MDZip

So for those of you who were curious about whether the Barley House was going to be a good location for Zips gatherings, I offer the following from the OU board:Join the Ohio University Alumni Association, Ohio Bobcat Club, alumni and fans prior to the Ohio vs. Akron game on Saturday, October 10 in Akron, Ohio at 4 p.m. The price of $18/person includes gameday fare, beverages and two beer tickets at the Barley House, located at 222 Main Street in Akron. This event will sell out, so register today by visiting http://www.ohioalumni.org/bobcat-bash; walk-up admission is $20/person. Game time is 6 p.m. at Akron's new football stadium, Summa Field at InfoCision Stadium.

Actually I talked to Rick McFadden at the Indiana game and he told me they were waiting to see what time the football game was going to be and they would schedule the basketball game around it. Sounds pretty smart to me. I'm more worried that the Sunday basketball game and the soccer match could overlap.

For those of you that like to plan ahead and especially for those of us out-of-towners who might be planning on coming in to visit family over Thanksgiving weekend, we have a smorgasboard of Zips sports to gorge ourselves on over that weekend. It starts off with a Friday appertif of Football vs. EMU and Basketball vs. Arkansas-Pinebluff. It continues on the main course on Sunday with another Zips Basketball game vs. Niagara and then hopefully, if everything breaks right we could have a second round home NCAA tournament game for the soccer team that day. Sounds like a weekend to come back and visit the family (for what little time I'll see them ).

A little worrisome especially since the game is in Chicago. UIC is a very up and down team, they also tied UNLV and Cleveland St., I just want us to catch the down team. With our talent, I think we will. The shutout streak continues - 2-0 Zips, Gavin and Bunbury (and one more assist from Nanchoff ).

This one sort of speaks for itself (really needed VMD to do a proper job ).

And Tight Ends Coach Scott IsphordingJason Segel

Offensive Coordinator Tim AlbinTaller version of Mini-me

Starting with the coaches ...Kurtwood SmithKurtwood Smith with a bad toupee (AKA Frank Solich)

3-0 zips win...finalWay to go, Ben! Is that career NCAA goal #1? Or did I miss one already?It's #2. He picked one up against Bowling Green as well.

Well?! We're waiting!!!!

Did the game somehow get delayed? Or are we up by so many already that they are embarrassed to show the stats?

Fear the NIU. Looks like them vs. CMU may be the MAC game of the year. As was pointed out on this site in another thread, NIU rose from the bottom of the heap in two years with an excellent FCS head coach hire. Just sayin ...

We have somebody on the team right now as a good example. Humpty is 5'9" and I'd take him on my team any day. That Muggsy Bogues was pretty good too at 5'3". Ever see a picture of him next to Manute Bol when they both played for the Washington Wizards? Over two feet of height difference (and Muggsy was by far the better player - though Bol was a better rebounder. ).

Well, they did a web broadcast and radio coverage of the OSU game, so at least there is some progress in that area.

From GoZips.com: Live stats for Saturday's game will be provided by www.fausports.com.

Two words: Missouri State. (0-0 draw last season)So you're saying if we draw with FAU we should keep our #1 spot? I'd grant that to you if it was a ranked team perhaps.

That's OK, ESPN's Bottom Ten combines the two anyway. If we can't get past a very average FAU team we wouldn't deserve the #1 ranking. I just can't see that happening with this team. They seem very focused and have absolutely dominated everyone they have played (even in games with the score of 1-0). They have had exactly one goal scored on them in eight games (are you kidding me?) against some very good teams. High Point ought to be very proud. Go Zips!

From the NCAA financial reports database - http://www2.indystar.com/NCAA_financial_re...venue_stat/showI couldn't find all of the MAC schools but here are the ones that were available. For those that report breaking even or a minor loss, it's made up out of University fees. All the schools appear to be spending roughly the same amount of money.School Amount Profit/(Loss)Ball State $4,019,809 ($3,105,456)BGSU $4,022,640 ($1,329,065)CMU $3,572,222 $0.00EMU $4,385,808 ($1,282,342)Can't State $3,463,473 ($2,670,408)Miami $4,545,311 $0.00Ohio $3,790,077 ($920,539)Toledo $3,931,278 ($2,162,287)Buffalo $3,525,507 ($2,481,307)Akron $3,862,021 ($31,138) For kicks I also looked up tOSU. Their budgets are higher some due to facilities cost, but they also spend a lot more and make a huge profit that funds their non-revenue sports. Their budget is $50M total (but they give half of it away). Pretty tough to compete directly with that. OSU $25,711,478 $26,099,129 While I was looking this up I also ran across the following article about MAC schools beating Big Ten schools. Its a little optimistic, but it had some interesting points including "Where the MAC schools can't compete is in terms of facilities and budgets. The Big Ten schools simply have more cash all the way around, even to fund academics. In terms of endowments, the MAC's wealthiest school (Buffalo) is more than a quarter billion dollars behind the Big Ten's least wealthy school (Iowa)."Is Era of Big Ten MACrifice at an End?

Yeah, but doesn't it concern anyone that it may mean we're going to be cranking out more lawyers?

The bottom line really is that it is all about money. There is no way that MAC schools are going to compete against $60M budgets that the BCS schools get. I'm not saying that is fair nor right (and the NCAA ought to be sued over it - hey I think someone tried that) but it is reality. Basketball is a little different, since the team is much smaller a couple of very good players can get you into that atmosphere, but in footbal the financial landscape is so much different. Hard line to walk, do you play name schools to help with recognition and money or do you want to have more wins? I know several people (including me) have espoused one big money payout game, one I-AA "buy" game for us and then a couple of mid-level/low-level BCS teams for a 1-1. Problem is that even with the two we have now (Indiana and Syracuse) are both 2-1 series and I think we had to make some guarantee on the games they are playing at our house. So we need to work it out with whomever will work a 1-1 deal with us - which means WAC, C-USA, Sunbelt and maybe MWC. How about a Houston - we have a connection there , a Rice, a UAB 1-1 series?. That should help with getting 6 homes games and get a more realistic schedule in place to hopefully eke out a couple more wins.

Hard to do much worse - it is a little display of hubris to think that anything we do on this site actually affects a game anyway. Do it!

Nice Article on Anthony Schrock today. He is happy to be coming to UA and playing close to home in the new stadium. Let's hope even more other quality local athletes think like him.

This may be the nicest opening sentence I've ever seen for a Zips-OSU contest in any sport:AKRON, Ohio - The No. 15 nationally-ranked Ohio State men's soccer team suffered its first loss of the season at the hands of top-ranked Akron, 3-0...

You know in other years I would agree with you, but I think the talent on this team has become very obvious, I think it would take a major stumble to drop like that in the polls right now. Very few teams are having good years, a lot of them are dropping games they shouldn't. The other remaining undefeated teams (we just reduced that number by one today) have not played the kind of schedule we have. Do you think there is a chance we could have won the Big Ten this year? I certainly do.

w00t wins on the score, 3-0, but from now on to increase the degree of difficutly, we need the names of the goal scorers too. And the ladies I posted from tOSU were pretty close too. They were only off by one shot on goal and had the rest perfect. So some people at tOSU are smart.