MDZip

I know it's an old joke, but when it's done in the right typeface and colors on a shirt ...

One of the final touches better be brick around the scoreboard as well. PLEASE!!!Sorry man - that's already been decided - no brick until sometime possibly in the future.

So what did he say?

Our AD's do seem to be popular with the big kids. That's actually a positive sign and is the life of a mid-major. Just hope we keep getting good ones.

I actually feel little bad for him (and them) but we had the same issues last year. You have to have enough depth to make up for injuries that you know will occur. You just hate to see it with your top line players. That made me think is there any player that we could lose this year and really be a devastating loss? We seem to have a lot of depth.

Speaking of Can't sucks, the basketball team is over in Italy on a "goodwill" tour. They elected Chris Singletary as their blogger. "Playing in a different culture is going to be interesting. I'm looking forward to what the crowd reaction and atmosphere is going to be like. I can see them yelling stuff at us in Italian that we are not going to understand anyway". Just use the international language - punch someone.

Maybe Hunter should go apply as a subversive move.

Here is our new man. Don't know much about him but the resume looks pretty good for what we think we need. It would be interesting to know who the other potential candidates were but it looks like that will be kept under wraps. I trust Proenza though, he's not going to hire someone who can't carry out his vision. At least he's from a cold weather state.

Well it's good that now it appears we get more than just "Johnny come lately's".

Forbes released their list of the top 600 colleges and named Akron at 560. There are lots of reasons that these lists are pretty meaningless (although I'm happy we finally made one somewhere - one of those Princeton review books that I've seen lately lists just about every school in the country but not Akron) and the MAC did pretty poorly overall (everyone made the list but NIU but I could have overlooked them), with Miami at the highest at 331 at no one else above 450. The MAC always gets viewed as a second tier set of schools despite some really great things going on at many of the schools. This stuff annoys me. Top of the List

Always interesting to get the perspective from the other side as well ...USF Point of View“I have to give Akron a lot of credit,” said USF head coach George Kiefer. “They did a good job for 90 minutes and came out with a lot of intensity. The looked extremely comfortable out there tonight and looked like they were in midseason form."

And yet more work on it - I believe this is the titanium and gold inlay going in? (maybe as a precursor to testing the titanium bridge). By the way I was in North Carolina over the weekend and checked out the stadiums at ECU, UNC, NCSU and Duke. Though smaller the Info looks just as nice as any of them and is way better than Wallace Wade Stadium at Duke.

He has a design shaved in his hair that looks a bit like a Z. I'd guess for Zakuani but couldn't it serve a dual purpose?

Sounders on ESPN2 right now. Zakuani on the front line.

Just like when we recently pointed out opposing players in football who were highly rated in the national eye, we certainly have to give the same props to our own. The Zips had five freshman named to the College Soccer News "players to watch". 5 out of 100 is outstanding. We used to be excited to get one. Five was the most of any school, No wonder the Zips had the top recruiting class in the country. Can't wait for this fall.100 Freshman to Keep an Eye on

Even worse, Graham Watson (the "others" blogger for non-BCS schools) dosn't even rate her own blog this year. It's just lumped in with all of the other BCS blogs under the "National" blog (all of the BCS leagues still have their own individual blogs). So there wasn't enough readership of her blog with 54 schools in it to warrant having it stand on it's own?

But it's not a very accurate depiction. They stink in far more places than just the Pacific Northwest!

This is either great news (we have a potential star at middle linebacker) or awful news (our linebacker depth is so bad that a redshirt freshman who played at a tiny high school won the job). Please be the former, please be the former ...

They also have 6 in the CFN top 200 - http://cfn.scout.com/2/886628.html#27 LB Navarro Bowman (though we won't see him this year)#45 LB Sean Lee#58 DT Jared Odrick#66 QB Darryl Clark#139 RB Evan Royster#180 C Stefen WisniewskiSurprisingly, we did not have any players listed (though the MAC did have a reasonable representation). That's why the upset will be even sweeter.

Sorry to see Andrew go before we knew what he could do, but best of luck to him. Great timimg for Darryl though (and well deserved) as you really wouldn't have had time to award one to a member of the 2009 class and now there won't be any angst about "wasting" one that could hae gone to an incoming recruit. Looking forward to big things from Darryl.

I thought it might be a little early to start this topic, but then realized it is a mere 2 1/2 weeks until game time. So who's planning on going? I ordered 6 tickets through the Zips ticket office but I haven't gotten them yet. Anybody received theirs yet? So who's going (and any of you Penn State lurkers need not reply ).

You all see eyesore. I see a perfect ZipsNation party Tailgating house.

He looks pretty badass with the new haircut though. Glad to see him graduating (excellent for him and the program) and continuing to play. Thanks for the great memories Nate!

I went back just to see if we held our position. Someone must have kept working because we are spot #34 now. Regardless, far more fun on the board was the reaction of people at Akron at that spot. Some of them got pretty worked up about it. Here are most of the comments. (I saw a Zippy_UA comment in there as well).Farmhands (8/7/2009 at 8:36 AM) Akron? really, Akron? Come on. There's only two things that have ever came out of Akron and one doesn't even play football.CML1125 (8/7/2009 at 4:16 PM) Akron? Really?... Cmon now, I can argue about 10 teams that didn't make it that should be ahead of Akron.jrussjr (8/7/2009 at 4:59 PM) NC State in the top 5!!!!......Akron in the Top 40!!!!Justinjsu (8/8/2009 at 12:28 AM) Akron and Iowa over North Carolina who decided that crap akron aint won a big game ever have they? What type of idiot would put them in a Division 1-A football program...my high school team could have beat themvincedpirate (8/8/2009 at 1:48 PM) akron? who voted for this? how long has it been out? I came down to NC, NC State, Mizzou, and Maryland for my last sopt and picked Maryland. Akron was no where close. The only ones I voted for that didn't make it were South Carolina ,Louisville, and Maryland, but how is Akron on this list??? I'd put Marshall before Akron!vincedpirate (8/8/2009 at 1:50 PM) crazyness. one guy from Akron must've voted a thousand times(ed. note - Hey WinZip does he know you? )PENNSTATE In Boise (8/8/2009 at 4:10 PM) its a shame the military academies dont get more love. for generations they've been the bread and butter cupcakes for many of the 'top 40'. c'mom..how bout navy instead of akron, nc state, or utard??? after all, notre dame is in....nataliemaehollow (8/8/2009 at 8:12 PM) Akron huh? wow why don't we just put Eastern Michigan at number 6 right under NC state at 5???? nice listpenn_state_7 (8/9/2009 at 2:21 AM) Show Akron some love, you know they are gana roll PSU in Happy Valley..hhaaaahaaPretty funny.

We really should have surrounded Steve last year screaming "One more year"! Can you imagine how awesome the Zips would be if we had Steve-O back for his junior year too? (sigh).