MDZip

It was reported in GoZips that the Zips have risen to spot #2 in the Soccer America National Rankings (sse the end of the article). Not according to an article in Soccer America where they say the Zips are #1 (I can't see the poll itself). Akron finds some answersby Paul KennedyMEN'S NEWS ... Heading into the 2009 season, Akron had several question marks. Who would replace Hermann Trophy winner Steve Zakuani, who left after his sophomore season and signed with MLS's Seattle Sounders FC? And who would replace four-year starter Evan Bush in goal?After the opening weekend of play, it looked like the Zips have found a replacement for Bush but finding a goalscorer to replace Zakuani will be a bit harder.Freshman goalkeeper David Meves earned a pair of shutouts as Akron beat SMU and Tulsa by 1-0 scores to sweep the to the Radisson Tulsa Airport Classic and move into the top spot in the Soccer America Men's Top 25.For the time being, Akron will get its goals by committee. The Zips hit the post twice against SMU and needed a penalty kick from Blair Gavin to win on Friday. Another midfielder, Anthony Ampaipitakwong, had the goal against Tulsa.* It was not a great week for the three ACC teams ranked in the Preseason Top 25. North Carolina had to settle for a 1-1 tie with Northern Illinois and fell to No. 2 behind Akron in this week's rankings. Defending national champion Maryland lost to UCLA, 2-0, in its opener, while 2007 champion Wake Forest managed only four goals (one an own goal) in three games and went 2-0-1. But before you write off the ACC ...-- Virginia put a horrible preseason behind it and beat Portland, 3-0, and Washington, 2-1, at the Portland Nike Invitational. Sophomore Tony Tchani, back after missing the last part of the 2008 season with a knee injury, set the tone with two goals in the first 15 minutes in the opener against Portland.-- Duke and N.C. State both won two games at the Duke/Nike Classic to move to 3-0-0. Denver, the defending MPSF champion, arrived in Durham with a No. 25 ranking, but N.C. State blew the Pioneers away, 4-0, and Duke won, 2-0, two days later.I think it is possible that we could pick up another #1 in the NSCAA poll tomorrow. I am a little disappointed Indiana lost, it will take a little lustre off the game on the 18th.This is OUR year!

That's one of those "wish I had thought of that" moments. Outstanding. And psu1, yep, it was by the hospital. So while it might have been a mile and a half from the stadium at least it was a mere $20 to park.

Hey Z.I.P., I support both programs (financially and by attendance when possible). I agree with one statement above, we clearly don't and can't compete on the level of Penn State (I can name about 20 programs that truly can), however that doesn't mean I do not have hope for the future. When I started school (which was 29 years ago) we were a D-II program. We moved up to D-1AA while I was there and then D-1A in the early nineties. Quite frankly, we made a hell of a lot of progress in the last 30 years. It might take 30 more or it might never happen to get to something like that level but I think its smart of the University to at least position itself that way. I'd take being truly competitive in the MAC every year right now, but that doesn't mean I don't want to look ahead. If Proenza had taken that stance we'd still be Hilltop High. I have been to many, many college campuses and Akron stacks up with a lot of them. We had some pretty good football teams n the 70's but I can't imagine anyone thinking we should go play Penn State at the time. Not the case now - now we're upset because we didn't give a good enough showing (against the freaking #8 team in the country - and they deserve it). In 30 years since being a D-II program, that's actually not bad progress. So give me "Dollar General" football for now but that doesn't means I don't want to plan for moving up sometime. I voted with my wallet. Facilities do make a difference too, we hung around in the middle of the pack with the worst facilities in the league, the new ones will pay off soon.And yeah, you may be paying too much attention to soccer. Penn State's QB was All Big-Ten last year and he played a terrific game. Far from a first year QB.

I like the white background better.

I agree - I don't know if the mods can grab it and upload it but we have a real need for this now. Go Zips!

Yep, as disapponted as I was in the first half effort, at least the Zips made some second half adjustments so it didn't get any uglier (and Penn State still did have a big chunk of their starters in), I have to give the Penn State fans credit. All of the ones around us were classy and even helpful at times. First time I've ever visited the Penn State campus and I was pretty impressed. We even stayed well after the game (even met the new wrestling coach, Cael Sanderson - one of the best wrestlers of all time - wish Akron would bring their program back) and by the time we left it was quite dark out. This was a minor problem since we had parked in one of those cow pastures a long way away from the field but it was quite fun flying up and down those hills at night in a friends's Chevy Suburban looking for our car. Yee-haaaa! Anyway, great experience and we had a lot of fun. I would prefer we schedule Penn State in their rare down years from here on out.

Villanova is a pretty good FCS team but if Temple was a serious contender, no way do they lose to them. I'd say it could be a battle between OU, BUGS and us. Interested to see how the rest of the teams fare this weekend. I think Western knocks off Big Blue at the Big House.

That would be outstanding. I was at the Ball State game last year (a pretty big game then) and while the weather wasn't good there were barely that many people there total.

The MAC is up in three of four tonight (Can't State 18 Coastal Carolina; Temple 24 Villanova 14 and Bowling Green over Troy 24-14 - that one is a least a little impressive). The only current MAC team losing is Ball State down 10-3 at North Texas. Hope they enjoyed last year - looks like it's going to be a long year for them - why couldn't we have drawn them THIS year?

That one was pretty easy .. from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Right on their websitehttp://www.coastal.edu/about/chanticleer.html

#1 - Allen off right tackle for two yards.#2 - Jacquemain sacked#3 - Screen play to Bruce, short of first down#4 - Puntbut in the second series we will gain at least one first down.

There have been mentions of Akron area watch parties and a few random mentions of who's going on other threads, but who is planning on being there for one of the biggest upsets of the season? It is only days away!

You're going to have to wait a little longer. We don't get them until 2011.

Sounds like we got heard.Glad to see it and maybe our protests did help some. I know many of us including me wrote to the NCAA that weekend. Too bad it was a year too late.

Us out of staters had to wait longer, but they got here yesterday. Section 110, Row 7, Seats 9-10. Right in the middle of the action! Get here Sep. 12th!

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