zipboy

Mackey was on the coaches show Thursday night. He is on the 2 deep and should play this week. How, I have no idea.

Bring home the gold this weekend.Let's be

Thanks ZFF. How the heck does this kid have 2 interceptions this year?

Some interesting observations from Elton that did not make the print edition. Observations from Mid-American Conference basketball media day: The new head coaches added to the league -- Louis Orr at Bowling Green, Billy Taylor at Ball State and Ricardo Patton at Northern Illinois -- all said this league suits them better than from where they came. AP file photoLouis Orr is the new men's hoops coach at Bowling Green this season.In particular, Patton, (Colorado, Big 12) and Orr (Seton Hall, Big East), said the pressure of going after one or hopefully two NCAA Tournament bids in the MAC will be tougher, yet more enjoyable, than getting one of the six or seven bids from the leagues they came from. "We're all fighting for the same things here," Orr said. "I like the camaraderie among the coaches here. It's completely different from what I've been used to, even if there's less of the pie to go around." Preseason predictions: In some magazine and Internet polls, four teams were picked to finish first in the MAC East: Akron, Can't, Miami and Ohio University. Interestingly, in a quiet poll among MAC coaches and players, the team of the four with the potential to dominate -- winning 13 or 14 of 16 MAC games -- was Ohio. But the Bobcats were also considered the most fragile of the four as well.. . . Miami's Tim Pollitz chuckled at the question: "What's it like having to defend one shot?" That was no dig at the Miami RedHawks, but a reality of life in the MAC. Miami returns as a preseason favorite thanks in large part to Doug Penno's 3-pointer at the buzzer to win the 2007 MAC Tournament over the Akron Zips. Penno has graduated, but the remaining RedHawks carry the cross. "It's more pressure," Pollitz, a senior forward, said. "We need to come ready to play."Which is not unlike what Leon Williams felt after his overtime tip-in at the buzzer sent Ohio to the 2005 NCAA Tournament over Buffalo. That made the 6-8 Williams and the Bobcats defenders of one shot as sophomores. AP fileLeon Williams of OU"Looking back, that was tough," said the 6-8 senior. "The pressure the next year, I got very frustrated."On to football. They're so bad, they're good. The Akron Zips had better stick to the formula, as Saturday's game at Buffalo is the first of three games in a 12-day stretch, followed by a game next Friday at Bowling Green, then the following Wednesday at home against Ohio University. The Zips are in the midst of the MAC East Division race despite ranking 101st of 119 teams in the nation in rushing offense; 99th in passing offense, 114th in total offense; and 99th in scoring offense. Which pretty much accounts for being the statistical worst offensive team in the MAC. Yet following a bye week to fine-tune things, and with the possible return of rover back John Mackey from an ACL injury, the Zips have no place to go but up. "We've played phases, we've played quarters, but we have not played a good football game yet," said Akron coach J.D. Brookhart. Tough ending: For the second time in his career at Can't State, quarterback Julian Edelman will not be 100 percent the final four games of the season. In 2006, he suffered a shoulder injury that forced the 5-10, 190-pound Edelman to miss one game, and play at less than his best down the stretch. In the off-season he had shoulder surgery. This season, Edelman broke his right arm and is now out for the final four games. He had a plate and six screws put in during recent surgery, paving the way for true freshman Giorgio Morgan to take over at QB. Even before the broken arm, Edelman had been playing with a previously undisclosed knee injury for most of the season. Since Can't's last two head coaches have gone to having running quarterbacks as a key to their offensive attacks, four of the last five seasons' quarterbacks have missed one or more games due to injury.Rack 'em up: Despite being considered a passing league, tailbacks continued to assault defenses around the MAC over the weekend. Toledo's Jalen Parmalee rushed for 241 yards against Ohio; OU tailback Kalvin McRae was not far behind with 182 yards on the ground. Western Michigan's Brandon West rushed for 171 yards in a setback to Ball State. Bowling Green tailback Willie Geter rushed for 203 yards against Can't State, offsetting the 168 yards rushing from Can't State tailback Eugene Jarvis.Jarvis did, however, eclipse 1,000 yards on the season and now stands at 1,103. He is the first Can't State tailback to top 1,000 since Astron Whatley (1996, 1,132), and the first overall since quarterback Josh Cribbs did it in 2002 (1,057). Ouch!: Injuries hit the QB position once again in the MAC. Already this season, injuries have knocked starters out of action at Toledo and Miami. Saturday, two more were sidelined with Temple's Adam DiMechele suffering a broken leg and Can't's Edelman a broken arm in Can't State's 33-20 setback to Bowling Green. Temple's replacement, Vaughn Charlton, held up and led the Owls to victory over Miami. Eastern Michigan also went with a backup quarterback, Kyle McMahon, last week in a 26-14 loss at Northwestern.-- ealexander@plaind.com

Sure there is a lot of work to do, but from a geographical perspective, Buffalo and Akron make the most sense for the Big East.

If Can't loses, this might put their bowl chances in jeopardy

Off work today and caugh the show thanks to CK's heads up. Nice move by Andre Jones at the 5. Zipsrifle, there was definitely no high stepping, he made a nice move to get in. Also, inside the 20 we had about 5 blockers and they had 1 guy. Where was the rest of their team? Nice downfield blocking!

Great point ZIP - I could easily see this happening. From a pure divisonal standpoint it makes things more even. But I still would have voted to count the cross over games.

Can he get a medical redshirt? He only played a couple of plays so I would hope so. Seems like everytime we play at WMU, someone tears an ACL.

At this point, CJ11 gets the start. I was a bigger fan of CJ7 in preseason. He played a great 3 quarters against Indiana and had a dud game vs Can't. At this point, both guys are close. CJ11 got the opportunity and has gotten better each week. I don't see the staff as punishing CJ7 for missing a meeting. I see CJ11 taking advantage of an opportunity he got because CJ7 gave him the chance. If CJ11 had played a bad 1st quarter, I think CJ7 would have gotten in and maybe not relinquished the job. At this point, I am still not sold on either one, but there is improvement. If CJ11 starts out hot against Temple, he should play the whole game again.

I erased 2006 from my memory. Good one though, that was a big win.

Last nights win to me was bigger than the Toledo win in 92. I was a student back then and at the game. To me, the MACC is still the biggest but this ranks up there with the Marshall win and the Toledo win. Man does it feel good to be on this side of it today. Great call by French and Stamms. How about an link to the call on gozips.com? I can make it my new ringtone

Da'von is listed with a tackle in the game yesterday. Did he play special teams? Looks like we got him on the field quickly.

I agree we need to fill the JAR up, but I also don't see us selling 5500 every game. When Akron is not playing, if there is a good MAC game, I would go watch Can't play whoever more, but I hate that arena. My back is killling me at halftime. If we got average attendance to 4500 or so, I don't see it getting past that for an average. We need work to get it to 4500 and that would include several sellouts, but even if we were top 20, I don't see every game as a sellout. I do see us averaging 7K or so in a new arena.

I remeber Brandon Payne and Dan Basch both tearing ACLs up there within a quarter or so of each other. Always gotta go with the Zips, I will say 35-31. But I hope we get our stuff together and quit screwing around by missing practices and what not. I would rather lose with guys who show up than have what happened last year.

They are further ahead but should not be 34 points ahead. Even the Big East announcers were shocked. I think that everyone expected a tight game. I am going to chalk it up as a bad 2nd half but upper level MAC teams usually beat or stay close to decent BCS schools, maybe not top 15 schools, but solid BCS programs. We did not yesterday and laid a big egg. At halftime we had 19 minutes of ball possession, they had 11. The defense should have been rested. Maybe UConn is the next Rutgers and wins 10 games this year. If so, I can stomach this a little better. But this is the same team that almost got beat by Temple 2 weeks ago. I just don't understand how we fell apart so badly. I thought that we were past those days. Next week we may come out and play lights out. But good teams are consistently decent each week. I could not have been more disappointed with yesterdays performance.

CJ plays his best game of the year, UConn proves to be a big challenge but the Zips finally play 4 solid quarters and pull away 28 - 17. The offense line starts opening some holes and BW takes advantage.

We need all 3 and Kennedy out of the backfield to catch passes is reliable. On the other hand, I like Williams and Allen as 1/2. Remember a key 3rd down where Williams bounced it outside to get the 1st late 3rd quarter? I don't see us getting that 1st down last year.

I sent a nice note last night but no response. I am glad they have been bombarded. We always here no one cares about Akron, the media puts on what people want. Well, they have been bombarded with messages from many fans who are upset with what they did. Now we are told to get a life for voicing displeasure.

ziptrumpet had a good point - why not show a split screen? Even if this was Utah vs Utah State and it was down to the last minute, I would want to see the ending. Given that it was the local teams and we are treated like 2nd class citizens in our own back yard is terrible.And I would love to see what the actual ratings were for the game.

I look forward to chanting Just Like Basketball in the 4th quarter.

No doubt this is a must win.I see Can't being favored because of experience and proven QB play. And I can't blame those who pick Can't. I picked us to win and feel good. We start winning, people show up, we get the nod for the bowl.Beat Can't!

I only heard a few minutes but wanted to listen to more. Glad they are doing the show.What I did hear - Robinson is doubtful, Allen has a bad hamstring (Joe sounded pessimistic about him playing), Grant looks questionable but Joe feels that he will play.

Igor shows up big time. Zips remember the embarrasment from last year. 2 fairly evenly matched teams, Zips have the maturity to get the job done. 20-10 Akron.