zipboy

I am not sure if the KY game is still on. That was originally part of the 2-1 but we bought out of that after overscheduling. Syracuse and a 1-AA at home seem to make sense. Is IN another 2-1 deal? We already played their twice, was it reupped? I have to think there is a money game potentially in the works?

I caught the last 15 minutes of French's show. He said Zeke had 12 pts, 17 rebs and 4 blocks and looked good in the scrimmage. He also said, don't expect the world from him early on.

He was on last year when he picked us. I imagine that he has seen a few practices and talked to a few people around the league. The lack of rebounding support by losing Linhart is a concern. And Hayes returning to Miami helps them a lot. If we had lost to Toledo in round 1, everyone would be a little more nervous now. Personally I like us a lot this year and Elton is right about as much as the rest of us. Didn't he pick the Zips to go to a bowl this year after all in football? Glad to see artcles coming from him even with his expanded CSU coverage.

Yes, sick at home with the flu

Thanks for sharing

A couple of other things to add1. Unless we get inside the 10, I would use all 4 downs. Our odds of making a FG are less than 25%. We have better odds of making the 1st down.2. Any more rugby style punts, why even punt? I would rather have 4 downs anywhere on the field than set a team back 30 yards. 3. Andre Jones really is the man.4. JD mentioned one kid may have the redshirt taken off this week. My guess, Broderick Alexander? At this point, go with what you have. If the guy would have helped 3 games ago, then I could see it back then.5. We get inside the 20, just run Jones with the wildcat. Torrence needs to play but at this point, he is a turnover waiting to happen in the red zone.

Monday nights from 6-7 on Retro TV formerly the CAT. It is channel 29 for TWC for me in northern Summitt. Dr Z, he gave his 10 minute monologue at the beginning and gave his thoughts. But in getting 8-10 callers over the night, 2-3 want to talk about the Zips.

I usually don't get home in time to catch French's show on TV Monday nights but was able to see it the past 2 weeks. Being someone closer to the program than most of us here are some comments that he made the past 2 weeks.1. The coaching staff is not acting like one about to be fired. He has seen several firings in the past and for the most part, coaches block out the distractions, but they aren't stupid. They know what is going on. At the same time, JD being let go is not a foregone conclusion.2. No question a missed opportunity this season with the new stadium. He must have said this 5 times for emphasis.3. He was surprised that attendance for OU was as good as it was. Akron football has never been a good sell, the MAC is seen as minor league in NE Ohio. People have never been and probably will never be excited about watching MAC football. 4. Can't will draw well the last 2 games will be pretty sparse.5. Expectations have raised when you spend over 80M in facility upgrades.

I hope Shaka gets him. I think his interest waned in us a while ago.

Can't loses their heart and soul of the team and their starting QB and they still manage to get to 4-4. Why do we crumble with adversity?

For being the head of the program for 6 years, this is a joke. There has always been a lot of discussion about the retention rate of JD's recruits. To me a bigger issue is the ability to identify and develop a QB. Who has JD recruited since he has been here?1. Luke Getsy - solid MAC QB, underappreciated by many including me. I think back to the days when the big discussion on this board was to give Carlton Jackson some snaps because Getsy wasn't cutting it. 2. Carlton Jackson - mediocre 1AA QB3. Sean Hakes- backup at 1AA last I knew4. Chris Jacquemein - never could seal the deal and turned out to be a cancer, sticking with him killed this season5. Matt Rodgers - everything Jacqumein wasn't in terms of a leader. For his 3rd year in the program, was way behind where we all hoped he would be talentwise.6. Jordan Miller - If Moorehead was the only guy who liked him, why did Akron offer? They give out 1 QB scholarship a year, you better be sold on the guy. If they had gotten a guy who thought he could actually compete with Rodgers, he probably would have stuck around.7. Patrick Nicely - striking gold 6 years later is too late for this regimeAs for the place kickers, we had the tryouts a few years agao when the soccer kid saved further embarrassement by actually making extra points and FGs inside of 30 yards for a Div 1 program. Bad to mediocre QB play and horrible place kicking have been hallmarks the last 4+ years

JD doesn't worry about saving Rodgers from injury and let's him carry it 10 times. Rodgers running more coupled with many more 2 back sets helps the Zips actually get a few first downs without penalty. If we don't look any better this week, we aren't getting better the rest of the year. 23-19 Akron and ZN has hope for another week.

The last time our starting QB went out with an injury, Charlie Frye led us down the field to beat OU. I hope Rodgers turns out to be that guy tomorrow. Here is also hoping for a 100 yard day from AA. Let's take the pressure off the kid.Kudos to JD, make or break year he still suspended the guy. If Rodgers goes down, you play the next best guy. I have to think that is Nicely.

A side note, I saw Swiech walking around at the football game last week. Looks like he has spent a lot of time in the weight room. He looked solid.

It is interesting when talking about team captains, Alex Allen comes up first (not a surprise) then JD made a comment about 4 OL and named a few others. Jacq wasn't one of them. For a QB who is going to be a 3rd year starter and is a senior, I was surprised.

Dillard and LaFrance are now listed. I count the other 5 guys mentioned as not listed. It will be interesting to see if they greyshirted a couple (Couch would make sense as a greyshirt), I am ok with a couple of prop 48s in a class. One guy that is on the roster is Chris Henderson which is a very good thing.If we do lose 5 guys before they ever set foot on campus, that would be a regression from the past 2 years. Captain will let us know but I still think most of these guys are on campus 1 way or the other.Also, I went back and looked at the 2007 class - 24 recruits, 5 are no longer on the team, Brian Brikowski, Marquinn Davis, Jerome Royal, Ryan Simpson, and the infamous Vince Hill. Of those guys, Hill originally made the class look high but I don't consider that a loss as we are stacked at receiver. Davis I hoped was going to play and contribute but he never did get meaninful snaps. I never considered the other guys as ones we were counting on. So to me that class is largely intact.Class of 2008 - 25 signings, 23 of the 25 are still here. Jordan Miller transferred out which I am assuming is for playing time and Kevin Funches (did he ever come?)I am all about wins this year and I would be concerned if all 5 guys currently missing never see the field but based off the 07 and 08 class, retention looks pretty good and I expect those guys to show up at some point.

As long as the scoreboard shows a higher number under our score than the other team, I will love it

Season ticket sales over 5000 as well! Given the season ticket base, students, and single game sales, I think we may end up a litte north of the 18K projection by Hunter.

Everytime we get an update, season ticket sales are higher. Inititally it was 3500 then an update came out a month later and it was 4200 then a couple of weeks ago 4500. I am hoping after Aug 3rd we are at 5K. Good idea to have another open house. Season ticket sales will be about 4 times higher than at the Rubber Bowl and be more expensive. New stadium or not, increasing season ticket sales by a factor of 4 is very good. Many times we including me pick on the athletic dept for marketing, sales etc and rightfully so. Here I feel good about the end result. And I just got 3 game package ads in the mail today. If they could get a bump up from that which I think they will, we should have a good chance to average 20K this year

Thanks for sharing, that was good. I think the film comes out in Oct?

I for one am excited that the guy can punt

Just one last point which I found interesting. I looked up attendance figures from last season. The big dogs, are over 100K, Texas, Michigan (not a big dog anymore), tosu, etc. The 40th ranked attendance team was Arizona just over 50K. Schools similar to Arizona in attedance were South FL, Pitt, and Virginia. I then checked expense budgets for football. tosu had 33M in football expenses last year. Arizona spent 8M on football last year. Akron spent 4.7M on football. What surprised me is the gap from 1 to 40 is about as great or more as the gap from 40 to 100. An interesting discussion, I wish we had more out of the box thinking in the MAC office.

If you create something like this, you have 40 teams much more closely aligned with each other. You become more like the NFL. Would tosu going 9-3 or 10-2 or 12-3 with a 15 game schedule be better or worse for them? Right now, you guarantee these top 40 schools 8+ win seasons because of the advantage they have and 5 schools pretty much a decent chance of going undefeated every year. In this new world, if those 40 play each other, around 20 of them are going to be under every year. I don't know if people are going to pay $75-$100 bucks a game to see a 5-7 team year in and year out. Then again, Browns fans pay a lot to see worse than mediocrity. Interesting concept I wonder if it helps or hurts the schools the NCAA wants to protect. I do agree that if the next tier gets close enough to challenge something will be done to include the few into the club and separate the big boys with a couple extra schools even more.

Another coveted local kid before the season kicks off speaks wonders. I see some of the recruits we got this week and at some level I see JD (after hopefully going 9-3 this year) thinking what an advantage I have for the next couple of years and being the guy to take us to the next level. I also feel good that with the last 2 classes, all or almost all of these kids will be eligible from the get go. Thanks for the update.

After seeing the Zips pummel IU, you will be making plans to fly up to Akron for 4 more games. Keep your money and scalp for the 2 games that you care about.