InTheZone

I didn't take the 4 highest RPI's, I went with the teams with the 4 best conference records, showing who the leaders are in conference play and how they did in comparison to the rest of the country. Say what you will about the teams top to bottom, but the prestige of a conference is the strength of it's elite teams, and I would take the top 4 in the Horizon this year against our top 4 any day of the week. It's ok to admit that the MAC has become one of the worst basketball conferences in the country, and a conference we can't win at that. We just need to figure out how to fix that.It starts with improving the playing venues all over the conference. We have arenas that are on par with big high schools. It then goes to getting a man of business in our commissioner's chair that knows how to get this conference on television (having arenas that don't look like Jones Junior High will go a long way in helping to get networks to show us). We have to start getting a higher quality of player in this conference. The elite teams of the MAC should be signing at least 1 Zeke every year.

To me, you judge the strength of a conference by it's top 4, the best it has to offer the College Basketball world....Top 4 Teams in MVC:Northern Iowa RPI: 21 Witchita St. RPI: 51Illinois St. RPI: 75Creighton: RPI: 101RPI Average: 62Top 4 Teams in Horizon:#11 Butler RPI: 17Wright State RPI: 91Green Bay RPI: 100UW Milwaukee RPI: 143RPI Average: 87.75Top 4 Teams in MAC:Can't State RPI: 47Akron RPI: 87Central Michigan RPI: 191Buffalo RPI: 92RPI Average: 104.25The MAC Sucks. If we went to top 6 teams, the disparity would be even greater. MAC teams need to improve their arenas, improve their fan support, and improve their TV coverage in some way, and attract better players. This conference is a joke right now.

Crawled out of bed around two today. Luckily the wifey made me drink a couple gatorades before I passed out last night, so the hangover wasn't too bad.To whatever slapdick called me a moron in this thread for saying the Flushes aren't even a good team, maybe you should look outside our little MAC box. Did you watch the first half last night?? Unfortunately I was still sober enough at that point to remember all of it. Honestly, go to the high school state championships this year. You'll see a higher quality of basketball played. If Can't State is the best the MAC has to offer and we're second to them, we're an even sorrier excuse for a conference than I thought we were. You put us or Can't in the MVC or Horizon and we don't bust a grape. The fact that we did not win this sorry conference this year is pathetic. For all the praise lavished on KD since he's been here, what has he really done outside of a few 20 win seasons in a row playing the sisters of the blind outside of conference and some of he crappiest teams in the nation inside of it? Yeah we're in the upper echelon of the MAC. At this point in MAC history, that doesn't mean we don't suck, and that definitely doesn't mean we're relevant in College Basketball. I'm glad at least GP1 can see that. Not bad for a Faust guy, he must've been in the 17 percent

JD sighting!Seriously though, dont throw it away quite yet. Yes it was an embarrassment but what if we make a run and go to the tourney again? What if we lose the MAC championship and get into the NIT and run the table on that?You never know. But you are right if we dont WIN the mac tourney or win at least two games in the NIT this year will be a complete failure.I'm just drunk and frustrated and embarrassed as hell. I'm sure tomorrow I will think differently. As for now, I've got a bottle to finish and a good lookin naked woman upstairs...

who really gives a shit if we win the MAC tournament, I think we've had enough experience this year with even POS teams outside our conference like VCU to know we'd just get the living hell kicked out of us in the first round of the dance....

I pray to God we don't do well in the MAC tournament. This school doesn't need any more embarrassments on national television. Straight up, we SUCK, our conference SUCKS, and the fact that we win 20+ games every year playing in it doesn't mean JACK SHIT. '09-'10 Zips = FAILURE. Everything about tonight was truly embarrassing, we looked like a damn high school team, and the worst part is, Can't ISN'T EVEN GOOD!!! I've seen better basketball played at WNBA games.Excuse me while I go guzzle the rest of this bottle of JD so hopefully I can PUKE this team out of my memory....

Well it looks like Coach Cochran found Zipsnation.org...

This happens every time a new coach comes in. It's called the "weeding out" process. Coaches act like it's all to reeshtablish discipline and we're doing things in a new way from that horrible last regime and blah blah blah... but what it really is is an effort to drive players away who don't really want to be there and free up more schollies for the new staff. Talk to any guy who was there during the Owens-Brookhart transition, Brookhart did and said the EXACT same things Ianello is doing and saying now. I would imagine it was the same way during the Faust-Owens transition. There were 5 AM team runs multiple times a week in Brookhart's first preseason. Once Ianello gets a team full of his own guys the "discipline" will relax.

It's not as much of a debate or conversation as some of us taking one of our fellow alumns (you), lovingly putting our arms around you and saying, "It's ok that you guys sucked. You don't have to make up fiction about what really happed during the Owens years. We still love you anyhow."This coming from a Faust guy??? The entire era you were involved in was nothing but a black mark and embarrassment to this University on all accords. My coach went out on a 7-5 record, in the upper echelon of the MAC at its height, and with enough talent left on the team for his successor to go win a championship. Your coach went out with one win, a bunch of disgraceful thugs populating the team, and a gigantic mess for his successor to clean up. Faust and his teams are an embarrassment that most involved in UA athletics would like to forget ever happened.In the 4 years that I played, we won 17 MAC games. All that impressive? No. Best in school history? Yes. So don't come at me talking about how "you guys sucked" when my teams won more MAC games than any class in your embarrassment of an era even thought about.7-5 with two I-AA teams. How impressive.... You guys sucked. I could sit here and cry and bitch and moan about how bad we had it with our facilities, weight room in the jar, zero academic support, etc., but it would just make me look like a whining bitch....like, well, you know.I can't believe I'm getting told my teams sucked from a Faust guy!!! You want to talk about beating 2 1-AA teams?? One of Faust's best years, at 6-4-1, He played not one, not two, but FOUR 1-AA teams, and TIED one of them!!! LOL. In Faust's career, he lost 9 times to 1-AA schools!!!!!!You want to say how impressive that Owens went out winning 5 1-AA games?? Faust went out winning ONE against a winless team LOL.You want to say my teams sucked when we won 17 conference games in my four years, the best class in our 1-A history?? What years did you play big boy?? You make yourself look dumber and dumber with every post. I'm not on here claiming that we were giant killers when I played, but we were light years ahead of any joke of a team in Geriatric Gerry's era, that's for damn sure. Quit now, please, for your own sake. I can't let you humiliate yourself any longer.

Did you try contacting the University? You would think someone there would have a copy of such an important event in the athletic history of the school.

It's not as much of a debate or conversation as some of us taking one of our fellow alumns (you), lovingly putting our arms around you and saying, "It's ok that you guys sucked. You don't have to make up fiction about what really happed during the Owens years. We still love you anyhow."This coming from a Faust guy??? The entire era you were involved in was nothing but a black mark and embarrassment to this University on all accords. My coach went out on a 7-5 record, in the upper echelon of the MAC at its height, and with enough talent left on the team for his successor to go win a championship. Your coach went out with one win, a bunch of disgraceful thugs populating the team, and a gigantic mess for his successor to clean up. Faust and his teams are an embarrassment that most involved in UA athletics would like to forget ever happened.In the 4 years that I played, we won 17 MAC games. All that impressive? No. Best in school history? Yes. So don't come at me talking about how "you guys sucked" when my teams won more MAC games than any class in your embarrassment of an era even thought about.

That 17% was for a single season.Owens had a 70% graduation rate. Once. He also had several under 50%.Here (click me) is an Owens class with a 36% graduation rate. Do you define Owens' graduation rates by that single class?Owens started out recruiting kids with average talent, and good grades. That was to offset the poor graduation rates and player retention of the preceding Faust years. Owens then realized he was never going to win a championship with this talent, so he began taking academic risks. And the retention/graduation rates dropped.Brookhart went balls-out with at-risk kids his first couple seasons and failed big time. Then he went after a better caliber of student athlete...but it was too late. Blowing two consecutive recruiting classes was too much to overcome. That's some very fuzzy math on how you counted that "36 percent" graduation rate lol. That is not how the NCAA does it, or anything close to it I believe. I'm not sure we can access the actual official numbers from that far back, but I'd love if someone could.Talk to any professor on campus who was there through the Faust and Owens years. I heard numerous professors during my time at UA, when they found out I was a player, tell me how impressed they'd been with the academic improvement of the football team since Owens arrived. It was night and day.

This all just makes for good offseason conversation btw. When there's nothing going on with Zips football currently in this lag time between recruiting and spring ball, we might as well talk about history and debate such matters. Once spring ball begins, none of this matters. All the focus is on RI and hopefully he can deliver a helluva lot more than any of the 3 1-A predecessors.

I've never believed in the theory that fans were disgruntled by Dennison getting fired. In fact, there was a good bit of energy about Faust being hired. Faust's first year they had a great crowd at Acme-Zip and a good Thursday night crowd for the MSU game on ESPN. My freshman year we had the fourth largest crowd to see the Zips play in the Acme-Zip game. The evidence just isn't there. Crowds did get smaller, but that was more of a result of losing than disgruntled Dennison fans.When UofA hired Faust, they had no clue how to support a D-1A football program. The weight room was a double sized classroom in the basement of the JAR for the first two years. Regardless of what anyone thinks about Faust, he was at Notre Dame and knew what it took to succeed at a high level. Never once did he complain about the horrible circumstances he was in at UofA. Nor did his coaches or players. Faust never once complained about Dennison being his boss, which was a terrible situation in itself because of the circumstances of Dennison being let go and Dennison having no clue as to how to run a D-1A program. I good poster on this board always said it was "Bush Leage all the way". Believe me, it was and nobody complained.If you look at what Faust had to work with his first 5 years, it was absolutely horrible and the guy did a pretty good job given the circumstances. I'll take the Faust years and the men who coached and played for him any day over the boys from the other eras.The "talent" on Faust teams is easily explainable... He had a 17 percent graduation rate. Because of men like Faust, the NCAA passed standards and regulations for graduation rates. If LO or JD recruited with th same philosophy as Faust under the new regulations, the program would've recieve the death penalty by now. If Faust had actually recruited players who could graduate and stay out of jail, he would've been an even bigger failure than he was, and probably wouldn't have won a game in his last few years, because the guy couldn't coach a lick. Anyone can recruit a bunch of guys who have no chance whatsoever of graduating and have a lot of "talent" on the team. I believe a coach who once told me that there is an inverse correlation in the general population between intelligence and athletic ability. Faust took a bunch of guys he knew would never graduate and ran the program into the ground. LO had a serious mess to clean up when he arrived from such practices. I believe the graduation rate at the end of the Owens era was somewhere between 85-90 percent.

Since CK so graciously offered to give me the last word on a debate that was had numerous times over the last 6 years, I'm going to use an entire thread to put it to bed. All throughout the JD Brookhart era, I repeatedly stated what I believed to be a fact: Lee Owens did not take us where many of us hoped we would go, but given what he was working with in terms of facilities and administrative support, he was a miracle worker here. He was both a superior recruiter and a superior coach to JD Brookhart, and a mistake was made in 2003 when he was fired coming off a 7-5 (5-3) season. We would be a lot better off in 2010 had Owens been given another year or two to turn the corner with the facilities that HE had fought for in his 9 years as head coach. Let's look at the facts, comparing Owens last 6 years to Brookhart's 6 years.1998-2003 LEE OWENSSituation: Worst facilities in D1 without question. No on campus facilities whatsoever. Practice facilities consisted of two poorly mowed grass fields seven miles from campus. Players would find their own ride to the Rubber Bowl, dress in the stadium locker room, and then drive their cars down to the fields. If you didn't have a car or there was no room to hitch a ride, you made the half mile walk in full pads. On campus weightroom was atrocious, with no locker room facilities and no laundry service. Games played in same crumbling off campus stadium practice was held in. Meeting rooms consisted of JAR classrooms. Oftentimes, players and coaches would be forced to wander around campus looking or open classrooms because academic classes were beng held. Little support from administration. Campus was in the middle of a run down city with old crumbling buildings, streets running through campus, and little to no "campus" feel. Competed in a MAC conference that was at the height of its national success, with multiple top 25 rankings and many future NFL starting quarterbacks competing.2004-2009 JD BROOKHART Situation: Walked into newly built indoor practice facility, one of the best indoor facilities in the nation, BCS schools included, which also included a supurb a new weight training facility and sports medicine area. New outdoor on campus practice facility as well. Sparkling new coaches offices and meeting rooms included, Consolidating all football operations to one spot. Leather couches and flat screen tvs laid in locker room, creating a "player's lounge" type feel. New administration offered unwavering support. Campus completely remodeled, streets closed off, and trees planted. Downtown Akron revitalized. Old buildings on campus torn down, with a new student union complete with resturants, banquet areas, and bowling ally built, one of the finest in the nation. New REC Center built, also one of the finest in the nation. Campus went from being one of the ugliest and most depressing in the country to one of the best, all in a very short period of time. New Stadium plans finalized at the beginning of era and built at the end, giving this coaching staff an unbelievable recruiting tool on top of everything else that his predecessors could never enjoy. Competed in a MAC conference that could almost undeniably be described, especially at the end of his tenure, as the worst conference in the country. RESULTS:RECRUITING: NFL Players recruited (who played a down in the NFL, not counting transfers)LEE OWENS (last 6 years):Chase BlackburnZac DerrCharlie FryeDomenik HixonLouis MackeyRyan MeyersJamie ReaderJake SchifinoDwight SmithTotal: 9JD BROOKHART (6 years)NONETotal: 0WINNER: OWENS- Despite the unbelievable advantages enjoyed by Brookhart, and an insistance by some on Zipsnation that he was so much better of a recruiter than his predecessor, when you look at the facts, its not even close. Lee Owens recruited 9 certified NFL players in his last 6 years. JD Brookhart never recruited ONE. And sure Cap, I'll wait and see how many current Zips that are Brookhart's recruits end up in the NFL, but if you think we have 9 NFL players on this football team you're smoking something I want a hit of.RECORD:Lee Owens (last 6 years)- 32-36 .471JD Brookhart (6 years)- 30-41 .423WINNER: OWENS- Again despite Brookhart's advantages in EVERYTHING, Owens comes out on top.Conclusion: I don't think any rational person could argue against those kinds of facts (and if anything in the above isn't a fact, please let me know). Lee Owens was a better coach than JD Brookhart. Lee Owens was a better recruiter than JD Brookhart. Lee Owens ran this program better than JD Brookhart. We would've been much better off had Lee Owens never been fired. What does all this mean now?? Nothing really. Neither coach really accomplished anything great. We're all unified in praying to God that Ianello can go far and above anything either of these guys even thought about doing. But after all these years of arguing, it sure does feel good, in the end, to be shown to have been right all along . Can't fault a guy for taking a moment to say "I told you so." Consider the stick we've been beating this dead horse with officially broken. Carry on.

Yeah, but you should have included the whole quote:Blackburn: "Definitely - I still am. I'm a normal fan when I watch football. I wish I would have been able to go to Ohio State, but things worked out the way they did going to Akron, which I have no complaints about. It was a great school and a great fit for me. Who knows what would have happened if I went to Ohio State?"That puts it in a much different light - plus the guy grew up right outside of Columbus.This is the quote that really confused me:Q: How did you end up at Akron?Blackburn: "I got recruited by a lot of MAC schools. I got offered a couple of scholarships from MAC schools. I went to Akron for a visit and it was a good time. They showed me around the campus and they had won the MAC championship the year before ...I agree. This stuck out like a sore thumb. I seem to recall one year where the Zips technically tied for the MAC East, but Marshall (I think) won the tie-breaker? Maybe this is what LO's recruiters we're touting?LOL, I had to laugh when I saw the MAC Championship quote, perhaps I can shed some light on that. I played on the team that tied for the MAC East in 2000 and was an upper classman when Blackburn and his class arrived. Blackburn's class was actually a very good recruiting class for the time, with more than a few guys who had offers from larger programs. I can remember going into camp that year however, all these were freshman coming in talking about how we had to defend the MAC Championship! Me and the other older guys would look at each other like "What the hell are these kids talking bout???" Apparently, Lee Owens and staff had actually purchased MAC East championship rings for themselves after that season (which guess technically they were entitled to) and would sport these rocks when they went out recruiting that year and talk about our division championship!! lol. Up until the preseason of 2001 I'd never noticed the rings on the coaches, but yep, they were there (funny how we as players never got our "division championship" rings!). What I guess this showed was how little of a following MAC football had, as most of these recruits were from Ohio and still had no clue that we really hadn't won a "championship". I guess ole Lee was playing off MAC ignorance and apparently it worked. We had an entire class of recruits thinking they were coming to play for a defending conferlnce champion poised to go get another ring! I thought most of those guys figured out the truth in their first year on the team, or at least at some point in their career lol, but apparently ole Chase never got the memo. While you can say this was a pretty deceptive practice by Owens, given the state of our campus, program, and facilities (or complete lack thereof) at the time, I think the argument can be made that as a recruiter you had to do what you had to do to get talent in here, and get "creative" in any way you could, otherwise our recruiting classes would've looked more like Mount Saint Jospeh's instead of including all the future NFL players that Owens recruited.As an aside, I know over the Brookhart Era many of you thought JD was taking the program to the next level in terms of the kind of players he was bringing in as opposed to the Owens era. Well here's some food for thought, despite JD having an unbelievable recruiting advantage in terms of football facilities and campus environment in his time, the number of NFL players recruited by both men turns out to be quite the comparison:NFL players recruited in the last 6 years of Owens (guys that were on NFL regular season 53 man rosters at some point):1. Dwight Smith2. Charlie Frye3. Chase Blackburn4. Reggie Corner5. Matt Cherry6. Mike Brake7. Domenik Hixon8. Ryan MyersNFL players recruited in the last 6 years of Brookhart:1. Andy Alleman (transfer, so technically not really recruited)2. Brandon Anderson (practice squad, so has never seen a 53 man roster, but I think that will change this coming season)Quite a disparity, eh?

Well no sh*t what sane person wouldn't rather play before packed houses of 100k every week and compete for national championships as opposed to some shit 70 year old stadium on the edge of town in front of about 5k? That was just an honest statement, can't fault him for that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4hIeZ0FcvQI guess people can judge for themselves, he looks pretty quick to me for nearly 220 pounds. I'm not sure how 220 means he doesn' have the size either?? 99% of D1 signees at RB this year will weigh less. Height for a running back is a non-factor, in fact I think being 5'8 is an advantage. The kid is big, fast, strong, and hits the holes hard. He's quick in the open field. He ran all through and past some of the top defensive talent in PA this season. He was the WPIAL Player of the Year. He should've been offered. I played in the MAC for 4 seasons and I can guarantee you this kid has the stuff to be a MAC star. I guess we'll never know. I'd look for him to tear D2 up ala Danny Woodhead.

We're gonna run the ball out of the I??? I have a boner.

What's even more interesting is the story above it. I saw the Miller RB from Greensburg CC play multiple times during his career due to a family member playing at a rival school. The kid is as fast as any running back I've ever seen, and ran for 344 on one of the "fastest" teams in PA, Aliquippa (home to Derrell Revis and former Zip Dionte Henry). At 215 with that kind of speed, he should've been a D1 RB. The only problem?? He's white. He doesn't fit the stereotype of a "fast" running back, so he gets overlooked. Unfortunately that happens all the time in college football. There was a certain Stanford RB from this past season who said no other school would give him a shot at RB because "they saw him more as a linebacker." Hmmm....I really wish Rob would've offered this kid, would've been a steal.

Kid probably wants to play right away. He probably saw the writing on the wall that he'd come here and sit behind P-Nice for 3 years.

If you took a poll across the nation, I GUARANTEE you a much higher percentage of average sports fans could name last years MAC Champion in football (the champion of the worst D1 league in the country) than could name a NATIONAL CHAMPION in soccer in the last ten years. For those of you who think that winning a soccer national championship brings the school any notoriety outside of the readership of the inside pages of the Akron Beacon Journal are kidding yourselves. I am like others here, I cheer for all our sports. But do I care about them all equally?? Hell no, almost nobody does. I can tell you this, if you were to get an honest answer out of Proenza to the above question, it would be any kind of postseason play in Football or Basketball HANDS DOWN.Football- 20k people drive 3 hours to Detroit for Akron postseasonSoccer- 2k people show up for the biggest HOME soccer match in school history.It's apples to oranges folks. Football and Basketball will always be the standards by which an athletic department is judged, and will always gather the most interest and support.Let's suppose in 4 years the Football and Basketball teams have each won 3 MAC Championships and 1 post season game each. Every other athletic program at the school has finished dead last in the MAC. TW would be hailed as savior by the media and fans and given a new 5 year contract and a huge raise, if he wasn't hired away already by some other school looking for a great AD.Now let's suppose that in 4 years every minor athletic program in the school has won a NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP, but both the Football and Basketball programs have finished dead last in the MAC all 4 years . TW would be fired.See the difference in terms of importance?

I think I was more pissed off than anybody about this hire, but after taking some time to step back and look at things more rationally, all we can really do is give the guy a chance and see what he can do, because obviously you never know. While I agree with the author of this article that this was a terrible hire and we could've done a lot better, I could be wrong and so could he. When Bowling Green hired Urban Meyer there were probably a few fans going "Urban WHO?". A MAC coaching hire is what it is, a crapshoot. We should all give this guy a year and see if he can coach. And I say a year, as opposed to 4 or 5 because there IS the talent on this team to win in a conference as shitty as the MAC has become RIGHT NOW. If he can't win with what he's got next year, he's not an elite coach, period. No choice but to give him a chance though.

Too bad 95% of the people (me included) dont give a crap about soccer.I'm glad you don't really speak for 95% of the people even though you think you do!I kind of agree...Soccer is not very important. Football and basketball matter most. You yell "at least we have a soccer team!" and most Can't people will say "who cares? It's soccer."I have to agree. While I'm sure everyone likes seeing the soccer team do well, it's definitely a secondary sport. 95 percent of fans live and die with football and basketball. I can honestly say, and I think most would agree, that I'd sacrifice everything the soccer team did this year for a win today. As it is I'm embarrassed to talk to my Can't State "friends" (yes shamefully I have them). Today was AWFUL. C'mon KD, I'm starting to doubt.

Or maybe he made the mistake of saying exactly what he is planning to do.....In the history of Zips athletics, no "Mr. Football/Mr. Basketball/"Super-Duper All-Star" has ever made a meaningful contribution. In fact, all have been HUGE busts, often barely seeing the playing field or court.Marcus Sanders, Christian Morgan, Nate Robinson, Ryan Bain, John Carson, Emmanuel Smith, Derrick Tarver, etc etc etc.You left our current Super-Duper All Star off the list... Mr. Massillon himself.Back so soon? Which BCS program have you adopted as your favorite team?I said that in the heat of anger like a lot of us do, and while I still think the University went completely in the wrong direction with our coaching hire, I would never abandon the school I played for. I devoted too many hours and too much sweat to the program to just say the hell with it, but I still think TW is an absolute moron. That being said, I think Ianello has done some good things with his staffing hires, and I'll give him a year to show us all something.