if you lose all your OOC games, perhaps your team loses heart and takes their league shot down with it, but hopefully you're a good enough coach to overcome that (or maybe your team really isn't good enough). But the upside and notoriety (and possible confidence boost) of knocking off even one of the big boys might be worth it. As an example, look at Coppin State's, a tiny MEAC school (which is definitely a one bid league), OOC schedule from last year:at No. 10 Purdue L 66-46 1-1 at No. 23 Kansas L 85-53 1-2 at Richmond L 78-67 1-3 at Dayton L 73-56 1-6 at Wisconsin L 57-46 1-7 at No. 14 Syracuse L 82-71 1-8 vs. Colorado* L 80-63 1-9 vs. Pepperdine* L 58-56 1-10 vs. George Washington* W 59-53 2-10 at No. 4 Oklahoma L 93-62 2-11 at Missouri L 88-55 2-12 I took out a few of their lesser opponents and they lost every one of these games but one, but you know what? When it came to the conference race they were right in the thick of it (and you may remember them as one of the 15 seeds that knocked out a #2 - Iowa State - several years ago). They didn't win it this year but they are always competitive in conference and they schedule this way every year. They truly are an anyone, anywhere type of a team. Now I am not suggesting that the Zips adopt this particular model or schedule but a few more high profile teams wouldn't be a bad thing (even if we have to go there). I trust Keith and his philosophies on scheduling but I also think we might have an at-large shot over the next few years but not without a challenging schedule. Even with the MAC bringing down the SOS you can get an at-large with the right OOC schedule (and wins). Ask Butler, the Horizon isn't much different than the MAC and the more notoriety Butler gets, the more better players get interested and enroll. I thin Akron has a golden opportunity to build on last year here. I'd hate to see it go to waste.

Interesting Note from the NBA summer league:http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-42-9...mer-League.htmlThe Death of the Back-to-the-Basket Game"Name one guy here who can hit a jump hook over their left shoulder," an NBA assistant general manager asked. "I can't think of one." Whether it's the trickle-down effect of the European game, the rule changes implemented by the league a few years ago, or college teams appropriating Mike D'Antoni-style basketball, the vast majority of the young bigs who were in Las Vegas are face-up players who work either along the perimeter or out of the pinch post: Anthony Randolph, Earl Clark, James Johnson, Taj Gibson, Dante Cunningham, DaJuan Summers, Austin Daye, and even Blake Griffin. Is this a momentary trend, or will the pendulum eventually swing back? "If I were a big man about to enter college, I would develop that back-to-the-basket game," the executive said. The implication: At some point, those skills will be at a premium, and that kid will be impossible to defend. Forward-looking teams are all about buying low and, right now, traditional post players are undervalued because they don't conform to the current climate of the NBA game.Hmm, I'm just saying if I was a 7 foot player entering college with an already pretty polished defensive game (not that anyone immediately comes to mind), this would catch my eye. Maybe working on the back to the basket offensive game being perfected around 2014 might be a really good move.

Terrific article. A couple of things stood out to me - first the line about the Zips having been eliminated in the first round of the NCAA tournament last year (as though getting beat in that round has been our biggest issue recently, that sounded really good, although they did clarify it later). Second, there were several mentions of how much Zeke liked the campus and what a great campus feel there is to it. For a campus right downtown in a good sized city that is pretty amazing, especially for those of us that remember when it just looked like a bunch of concrete blocks dropped in the middle of the city. Props to Proenza for making the school a true destination. Also, props to the board moderators who evidently have fixed the direct links to GoZips that have been a problem for a while. Of course, then I discovered that the link to Zeke's story from GoZips is wrong. At least we got the correct link here.But how great is it that Zeke is joining a tournament team that loses just one player? I echo the comment that I have never looked forward to a season quite as much.

Kara Murphy is an interesting and good choice as the student-athlete rep. Fine athlete, good student, fairly high profile and will around for a couple more years. Hey, couldn't we have asked Zeke too? Gary Taylor was a good choice, keep him involved as much as possible.

Buy single game tickets for the ones you like best, send the rest of the money to the Z-fund.

This is getting a little ugly. I think it would have been better just to allow the tape to have been released.

Thanks for stopping by. Sorry to hear you think you'll end at 5-7 again this year. We know it feels.

Alex Allen - 1 yard plunge up the middle.

Also in the Quad Countdown at #69 - Wake Forest - is this missive -Nickname: Demon Deacons. Say what you will about Blue Devils, but Demon Deacons has to be the scariest nickname in the F.B.S. Also frightening? Aztecs, Fighting Irish, Golden Hurricane, Horned Frogs, Razorbacks and Vandals. Least intimidating? Zips, Volunteers, Terrapins, Hokies, Ducks and Beavers. Most delicious? Boilermakers. At least we have some good company. Fear the Roo!

actually, those are her own every day glasses. if you looked at the pics from ncaa's you would see that she had tape on the bridge to keep them from sliding down her nose.My guess is the Zipmeister was trying to make a funny - as in that rather large weapon that appears to be attached to the bridge of her nose. Hard to know what to take literally on a message board, but I laughed.

Didn't get to see the game but Nicely must have done pretty well. Ohio won 38-31 and there was this little tidbit I found on PhillyBurbs.com.And on this night, it was designed for the Ohio offense and the quarterback tandem of Austin Boucher and Patrick Nicely. Combined, they threw for 394 yards and three touchdowns while completing 28 of 38 passes. Still, the scarlet and gray needed a touchdown from a defensive lineman placed into the backfield to pull out the victory.Nicely 10-14-1, 147 yards, 1 TD.

I think perhaps the most impressive thing about Keith in the writeup that you don't necessarily think about is that the Zips have been in post-season play 3 of the last four years and the one year they weren't was the year that most of us thought would have been most likely. That's pretty impressive when you think back on all lof the years of D-I basketball.Coach Kest certainly is showing signs of upgrading the program. While it didn't show in a ton of wins this year, how often do you kick off most of a team and then improve in the number of wins the following year? She has earned some addtional time for sure.And coach Jones has the team playing well too. Add in coach Porter, coach Engle and coach Mitchell (heck, even tennis is looking up) and Akron seems to have a very solid set of coaches worth trying to lock up for a while.

Ridiculous to even make bracketology at this time and it looks like most of the lower leagues reps were just based on the teams that won this year ... however ... it is kind of nice to be considered with the Marquettes, Miami (FL)'s of the college basketball world. Besides I'd love to be a 12 seed. Maybe Joe Lunardi knows about Zeke.

And does this sound sort of familiar too? It was the first comment after the article.Houston support your University! We have a great school #1 and then, we have fun, competitive athletic teams. Get out to Robertson this year! The Coogs play an exciting brand of football! Now, I have a challenge... to the HOUSTON CHRONICLE... Justice just challeneged Houstonians... I challenge you all to act like we have a major University in town! UT is in Austin, Texas A&M is in College Station... I dont want to see them on the Front Page... I want to see the University of HOUSTON on the Front page of the Chronicle or at least the Sports Page... I get tired of seeing our great University snubbed and stuck on page 13!

Snippet of an article from the Houston Chronicle, detailing what Mack has in front of him there -Nothing is going to happen without money, lots of it. That’s the rub. UH alums must buy tickets and write checks. There’s no magic. UH will market to the entire city, but in the beginning it’s about getting those 220,000 alumni interested. One of the enduring mysteries about sports at UH is why so many graduates care so little. A small knot of intense fans show up and scream and write letters, but they’re a small minority. A much larger number of UH grads get their degrees and go away forever. Some of them talk about coming back. If the Coogs are this. If the Coogs are that. They swear that if UH ever plays Texas in the national championship game, they just might consider buying a ticket. UH fans still upset about that Big 12 snub need to get over it. That was 15 years ago. I don't know why Mack left then. He had exactly all of that here. Substitute UA for UH (except the Big 12 part ). Maybe he just loves building stadiums. Or maybe the money had something to do with it. Here is the whole article

I voted for Ohio State just to annoy people. Well, plus that was who I remember listening to on Saturday afternoons when I was a kid - Archie Griffin, Pete Johnson, Cornelius Green .... oh, sorry.

Actually, I think Akron's scheduling this year is exactly how we should be doing it. One "pay" game against high-level BCS (which allows us to play against a high level of competition, we get huge press if we win and it helps us pay to have an FCS team come into our place). I'm not thrilled with Morgan State but it gives us a pretty good chance to open the stadium with a win (which is far from guaranteed with Indiana) and one FCS win a year right now counts as bowl eligibilty. Why wouldn't we want that? Then a home and home series against the lower BCS or non-BCS is perfect (even though we had to trade Syracuse 2-1 which I think we should stop now). We need 6 home games a year, we can buy one FCS and we should be able to trade for the other. According to this (and I do not think it is still entirely accurate):Future Akron OOC Opponentswe are back to only five home games with the following opponents for 2010:Mich St (away)Kentucky (away)Syracuse (home)Indiana (away)While those are great opponents, that schedule is as they say, nucking futz. Who knew when this schedule was made that Syracuse wouldn't be that good (and in another year they could be again). I think Kentucky could be off the table because of the scheduling snafu and is that is the case we should replace them with a home FCS game.The next year we have Ohio St and Cincinnati on the road (so we need to find someone willing to trade a 1-1 home game) and then get another FCS team. There is a hierarchy in FBS and we are toward the bottom (fortunately this kind of scheduling can help us). At least there is another tier below us. Let's buy Youngstown St (well, rent them I guess), that would be an FCS team that might generate some interest. And if they won't come as a pay game, there are a lot of other FCS schools. I think this is how the entire MAC should schedule. Put me in charge of scheduling, I'm ready.

Logo looks great - now the formerly least interesting web cam is now the most interesting one - at least for the time being.