Zipsrifle

Oh yea, that's right someone posted that earlier. I bet they could have paid for the thing if they simply made it a billboard but then we wouldn't get any UA information on it so I can see why they made that decision.

Glad there aren't any other MAC schools on the list. It would be nice to be at the top of that heap.

Willnthose advertisements be on the backside of the scoreboard too? That could bring in see extra cash. Will there be a video board on the exchange street side?

Well, apparently all you need to do is have one guy read about CMU and have a brief conversation around the water cooler and you're ready to write your MAC column. If anything, I guess we are lucky that 90% of these type of pre season predictions aren't accurate to what happens during the season.

I hope the top of the scoreboard is nice because now that all the advertisements are up there it looks pretty tackeyTfdfgjmkmnpf<---- my 2yr old's first ZNO post

When will the arena construction start again??

Thanks for the link. Finally got to see it and that was so amazingly overhyped! Nowhere near as bad as they made it out to be. LBJ wasn't even in the picture until he started to jump.

Interesting thoughts...you've put some time into this. I don't agree with this, but I see your point. I think going to DI-AA will kill the program unless there is some defined way to step up to DI-A in your plan and it is actually possible to go DI-A. I don't have a solution to be honest. I just think we should consistently and convincingly win the MAC before even thinking about moving. Here's a thought off the top of my head to clear up the National Championship battle. Maybe some type of mandatory out of conferece games that match up the BCS schools with the school not in the BCS mid season. Like a Bracket Buster in BB. Each team would play away one year, and home the next year to eliminate the home field advantage phenomena of the bigger schools. This way when an undefeated MAC school has lets say, USC show up in town, if they win, we have a valid reference point.Actually, it didn't take much time at all. This is the second time I have posted something like this and it didn't take much time initially. To me, the direction college football is going lends itself to only a handful of team being able to compete at the highest level on a regular basis. There are lots of schools at the BCS level that never intend to compete at the highest football level. Duke comes to mind as well as Vandy as well as Northwestern as well as Baylor.This plan allows the NCAA to admit to what it is, a money making machine for large schools. The BCS schools would make even more money in this plan. Could tOSU make more money with an out of conference schedule consisting of the first place schools from the other divisions or by playing Can't, Akron, OU and some BCS school? I think so. They could charge out the ying yang for tickets to these games and make more money then pass that along to the players or to add another wing to their football factory. Heck, if you really want to make some money and you are already paying the players, have a 15 game season where you play your counterpart from the other divisions (first plays first, second plays second, etc.) home and home the following season. Then allow 16 teams in the playoffs consisting of the top four finishers in each division playing for a conference championship and then the final four play for the national championship over a two week period.The NCAA is always going to protect the BCS schools because that is where their bread is buttered. I'm not passing judgement, because I'd do the same thing if I was the NCAA. It only makes good business sense for them. The NCAA can't wait around for conferences like the MAC, that has been around since 1946, to figure anything out. When second and third tier teams start to threaten the dominance of BCS schools, the NCAA will change the rules again to protect the BCS schools.A lot of people will say this is just the rich getting richer and they would be right. The NCAA is there to make certain the rich get richer though. Why not just make the rich really rich and put them in a position where they don't play outside of their own conference and everyone else can play each other at their own level?I think a lot of the draw to college football is the fact that the National Championship IS up in the air for almost the whole season. OSU can pad their schedule with 7-8 home games a year and a couple cupcakes, make a ton of cash, and fans will be thinking they deserve the National Championship until they lose 2 games which is unlikey to happen until the last couple games. If you have to run the gauntlet every season, that anticipation could be gone early on. I agree, it would be too much like the NFL.

You are right. At least they ran an article. It was an interesting read with a suprise ending.I have to admit, I was confused with the comments at the end. People actually seemed to be complaining that the article was pretty much a non issue. I am used to the people complaining part, but what I didn't see a lot of is the normal "Our taxes built the stadium and now we have to pay for signs to a stadium nobody will ever go to". Kind of thing.

I was told "Not at this time, possibility for the future"That sucks. The scoreboard in the picture looks very classy.One thing that I think looks a little goofy is that the support poles for the railing at the edge of the stands run perpendicular to the slope of the stands (rather than perpendicular to the ground as shown in the renderings). I don't recall any other nice venue with this particular look.....Goofy. Don't they do this at the JAR? Maybe they want consistency across venues???

Interesting thoughts...you've put some time into this. I don't agree with this, but I see your point. I think going to DI-AA will kill the program unless there is some defined way to step up to DI-A in your plan and it is actually possible to go DI-A. I don't have a solution to be honest. I just think we should consistently and convincingly win the MAC before even thinking about moving. Here's a thought off the top of my head to clear up the National Championship battle. Maybe some type of mandatory out of conferece games that match up the BCS schools with the school not in the BCS mid season. Like a Bracket Buster in BB. Each team would play away one year, and home the next year to eliminate the home field advantage phenomena of the bigger schools. This way when an undefeated MAC school has lets say, USC show up in town, if they win, we have a valid reference point.

Probably not, in and of itself... but Wake also lost six other starters (all of which were selected in the MLS draft) and didn't bring in as good of a recruiting haul as UA. Too bad we don't play them this year or we'd know for sure.Maybe we will play them...in Akron, when there is snow on the ground???

Wow, refreshing to see a thread with many good thoughts and not much name calling. Put me in the camp of "I wish we had a harder schedule, but not too much harder". Why? Well, after getting totally screwed a few years ago with 26 wins I honestly feel that our only ticket is to win the MAC. On the other hand, I don't want to go to the JAR to watch Malone, are you kidding me? How are our guys supposed to get better if we are playing schools of that caliber? I also don't want to play MSU away and get our doors blown off for the first game either. Can we get an at large bid and get in if we play a tough schedule? Absolutely. I just think we would have to pull off quite a few big upsets that get national attention. If we pull off one big upset and lose the rest we probably will still get passed over for some rediculous reason and nobody outside of Akron will care. Deep down, I just believe that money talks and BS walks, and we don't make anyone money right now. I'm not saying that we can't pull off a bunch of major upsets....just the odds are against it. I think we have the caliber of players and a team attitude that will allow us to knock off some stiff competition in the non-conference part of the schedule. We beat FSU in the NIT two years ago, we almost knocked off Dayton and had Gonzaga on the ropes for a while. KD and the guys know what it takes, now lets challenge them with the ability to pull off a few moderately big wins. They probably won't be enough to get us an at large bid, but I think it will substantially improve our ability to win the MAC and make it into the Tourney. Keeping up this slow progression and keeping 20 wins might be the trick. All I know is that we have Zeke now and some good experience for the rest of the team. I expect next years schedule to be a doozie as that will be our shot to take down some of the big boys.

What I want for scheduling is to have 6 games at ICS, with one decent marquee game and to play Miami. That's about it.

Agree. Let it get established for a year.Maybe they could paint A K R O N on the grass in big white block letters, kind of in homage to the Rubber Bowl/Fulton Airport.http://www.flickr.com/photos/98131992@N00/3524581902/You know that is a great idea! I doubt they would fit but it would be cool to take the actual concrete from the RB.

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought this was Zipsnation??? It must be Ohio.com because I see people talking about UA and how terrible it is. I'm as frustrated as you guys. If the AD had any track record of doing these things right, we wouldn't be as worried right now but they have never pulled off big ticket sales and now are apparently playing games like they know what they are doing.... Lets wait and see.....

I haven't heard one way or another if they will sod or seed. One thing I do know is that you don't seed in August without one heck of a watering system in NEO. You can begin to seed in September and grass will grow into November in NEO.They could have seeded it over 2 months ago!I have planted grass in late spring before.Hell, even if it's not lush, it would have been thick enough to take a couple of saturdays worth of wear in the fall. There is no reason not to have tried to plant grass on there in April when it was graded. Even if it wasn't thick enough to seat people, at least it would have been nice and green for games instead of dirt city.What would that have been? $500 worth of seed? Oh noez were over budget nowz!epic failNew grass takes more than a few months to mature before it's ready for hundreds of Rowdies jumping around on it and it's better to seed in the fall. Not an epic fail. Let's give them some credit for getting the stadium built in a year and a half, on time and on budget. The Rowdies will make their presence felt just fine in the student section this fall.Okay, I'm not landscape scientist, but it only takes grass a week to 10 days to sprout.It takes a month or two to fill in, and maybe three months before it's spreading rhizomes. I think this could have been done.And as I said, even if the grass wasn't established enough for traffic, at the very least you could have had the area looking good by fall.I'm not a landscaping expert either, but I have tried to grow grass in the summer and more recently, this spring. The stuff I put in this spring is doing GREAT! The stuff I put in over the summer came in strong, but quickly faded when the weather got hot, sun was beating down, and watering once a day wasn't cutting it anymore. Maybe if they really keep it watered it will stick and be ready for the season. My prediction is it will look GREAT at 11:00 AM on Sept. 12 and be ripped to schreds by 4:00 that afternoon. I don't think the roots will be developed enough to hold the grass in place. Time will tell....

I think that Hunter saw on Stub Hub that the endzone of the stadium was closed off and decided to not plant grass accordingly. Unfortunately, as nobody knows we have a new stadium, all the seating diagrams are for the RB. Seriously though, I guess they are going to be tearing the turf off of the RB and putting it in the endzone seating as a stop gap.

Really.....You, you think I'm good at this stuff? .......Well, that does it, throw my name in the hat for AD!

Agreed. I don't know why they are pummeling the people who already have season tickets with information to buy MORE season tickets. I agree with getting info to alumni as a starting point be we need to expand. If we can spend money to put what, 2,3 billboards near I-75 in DETROIT for the MCB, we should easily be able to scrounge up enough money to put one well placed billboard in Cleveland, on the West side, on the East Side, and between Akron and Cleveland, and one in Canton. Maybe say something like:Show the "Fear the Roo" logo looming over the new press tower with"Fear has a new home""1-888-99-Akron"or"Big Time football, Big Time Stadium""1-888-99-Akron"or"New Stadium, New Attitude""1-888-99-Akron"or"Big 10 football comes to Akron! Get your tickets NOW""1-888-99-Akron"or"NCAA DI Football in the Nations newest stadium for just $$$$" "1-888-99-Akron"and lets see some TV commercials! PLEASE don't use that cheesy "Be a part, from the start" jingle....UH. Cough up the cash, pay some royalties and use some Kick @$$ music! God, we've put so many ideas out there I hope they at least do SOMETHING!

OHHHHH, That would be Great if I could swing that!!!! I'm pretty sure I'll have a big tailgating crowd for the Indiana game but there will be a lot of prep work the Friday prior to the Indiana FB game.

Yea, I don't know what the big deal is. It's like me getting a birdie an a par 3 and Tiger getting par. The guy would still shoot 1/2 my score after 9 holes.....

Though part of me wants Can't to lose every game for the rest of time, part of me wants them to be doing well, along with Akron so there is a lot riding on that game. That will be another good one for recruits, probably the best atmosphere for recruits NOT also being recruited by Can't.

When does school start? I'm going to take my nephew and want to be sure the Rowdies are in full force for him. What time is the game on the 21st?

Yes, exactly. What game do you think would be the best? Morgan State or Indiana. I think Indiana as we'll have the kinks worked out and it will be a big win!