zipboy

Driving down to the game Thursday, I heard the interview with Mack on Zips Live. Talking about Zippy he said, "At least one school in Ohio won a national title this year." Keep thinking bigger Mack. We need to separate ourselves from the rest of the league.

My guess is he plays Wed.The Can't melt down reminded me of something I would have seen in the Hipsher days.Bubba getting knocked out for the game may be a blessing in disguise for OU. It gives O'Shea a reason to stick with this lineup and bring Bubba off the bench. An athletic OU team just got more athletic.Nice to see several replays of the play at Akron and mentioning of it throughout the Can't vs OU gameAfter watching Can't/OU I caught the last half of GW and Xaiver. In terms of atmosphere, quality of play, and athleticism, if you had taken their jerseys off, I couldn't have told you which game was which. When the big 4 play each other, all of those games should be on TV. The MAC needs to show the best the league has to offer.

Problem is the selection committee will use the one want to justify who they put in.

Great job Rowdies. You definitely set the tone for the atmosphere.

I remember when the Horizon started doing that way ahead of everyone else. A great idea, and it has not cut into attendance.

I agree a great idea but I don't see the A-10 or MVC playing the MAC. It is not much of a benefit to those leagues. One that makes sense is the Colonial, RPIs are almost identical, draw similar crowds, we don't play each other much now and geographically it would be easy to travel.

Maybe it was the realization that he should not have gone pro a year early to be a 5th round draft pick

ZIP,Tokodi tore her ACL last week. Chances of a 500 MAC record look slim right now.

I would not say they swarm to the men's games. The ones that come are great but the section is not that big.

I agree that the OC was part of the problem last year. But I don't see JD bringing in a new coordinator at this point. If he did, the guy would be fairly unproven. So does JD take the reigns back over?

Good point Racer,A few weeks back Joe Dunn hinted that was what JD was doing - looking for a JUCO QB. To me that makes a lot of sense. Miller looks like a good find, but I have to think that he will redshirt this year. Ideally, we bring in 1 QB per class. With Hakes and CJ7 leaving, we are down to 2QBs, Rodgers and CJ11. Bringing in 2 this year makes sense. While Rodgers may be great, he needs some competiton. Last year to me showed that CJ11 is not the guy. Pinning all of our hopes on Rodgers is too scary. He may get hurt, he may struggle, etc. Bringing in a quality JUCO QB will be the most important recruit this year along with 1 good WR.

Good point Racer,A few weeks back Joe Dunn hinted that was what JD was doing - looking for a JUCO QB. To me that makes a lot of sense. Miller looks like a good find, but I have to think that he will redshirt this year. Ideally, we bring in 1 QB per class. With Hakes and CJ7 leaving, we are down to 2QBs, Rodgers and CJ11. Bringing in 2 this year makes sense. While Rodgers may be great, he needs some competiton. Last year to me showed that CJ11 is not the guy. Pinning all of our hopes on Rodgers is too scary. He may get hurt, he may struggle, etc. Bringing in a quality JUCO QB will be the most important recruit this year along with 1 good WR.

Given our need for playmakers, there should be room for all 3 next year. I still like having 2 back in the backfield more than we did last year. Williams and Johnson in the same backfield gives us a lot of speed.

I thought Rodgers had surgery during the season which would have negated any chance of playing last year.

We have 14 non conference games. In an ideal world3 are at a tournament on a netural site. This is where we have to get better teams, not giving up home games. Miami got 3 good games this way. One top 50, one 50-100, one 100-150.2 games should be bought ala NC Central or A&T8 games should be home and homes with quality mid majors, Winthrop, Temple, UIC, etc one of which is the bracketbuster game1 should be a 2 for 1 with a bigger name school or a 1 for 1 where our "home" game is the Q.In a year where we are a legitimate top 50 program deserving of at large consideration, we win 2 out of 3 netural games, the 4 home mid major games, split the other 4 road games, win the 2 creampuffs. That gives us 10-4 non coference schedule with some quality winsI am sure that is what Dambrot wants and is working toward. I don't see a need to play 1 road game with nothing in return or a 3 for 1 with anyone. I want the schedule to be tougher than now but don't want to give games away. And the bottom line is still we would have trouble getting an at large anyway. If Can't beats UNC and wins 20+ this year and with Lang Kennedy on the committe, they still probably don't get in. They have an argument which is more than we had last year, but the result would be the same I look at this scheduling more as a way to grow the program, get some better wins, get people to show up and go to a better league than gets 2 or 3 teams in.

Dials has been having back trouble. He has been one of the most consistent players all year. He has played great this year. At the end of the game, everything needs to go through, him, Wood, and Ced.

I don't think so. Zippy is not on the baseball team.

Thanks for the update. It looks like all of the guys have started the year off solid. Wasn't Britt a guy that we offered for QB?

The one guy that I would not have expected to see but am glad for him is Blackburn. Good college player, but I am pretty surprised that he is carved a career out. The DT issue make sense, no one can get big Dlinemen in the MAC. Thanks for putting this together.

Glad to have both of them. Joe Dunn seemed to think tonight that Steward will redshirt. KD likes the 3 guard offense, getting Roberts if he can give some quality minutes means we can rotate 4 guys there now. McNees has shown that he can play. He will still get minutes.

So I was bored and went back and looked at player retention in the MAC for the 2004 and 2005 classes. We all are disappointed about the players leaving Akron, but I was surprised how low retention is across the league. I pulled what Vandelay lists as recruiting classes from 2004-2005 and compared to who is still left on rosters today. I know this isn't 100% accurate as some players sign after this time period, some walk on, etc. I took out JUCO kids since they might have already graduated. No question the level of the league has gone down over the past few years. I wonder if losing almost half your players is one reason why. It seems that every team is perpetually young. I don't know how this compares to the other leagues, but some of you pointed out reasons why the league struggles in retention- coaches leave, academic support system may not be strong, kids are expecting playing time right away in the MAC and may not get it. Whatever the reasons, it seems that for the league to get more competitive, you need more 4th and 5th year players. Anyway, here are the numbers.2004 class ie the Kevin Grant/Brion Stokes class, JDs 1st group - only 56% of the players signed in the league were still on active rosters this year. 242 players were signed, and 135 are still around. Akron is at the lower end but pretty much everyone is low2004 class still left signed % leftakron 11 22 50.0%ball 14 25 56.0%bg 13 18 72.2%cmu 8 16 50.0%emu 8 22 36.4%Can't 8 13 61.5%miam 18 24 75.0%ohio 8 18 44.4%toledo 12 23 52.2%wmu 10 20 50.0%niu 14 22 63.6%buffalo 11 19 57.9%total 135 242 55.8%2005 class, JD's 1st heralded class has 63% of the players still left. The league has 68%, again lower than the league, but not by much. 2005 class still left signed % leftakron 15 24 62.5%ball 14 20 70.0%bg 13 25 52.0%cmu 14 25 56.0%emu 14 21 66.7%Can't 17 21 81.0%miam 7 13 53.8%ohio 24 26 92.3%toledo 15 23 65.2%wmu 16 24 66.7%niu 19 23 82.6%buffalo 16 24 66.7%total 184 269 68.4%This post is not meant to defend JD or past recruiting. I have been really disappointed with the defection rate in the prior classes and some of the name guys that did not make it. I hope that a lot of that was corrected last year and will continue this year. I just see the league as being pretty mediocre with talent levels all very similar. This shows that everyone is in the same boat. You get lucky in a year, a couple playmakers, you win the league. But to sustain a superior level vs everyone else, I don't quite know how we get that done.

Wow, base salary of 350K for a guy that has been a head coach at a Div 1 school yet. Salaries are escalating even down to the MAC level.

I think that he is at Springfield Central Catholic.

At least he is honest. And kudos to Joe Dunn, Touchdown Tuesday may have swayed him! By the way, nice show Joe, I try to listen when I can.

2 thoughts1. Wyoming's beat writer traveled to Akron.2. This would be a good article for Tom Gaffney. Why doesn't Akron draw more? Two decent OOC games this past week drew 2500 people. I know these stories have been written before. Gaffney is a good writer, and I imagine he will have an interesting slant on it.