zipboy

Excellent point, if and when we ever get to that point, I would change my tune. But we are not a top 50 program yet.

While I wish the schedule was just a little stronger, I am fine with it. I think1. KD and McFadden have figured out how to schedule to win 20+ games and be a 75-100 RPI school every year. That gets you into the NIT. If we scheduled a little better and were a top 50-75 team, we would never get an at large anyway. The only way for a MAC school to get an at large is schedule how Miami does and actually win those games. I don't see us or anyone in the league with Miami's schedule and winning 23 games in the season. 2. IF A&M is a buy game I would rather have it be them than Xavier. I would never have a buy game with any school in Ohio or an A-10 program. We are starting to compete for recruits with those schools and that would just show we think those programs are better than us. They may be, but I don't want to acknowledge that. I like 1 buy game maybe 2 a year against a top 20 team, to measure yourself, play in that atmosphere, etc. But I would not want it to be with a team close by. I did not like the Pitt game last year either for that reason without a return to the Q. We are starting to compete (and beat) them for at least 1 recruit.3. To me the schedule would be perfect if we replaced 2 of our home and homes with a Dayton. RI type team, a high mid major. Valpo may turn out to be one of those but someone stronger than UIC like a VCU would have been nice. Otherwise I am fine with it.4. The MAC should be much better this year. Last year the MAC was ranked 22nd the worst in how many years? If the MAC returns to a top 15 league and we have the same season with the OOC schedule ranked the same as last year we probably end up 10-12 spots higher in the RPI.5. Elton's comment was except for then he lists 6 games, the Zips should have an easy time of it. Assuming that the bracketbuster game is a good draw, he basically is saying half the games the Zips will be favored to lose or are toss ups. That to me doesn't sound like a patsy schedule. Can't has as many guaraneed wins as us, they just heavy load and have no chance to win a few more to raise their RPI and we schedule tight but winnable games.

I am not concerned at all. By the end of the year a few coaches will be fired and a few will move on to better things. Kids will reevaluate. In fact I would rather have less committs now and have recruits we are targeting experience a few game days. If it is Jan 1 and we still have 3 commits I will be worried.

1. Who will be the kicker? Guaranteed that the kicking game will win or lose 1-2 games this year. Do we end up 9-3 as opposed to 7-5 or 6-6 as opposed to 8-4? Give me the guy who is automatic inside the 40 and can make extra points, and I can live with the rest. I felt better about Igor 2 years ago than I do today.2. 1:30 left in the game would you rather be down by 4 with the ball and have to go the length of the field or up by 4 and have the other team go the length of the field? Last year I would have thought both of those situations would have been trouble for us. Does it change this year? Jacq made tremendous progress from his soph year but he always disappeared for a quarter and a half here or there. The D, not many good things to say about last year.3. Speaking of the D, will the DL stay eligible (Henderson), injury free (Bain), and live up to the hype (Tonga, Henderson, Bain)? On paper, maybe the best DLine ever at Akron?4. Are the young LBs ready? JD spoke highly of them all last year, smart, athletic, can hit. These guys need to make plays. Will Shawn Lemon be turned loose at LB?5. Who steps up in the secondary, the biggest question mark on the D? Is Manley Waller ready to step into the bigtime corner role, Josh Richmond, a JUCO? Can the kid who was going to Louisville step up? Does Wil Fleming make an impact?6. How healthy is my favorite Zip, AA? Can he make it through the season healthy? Is it realistic to think Dale Martin may help before November? Is Torrence polished enough to carry the load if needed?7. I love our WRs. The JUCO kid should play right away. That said, did we lead the league in drops last year? Is Bowsher ready to be the next Zip drafted?8. How cohesive will the JD, Montgomery, Walt Harris play calling be? Please no unnecessary timeouts during a key part of the game to figure out what to call. 9. Will we be good enough to make the plays at the end?10. I am always hopeful in June but never more so than this year. The makings are there for a very good year which may be a great year. But I am sick of waiting for next year. I have faith in JD, at least for 1 more year. Go Zips!

I wonder if we looked back at what he said when he came to Akron if you could just replace Dr Khator with Dr Proenza and Tier 1 with Landscape for Learning and get the same quote.

I would say the Nicely vs Boucher showdowns will be great to see in the MAC for the next few years. But given the unbalanced scheduling, we may not play Miami until 2012.

7-5 probably means going 2-2 OOC and 5-3 in the league and getting to a bowl game. Going 5-3 in the MAC and beating either an Indiana or a Syracuse and going to a bowl game would be considered a solid year.

thanks, at least 1 per year since 1998 which is what I meant to say.

I agree we do the national search and agree that Hunter and Mike are going to be in the final 5. It is interesting that Mike and Hunter held the same position at UA. Mike seems to get very strong opinions both pro and against him. Most people seem to have no opinion of Hunter at all.

Outstanding job! At least one All American since 1998. Mitchell has done an unbelievable job and with the facilities should only continue to grow the program.

I agree, JD is still on the hot seat and he seems to be embracing that. I have seen several comments where he basically said he has the tools to win and he needs to do it. If he doesn't do well, it is very easy for a new AD to go another direction.The new AD better show KD some love.

What did Mack accomplish?1. The coaches for the most part all seemed to think he supported them well. I always had the feeling that KD and JD liked him. KD wanted him to buy home games, and he did.2. He gave extenstions fairly quickly to KD and JD (the one good year), Porter, Mitchell. Again, I think he made the coaches feel valued.3. He hired what seems to be really good coaches in tennis and women's golf. The jury is still out on wbball, swimming, softlball, wom soccer, and volleyball4. It seems that academic support is better. KD instead of Dan Hipsher is one of the reasons for bball. For football, maybe he did make it easier for JD.5. What he said would get done, got done.6. He sure got Elton Alexander to show him some love, more than Elton has shown anyone. Another couple articles, Elton would have him founding UA.Where was I disappointed?1. In the press release, it said that men's bball season tickets increased every year. Maybe true, but overall attendance dropped from the 3500 range to 3000 this year. I never saw any new ideas to generate fans.2. An interview about a year ago, Mack sounded like a deer in headlights when talking about the football schedule and the MAC. Seemed like he got pushed around a little early on which hurt us.3. IT would have been nice to have locked in some more OOC football games especially with the new stadium.Didn't know the guy but wish him well. I still smart at only 3.5 years. For that type of postion, you need 5 years to implement and see a plan through. He did not do that.

Like I said last time, I would rather have and AD that is hungry to move up, than one that is complacent with what he has. It typically means more dramatic changes for the programs.Agreed to a point but you have to have some stability somewhere. I know that coaches take off and assistant coaches maybe stay a couple years. But the median time that an AD stays at a Div 1 school has to be well over 3 years.

French said during the MAC tourney there was a very real possibility the tournament would not return to Cleveland. The Q does not want both the men and women's expanded tournament. The arena was blocked off from Tuesday - Sunday, too many time slots were taken up. #1 priority has to be keeping the men's tournament in Cleveland. If they lost that, you may as well close up shop. The men's tourney is the best thing the league has going for it.

I am shocked at what Marshall's AD got. That is what a Div 2 school would pay. I know that Houston is a step up but I was surprised how close they are to Akron in terms of attendance and budget. They averaged 3,814 for basketball last year. I know that we had a drop off this past year but the last several years we were in the low to mid 3,000 range. They averaged 21K for football, something that I hope we get this year. Their budget is 25M ours is 18M. If Mack does go, I hope that it is in the next 2 years. Proenza is 64 and I hope he stays on about 5 more years. I would rather have him pick the next AD as I worry who we get for the next president.

Great job by the track team. For a non revenue sport with I believe 30 scholarships in total, they have about 80 team members. Rasor made a good point about this last year, an extra 50 kids going to Akron many of whom may not have gone, the program more than pays for itself. The indoor meets have drawn well and now with the improved outdoor facilities, it should help revenune.More schools continue to cut men's track or do what UC is doing and not fund it. This will also help Akron improve and balance the playing field more. For the one comment on the gap between the elite schools and Akron, track is a funny sport. If you have a few really good individuals, you can do well at nationals. To get a true test of a program, look and see how they do in dual meets. Michigan's women who came in the last 2 years and was top 5 in the nation won but not overwhelmingly. They got more 1sts than we did, but Akron got a lot of 2nd and 3rds. Akron usually won't get the elite future Olympian which is what wins at nationals, but there depth is pretty strong as evidenced by the number of national qualifiers they get year in and year out.

Driving home today I caught an interview of Hunter by Michael Reghi. I missed part of the interview. It was about the new stadium. A couple comments1. They will be having open houses soon for the public. They sold a few hundred season tickets at the spring game and felt this would be a good way to let people see the place and maybe purchase some tickets. 2. Syracuse still slated to come here in 2010. They are in talks with 2 Big East teams for 2011 and 2012 home games. Assuming Syracuse is not 1 of them, my guesses are 1. UC 2. UConn 3 Pitt.3. All but 2 loges are sold.Nice interview

Rick Chryst s_cked as the MAC commissioner...Good riddance..."When Rick Chryst arrived, the MAC actually had to pay to be on television."And now they don't pay anything -- but every other conference GETS PAID for their ESPN contract. Nice PR Rick! They televise MAC games???Don't you watch TV on Tuesday nights?

Good luck to Boals, absolutely the right move if he wants to be a Div 1 head coach. Is Lamont Parrish ready to step into the #1 role or does KD go outside to bring someone in? When Sean Miller left Xaiver, I thought here is a program that I would love for us to be in 10 years, elite 8 every 3 or 4 years, pretty much a guaranteed round 1 winner, usually sweet 16, 10K fans per game, top 25 team. And their top guy leaves every 4-5 years. Unless you are a top 20 program, there is always a better job for the successful ones and good assistants have more frequent turnover than that. osu lost their top assisstant twice in the last 4 years. What makes Akron unique now is they have a guy who knows what he is doing in Dambrot who may stay long term. As long as he is here, I feel good. I wish Boals (but not osu) well. Fast forward to 2 years from now, if Geno does not right the ship, does he become a candidate for that job? I have to imagine he will be on the radar for MAC openings in the future. And hopefully if football has the year that I hope it does, we will be sitting around having the same discussion about JD.

You always allocate a couple of positions for questionable grades, but only a couple not like years past. Henderson was our guy this year. If they feel that Howard can be a difference maker you take the chance. While I am not a fan of osu, I certainly would not exclude him. Torrence had a lot more baggage and he seems to be doing ok.

Who knows, Dayton could make a sweet 16 run next year and then Gregory is gone.

Budgets for all schools are at www.ope.ed.gov/athletics. I looked up the MAC schools. For men's BB, Akron spent a little over 1.5M last year. It was second in the league just behind Can't at 1.6M. The lowest was EMU and Buffalo at 1.1M. Akron spent about roughly 200K or almost 15% more than the average MAC school. I would guess this is partly due to buying some games. On a side note, Temple's men's BB budget was 3.1M last year about double ours.For football, we spent 4.7M. We were ranked 7th out of 13 schools. Temple spent 9.2M then Ball State was at 5.4M in 2nd. The bottom team was BG at 3.8MFor total budget, hard to get a true read since the number of sports range from 16 to 20. But, we were at 17.9M which ranked 10th. Combination of not spending as much on non revenue sports and having less sports to begin with. Also, about 1/3 of the expenses look to be in scholarships. By Akron having lower tutition, it looks like we spend less as well. The other thing is I don't know how this takes into account facilities. Obviously from a facility standpoint, Akron has led the way the last 5 years. I look at the numbers above more as operating expenses. In terms of committment with the facility improvements, it seems like at least compared to the rest of the league, Akron is at or near the top. Even things like sending the Rowdies to away games vs OU not paying to have their band come to the Q shows a difference in attitude between schools. Just my 2 cents.

Here are highlights of what I remember from yesterday's show1. Jacq is improved from last year. Walt Harris has helped him. Rodgers is very impressive. Rodgers is a legitimate weapon running the ball. He needs to get playing time maybe as the red zone QB or short yardage QB.2. Expects to play 8 WRs next year. Bowsher has gone to a new level, a very pleasant surprise. Miller has made a huge jump, Nadir Brown is looking really good, the JC recruit is going to play. Andre Jones is out with sore knees.3. Martin may be back for the 1st game. One reason JD likes the spring schedule this way is to give guys extra time to heal in case of injury.4. TE - kids are working hard, not a position of strength but should be competent.5. OL - Jake Anderson has the 5th spot now. Mitch Straight has looked very good.6. Mondo has raised his game, he looks great right now.7. Disappointed about Bain's injury, some disc trouble in his back8. Of the new LBs he singled out Brian Wagner the most9. Secondary depth is a concern. Diamond Weaver was brought in to play, they need him to play.10. Sense of urgency is there, JD likes the schedule, he looks for this year to be the one they break through

What I do know is guys get better during their 4 years in the program. This summer will be the key to who gets minutes next year and the look can be different from where we are today. This sure beats the days of hashing over which Brian, Wood or Hipsher should be the 1st guard off the bench.

I gave the piece a C. I expected him to do more on LBJ's family and upbringing. He is a better businessman than they let on. Not many people can hob nob with Warren Buffet and JayZ and be comfortable in both worlds. I also wonder about the editing. He lived with the Walker family for a year and no mention of them either. I wish they would have asked Maverick Carter how he liked playing for Hipsher during his transfer year