InTheZone

It's a long way from losing to Gardner-Webb to winning a championship. I'm not sure RI knows how to get there.

I didn't literally mean tell me about it since I lived through it, but thanks for the refresher I played in some bad losses, but thankfully I was never part of losing to a 1-AA school, though we did let Liberty jump out on us 21-0 before crushing them. Losing that bad had to be embarrassing, to say the least. Wouldn't have wanted to be in that locker room.

Tell me about it.

Absolutely. In '03, we opened the season with the flushes and had 25,000+ on a Thursday night for two teams coming off losing seasons. That game was played in the crumbling Rubber Bowl (one of the last games without tarps over the endzone seating). You can't tell me we can't get a sellout in the Info.

I would hate to see a bye in September. Optimum tailgating. Allow me to do some optimization for all of us. Mostly, this post is directed to our Athletic Director. Move the current Sept 10 game to whenever is most convenient and put Can't in that spot. I used to love when we played Can't the first home game or at least as close to the first game as possible. I hate night college football games, but play that one at 7:00. Let folks have some fun in good weather. There is so little good weather left come Sept it would be a great event. I might even buy a plane ticket to go to that game and see The Big Dialer for the first time. Season Opener vs. Can't = Guaranteed sellout + Guaranteed Hype. Don't wait until midseason when everyone realizes both teams suck. Capitalize on the rivalry early when everyones hopes are fresh on both sides.

Cochran going to Youngstown State - did he get the boot or did he quit??? I don't know. Was our team in better shape last year than they were under Brookhart's strength coaches? To me, we looked slower, weaker, and undersized even against MAC competition and on level with Gardner-Webb. I still hold to the opinion that the firing of Dan Bailey was RI's mistake #1 in a long list of them. Coach Bailey had guys here performing above their level of talent for a decade. He knew better than any strength coach around how to take the undersized kids you get at a place like Akron and build them up into legit D1 players. That expertise was sorely and obviously missed last year as I can honestly say I didn't see one kid who transformed himself from '09 to '10.

Your link's no good

That day was the second most gut wrenching day of my athletic career, outside of the Can't State loss that same season. In regards to the hire, hate to say I told you so but....

I think Patrick Nicely would say that holes did open pretty easily on our offensive line this year...

Sounds like he was doing a pretty good job. Must've had an insecure head coach.

I can't see Ianello promoting Okruch. Okruch isn't an "Ianello guy". He was a holdover from the last staff. In the coaching profession, it's not so much about how good of a coach you are, it's more about who you're buddy buddy with when it comes to landing jobs. I think Okruch would be a great candidate for the job, he seems knowledgeable and well respected by the players, but Ianello is probably going to bring in somebody he has previous ties to for the job. Most HC's want "yes men" for their coordinators. I hope I'm wrong and Okruch gets the job.

Horton Hears Who will be next Cardinal DC. Steelers blocked their LB's coach from interviewing for the job. I guess Horton was the second choice, though after the performance of the Steelers secondary in the Super Bowl I'm not sure why. I didn't see the Steelers blocking one of their assistants from moving up. Kind of a low blow to that guy.

And thinking about some of RI's personnel decisions last year, and ability (or lack thereof) to extract the most from the talent he has as shown by last season, this gives you hope why??

First of all to Zipgrad01, your post was pretty childish. I'm not going to respond other than to say I have more first hand knowledge of recruiting and what college football talent really is than you will ever have (which is none). As to the legitimate points raised by Captain, Dave, and others, I guess I was just looking for more star power in this class. That was Ianello's whole selling point right? He can bring in the type of big recruits his predecessors couldn't. Based on his decisions, ability to gameplan, and make adjustments that I saw last year, he certainly couldn't out-coach his predecessors. His only hope to improve on their performance therefore would be that he could get the types of players in here that they didn't. He has every recruiting advantage that his predecessors didn't in terms of facilities. Yet, he's not bringing in anything that they didn't. If he can't coach (which I'm sorry, but if you lose to a 1-AA team as bad as GW with ANY 1-A team, you can't coach), and he can't recruit any better than our previous coaches, what hope do any of us have that we're going to get any better results? One thing I will say that gives me hope is that he went out and got a decent JUCO QB. There's no position on a football team that you can upgrade and have immediate results like the Quarterback position. Hopefully Clayton Moore keeps his head on straight and can be the redeeming grace of this otherwise pedestrian class.

While enduring a 1-11 season from hell, we held onto the hope that we had hired this whiz recruiter who was going to bring in so much talent in the next few years that it would be impossible for us not to win. Well, with by far the best facilities in the conference, and a great selling point of immediate playing time at all positions, RI brings in a middle of the pack recruiting class in our joke of a conference. Nice. Call me unimpressed.

I think coaches are a lot more willing to take a risk on a guy with some legal trouble than a guy who's squeaky clean off the field but tells his coach and his team to go f--- themselves at halftime of a championship game. Coaches can somewhat control and help kids with grade or legal issues. There's nothing you can do about an insubordinate prick who's going to undermine the authority of the coaching staff. THAT's why all those BCS schools backed off of him and Ole Miss yanked his scholly after the incident at the end of his high school career. It sounds like he's matured and learned his lesson though, and unless Nicely has suddenly learned how to read defenses and throw a ball within five yards of his targets, he'll be a huge improvement at the QB position.

Another Moore Article, updated to his time at Akron: http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20110...s-at-Gulf-Coast

http://goresports.net/2008/12/01/no-moore-...ls-scholarship/ Thoughts on the checkered past of the newest Zips QB?

The Cardinals aren't going to hire Ray Horton. It will either be the Steelers LB's coach or Kevin Greene from the Packers.

And you had the choice of any of our past 4 head coaches roaming the sidelines for that game.... Who's it gonna be?

I agree that we needed help in the secondary. I'm just saying that the fact that he's a former player is nothing to really be excited about. It's just good that we have a coach in here now and hopefully he brings something to the table for us. With no coaching experience however, that's not likely for this season at least. I would've felt better about an experienced coach.

Was our secondary really that much better for having Emmanuel McDaniel coaching it? He played 7 NFL seasons, Bouie played 4. Bouie probably will be a great secondary coach one day, but not because he's a former NFL player.... but rather because he's a Republican . He understands the correlation between hard work and success

The only one I said stunk was the Bears. They are 20th in the leauge in pass defense. The Steelers are a great defense because they give up only 60 yards a game on the ground. They are 12th in the league in pass defense, which isn't bad, but isn't earth shattering, especially given that they have perhaps the best player in the NFL playing in their secondary along with a guy who's supposed to be a shutdown corner. When I said the Jets have the two best corners in the league, I meant the two best corners who are paired together. I'm not saying that those secondaries suck because of the coaches. I'm just saying outside of Darren Perry, I don't think any of those guys have had such an effect on the secondary that they're any better than they would be if any other average DBs coach who didn't play was coaching them.

No, the answer is TBD. TO BE DETERMINED. My argument is that a guy being a former NFL player has no effect whatsoever on his coaching abilities. I thought the point was pretty obvious. Tony Bouie could help us or hurt us. Most likely, having never coached in his life, he will make no real difference. This is just a favor from Ianello to a former player who wants to get into coaching.

The Bears secondary is atrocious. The Steelers secondary, even with Polamalu, is the glaring weakness of that defense. The Jets secondary has the two best corners in the league, and still can't crack the top 5 in pass defense. The Packers secondary is solid. Outside of Darren Perry of the Packers, I don't think you can make the case that any of those guys have made the secondary any better than it would be without them. You can find a lot of former NFL players as coaches, but that doesn't mean that having been an NFL player somehow makes you a great coach or a better coach than someone who didn't play. There's more of a respect given from the players for former players, but that doesn't always translate into success. Look at the head coaches of the four teams left in the NFL playoffs. None of them were NFL players. Two of them weren't even college players. Bouie may turn out to be a great coach, but it will have nothing to do with the fact that he played in the NFL if he does.