BlueRaiderPride

Don't forget about UNT's win over Big 12 member, Baylor, in 2001.By the way, In The Zone, Vanderbilt would've have kicked the livin' dog snot out of Akron last year. The only reason why we beat them is because we know them. You guys don't know Vandy. They would've beaten you worse than they did 1-AA Richmond. We also know why Akron won the MAC title last year. It wasn't because Akron was good. It's because everyone else in the MAC sucked.By the way, we're 7-2 against Akron and 4-0 against Akron in the Rubber Bowl. We thoroughly enjoyed defeating your "Heisman hopeful" Charlie Frye in '04, and was even a better pleasure to help Sun Belt member, Troy, get the nod for a bowl game over a Akron in '04. Of course, Troy beat us. Akron did not.What amazed me about '04 is that people actually thought Akron deserved the bid over Troy just because of what league the Zips play in. It bothers me that people don't take into account that about 5-6 wins that MAC teams with winning records get every year are against the lousy members of the MAC who have been known to drop games to 1-AA teams like the Directional Michigans, Ball State, and Buffalo.

In The Zone, we know why you don't like Middle Tennessee. We went up there to Akron and ruined Charlie Frye's senior year in Game One. We ruined Akron's shot at a bowl game because Akron was the ONLY school in Division 1-A with a winning record that didn't go to a bowl game.In the Zone, I know you don't like Middle Tennessee because we are 7-2 all-time against Akron (4-0 against Akron in all games played at the Rubber Bowl). I know you don't like the Sun Belt because the SBC is 8-4 against MAC teams since 2000.I know you don't like the fact to know that as a Sun Belt team, Middle Tennessee is 3-0 against Vanderbilt which is a BC$ school and member of the $EC. I know you don't like the fact that Middle Tennessee was able to win at Vandy this past season despite the fact that they had an 11th-pick overall for the NFL draft at quarterback.The Sun Belt has recorded four wins that I know of right off the bat against BC$ teams. While were at it, how many BC$ teams have these programs beaten since 2001 (when the Sun Belt was founded):Can't State, Eastern Michigan, Central Michigan, Western Michigan, Buffalo, Ball StateThat's about half your league. Everyone knows that the real MAC teams are Toledo, Bowling Green, Miami of Ohio, and Northern Illinois. Ohio is improving, and Akron is borderline decent for a MAC school. The rest of the MAC couldn't win the Division III national title.

Don't make assumptions about our team without first getting the facts. We lost most of our starting offensive line, star Kerry Wright at WR, and a good runningback after the '04 season. Banner year? That's what we expected, but no one else was. You need to take a look at what the national media was saying about us in the preseason.And maybe you were rebuilding last year. Memphis who finished in the middle of the road in CUSA last season sure did expose that in the Motor City Bowl.

You know, Akron lost at home to Middle Tennessee in the 21st century too--just like 20 years ago. Some things never change. By the way, I'm not an old fart. I've never even heard of a Commador 64.

It wasn't a 17-point victory. I was a 10-point victory. You just scored 17. And considering we had the best defense in the Sun Belt and a much better defense than most of the teams you played in the MAC, I hardly see how you could've generated 30+ points especially at the beginning of the season when our players were fresh and ready to play.I'm sure your loss to us was one of the most embarrassing in the past 10 years, but seven losses in history would suggest that losing to you this past season was just as embarrassing as our losses to Temple, SEMO, and FAU.I believe that you want to believe that we will never achieve greatness in 1-A. A 2-7 all time record against a Sun Belt team and a winless 0-4 mark against that team on your home field must be something that's hard to deal with for you.I do agree with you about one thing. The MAC is unfortunately better than the Sun Belt IN FOOTBALL, despite the fact that about 7 of the 13 MAC teams couldn't beat their way out of a paper bag.But the Sun Belt does have it's advantages over the MAC in other sports including one Top 3 revenue sport--women's basketball--which is far superior to the Mid-American Conference.Each league has it's specialties. The Sun Belt will get better in time and there will be a day when our teams aren't losing to horrible teams like Eastern Michigan and Ball State.

It is quite a complement to the Zips that, if you don't play your best game, you will lose to us. It wasn't too long ago that teams could afford quite a few mistakes vs. the Zips and still come out with a "W."FYI: I traveled to the MTSU game. If it weren't for the ref "overlooking" your WR's foot being a full 2 feet out of bounds when he caught your lone TD, MTSU probably would not have scored in that game. You guys couldn't stop Hixson...he killed you. C'mon, man. 17 points is hardly unstoppable. While it's true ya'll probably should've shut us out, it's also true we had the worst total offense in Division 1-A. Again, that's why we fired our coaches and brought in a new staff. Losing to Akron at home is unacceptable especially when you are touting an all-time record of 7-1 (now 7-2) against a former member of the Low-VC.

Shamefully, that is true, and had we played our best we wouldn't have lost to Akron, but losing to teams you are expected to beat is why you fire your coaches, and that's what we did.

I thought Luke Getsy graduated.By the way, we speak from experience, and North Texas is not a team you want to simply write off in the Spring. The last time Akron hosted a Sun Belt team to open the home slate, the Zips lost.

The Akron team that played us and Northern Illinois would not have lost to Central Michigan, barely get by Buffalo, or get blown out by a not-as-good-as-usual Miami of Ohio team. Did ya'll have some injuries to some starters or somethin'? I'm trying to figure out how a team that could hang over 40 on NIU could lose to Central Michigan and only beat Buffalo by single digits. What's going on up there right now, Akron? At first ya'll looked poised to win the MAC title, but now I have to wonder if you'll even win your division.

Absolutely thrilled for you, Zips fans. After Akron beat us last weekend, it cast serious doubts on all of us Blue Raider fans that are team was any good. This weekend gave us a better prospective and allowed us to size-up the three opponents we already faced. Now, as far as we knew, Akron wasn't really that good, but most of us Blue Raider fans knew that Northern Illinois was good. If Akron could beat NIU it would lend credibility to the worth of the Zips team this year as a legit contender to win the MAC title. Well, you guys took care of business with a powerful offense and outshot the Huskies, and only shows how good our defense was in holding the Zips to only 17 points--the lowest point total for the Zips thus far. For that I have to thank you. It certainly gives us a little bit more peace of mind even though we stand at 0-3. I've been at all three Raider games so far this year and I know who has a good team and who doesn't. Alabama who is 4-0 I knew we would lose to. North Texas is so bad this year, we should've mauled them but five turnovers--two deep in our own territory proved costly. I look at that game as a pure fluke. And now I have a chance to look at Akron and say, "yeah, we lost to probably the best team in the MAC at home by only 10 while holding them to 17 points." There's no doubt that if we find an offense--ANY OFFENSE--that we could legitimately run the table on our schedule finishing 8-3 with upsets over Vanderbilt and NC State. So again, thanks for beating the Huskies and restoring some sense of hope to us Raider fans. Now, go run the MAC table, Zips!

Quality team? I saw that team perform three weeks in a row, and it seems that the quality had degressed. It went from 5 turnovers against North Texas to like 3 turnovers and 100 yards in penalities against Akron. Quality team? No, not unless we beat an undefeated Vanderbilt or an NC State team with a winning record additionally sweeping the rest of our Sun Belt competition.

Very impressed with Getsy, Biggs, and Hixon's play. Akron outplayed us in every way shape and form including on the sidelines. But something I learned after the game from listening to our players is that our coaches and players are becoming more and more disattached to one another. After witnessing North Texas getting blown out by Tulsa, it only puts more merit into the thing we feared. We really don't have a good football team this year, and the Sun Belt Conference as a whole is far worse than it's ever been in it's four year history. We can take some solace in this loss if the Zips will do us a favor and finish high in the MAC this year. MAC champions would really help us out alot.

Ziprifle, I can guarantee you that our guys are not in the mentality that you speculate. They are are very hungry for a win. Their disposition reminds me alot of a downtroddened team we had back in 1999 right before we blew away 1-AA Tennessee-Martin 70-14. It was a long season that year, and our guys were itching for a win. We certainly had the talent where we should've produced more wins then what we got. Our guys certainly are thinkin' about a fear of blowing this game. Our defensive linemen our aching to drop Luke Getsy in the backfield. Our offense is anxious at the shot to throw long bombs and for long runs to light up the scoreboard for the home crowd. There's no fear of blowing it. They are just ready to beat the dog snot out of Akron and show everyone what should've happened to North Texas.

I don't know. I can actually see our team shutting out Akron with our defense ranked 30th in the nation right now. Alot of it I think has to do with mentality. Akron will no doubt take us lighter and less serious than they ever did Purdue. But just because Akron scored 24 on Purdue doesn't mean Akron will score at least that on Middle Tennessee. Stranger things have happened in college football. Last season I saw Mississippi State get beat by Division 1-AA Maine only to turn around and knock off the #1 team in the SEC East, the Florida Gators, the very next week. But that doesn't mean that Maine would beat Florida or even come close to beating Florida just because they beat Mississippi State who Florida lost to. If we turn it over like we did against UNT I can see us losing like 21-7. But if we play against Akron like we are capable of without mistakes, I can see us winning by as big a margin as that guy from CBS Sportsline predicted.

I'm cautiously optimistic now too. Remember the game at the 'shoe in 2001? We lost 28-14. Played a whale of a game. We finished 4-7 that year. I will be very interesting to see how the Zips fare in Murfreesboro next week. I watched MTSU lose at home to Noth Texas last night (YES Network). MTSU isn't very good. Middle Tennessee committed five turnovers. You don't win football games like that. MTSU's defensive line is awesome and held UNT's nation's leading rushers Patrick Cobbs and Jamario Thomas to 103 and 58 yards respectively, and the net 152 total rushing yards will tell you that anyone else that got the ball handed to them was dropped for a loss. When our offense gets it clickin' we will be a force to be reckoned with. We have to get points when we get into the redzone and cut down on the turnovers. Against Alabama we had nearly 300 total yards of offense. Southern Miss didn't even get to 200. And we held Alabama's offense to 345 yards total offense and they got 470 yards against Southern Miss. The reason why their score was closer than Alabama was with ours was because they knew how to take care of the ball on offense. I'd say Akron will have a very tough time scoring on us next weekend, but if we don't score enough, we won't win. I won't say that we aren't good, because we are good. We just aren't playing to our potential.

From our MTSU Board. Keep in mind this is a RUMOR. I don't know if I really understand the logistics of it all. Are ya'll hearing something about this? But there's a possibility we may lose you guys for our September 17th home game and that you'll be substituted with 1-AA Western Kentucky. In turn to help Florida International obtain a fourth home game against a 1-A team to be in complaince with 1-A standards set up temorarily for the 2004 season (must schedule 4 1-A home games), your team would travel to Miami on September 17th to take on FIU. From MT01: A few on the inside here have mentioned "a rumor" about a possible change on our football schedule. Since no one is willing to post what this rumor is I have decided to break it down for you as best I can. Before I get started I will say there are some pros and cons, but you'll have to be the judge on what you think if this actually occurs. First, I should state that I don't know the full details of the issue at FIU, but the important point is that FIU is losing a game against a Division I-A opponent. This leaves FIU with only three home games against I-A opponents. Now, if you recall the NCAA says you have to play FIVE I-A teams at home to continue your membership at the I-A level. The NCAA has put a bit of a disclaimer in rules saying you can count a I-AA as a I-A game every few years. (Perhaps Space can provide the exact details on that rule). The problem is that FIU already has a I-AA game scheduled. They have to get one more I-A team at home to get them back up to four and can count the other I-AA team as a I-A game this year. Further complicating this issue is our jackass bretheren in the conference are all playing only four I-A teams at home this year with the exception of North Texas, and I think NT has already used their one I-AA as a I-A last year when they hosted FAU. So basically, North Texas can't help. The other teams in the conference cannot move their home game with FIU to Miami, because that would leave that team with only three I-A opponents at home. This leaves Middle Tennessee as the only school that can help FIU out. If MT does not agree to help out, FIU is subject to losing their I-A status and thereby screwing the conference, because the NCAA says you are required to have eight teams to maintain a I-A conference. So, basically - and this is based on my own interpretation of what's going on (my disclaimer) without helping out in this situation the conference is a sinking ship. Wright Waters and Mcphee have devised a plan to save FIU and subsequently the conference, which will really jack up our schedule this year. There appears to be only one option. The likely scenario would be for MT to give up it's home game with Akron. Akron would then travel to FIU giving the Panthers the I-A opponent they have to have and MT would be stuck with four games against a I-A team just like everyone else. To give us one more home game Western Kentucky is being asked to fill the vacancy left by Akron, but the game would likely have to be played at the end of the season and may affect the date of our game against Troy. If someone has any additional info or if any this is off key please let us know, so we all don't go out making travel plans. -- With all that said, we obviously see some problems with this issue. Below are a few pros and cons: Pros -Game against WKU may actually draw better than a game against Akron -The Sun Belt and FIU get to save face in what could be an embarrassing situation thus somewhat helping us too in an indirect way. -Keep our home game against UNT -One would hope this would give us some collateral and negotiating power in demanding things we need to see happen within the conference down the road. Cons -This would really screw up our schedule. Three straight games at home in November and five of the first six games on the road. -WKU could draw better than Akron; however, before you jump on that idea too quickly there is a timing issue that plays into this. The weather is likely to be better when we play Akron early in the season (which would become the open date in this scenario) than it would to play WKU on Nov. 19 -What if we lose to WKU? We don't have a good history against I-AA's recently and losing to Western could all but destroy the program. -This is yet another example of piss poor planning by conference members. FB programs in this conference are going to have to get their heads out of their rear ends and quit this policy of using exceptions to rules and waivers to save their asses