Zip Watcher

I read the Beacon article. Now I'm wondering...He was given a new 5-year deal, but did anyone actually HEAR him say he was staying put -- is there a statement from our coach? You see, I have little faith in anything I read in the paper, especially when it comes to supposed good news for Akron area sports teams. Please let it be true. It will bring great holiday tidings.Statement from Porter included in this Official Press Release from GO ZIPS ... dot COM.

A couple of follow-ups.Seems like the BigEast screwed themselves 20 years+ ago by not getting Penn St. in then. It would have probably prevented the BC defection last go around.As for media markets .. all of my conjecture pre-supposes that if the BigEast goes to 12 FB teams, there's a split in the conference, and the non-FBS teams are their own conference. Thus the Philadelphia market would be devoid of any Big East, other than fringe Rutgers fans. FBS Big East would need Temple in order to maintain Philadelphia.I can't see a scenario that would have any of the BE Catholics adding FBS or upgrading to FBS .. it's not in their makeup to shake the budget around that much. All of them are traditional basketball schools. Odds of Villanova making the jump to FBS have to be pretty small. Are BC & ND the only FBS Catholic Schools Now? BC is a big school .. ND not so much.

That's easy .. if I'm the Big East, I take Temple .. the dynamics are different than they were a few years ago, and Temple would have to come in as a full member. But after Temple, if you're looking for 5 total additions so as to have a 12 member league .. who else do you try and get?Temple to the ACC is an interesting one that I hadn't considered before. In fact, I think that's a REALLY interesting idea. Especially with BC in the mix now .. the footprint wouldn't really change. And how far is Philadelphia from College Park, MD .. can't be too far.I'm just rooting for multi-conference chaos. Is that too much to ask?Go Zips!

Hadn't really thought about Arkansas and the SWC thing. So the dominoes could circle around to the Big East eventually.I'd just like to see the Big East lose a team, need two .. recognize they actually need FIVE .. and split into two leagues (one FBS full members, and one with the Catholic schools that don't participate in FBS). There was an interesting article awhile back .. not sure who wrote it or where it was .. about the 8 non FBS BigEast members splitting off and forming a new Metro league, taking Dayton, Xavier and maybe a few others with them to form a 10 or 12 team league for all sports sans football.If the day came where the remaining 7 Big East members need to find 5 suitable members (5 so they could have 2 divisions and a Champion$hip Game) .. I think it would be fascinating to watch the whole thing play itself out. MAC schools probably wouldn't be in the conversation for spots #1 or #2 or maybe even #3 .. but if you think about that league finding 5 new members that play FBS .. there's not many other places to look.Go Zips! B)

Just in thinking about the logical candidates for Big TelEveN membership, based on size & location of the institution, I'd come up with the following, no particular order:ND (never happen)Pitt (natural rival for PSU .. competitive pretty much across the board?)LouisvilleCincyMissouriOther Big East (Syracuse or Rutgers?)I'm sure there's many more that folks will speculate about .. but it seems to me that the move that would have the LEAST impact on the MAC and potentially UA's situation would be if Missouri jumped to the Big TelEveN. Big XII could back fill easily from within the WAC / C-USA / MTN West .. and the dominoes would probably stop there.If however, the new member comes from the Big East, the dominoes and implications for UA could be MUCH more interesting. Some Big East coaches are already clamoring for a ninth team since they now have to schedule 5 OOC games (only 7 conference games). If one of the teams jumps out, the league will be FORCED to take action to at least replace that team. Perhaps it would trigger the re-structuring / growth of the Big East than many have been predicting since the last go around .. maybe it won't.My comment that chaos brings opportunity relates to UA and its options. If the move is Missouri .. nothing's going to really change with BigEast, C-USA, MAC .. etc. However, if a member of the Big East jumps, then UA will be presented with potential options to re-evaluate it's conference affiliation.The strategy around UA has been to think bigger .. a big dustup within FBS conference alignments will give Luis & Co. the opportunity to explore more options than they have available to them right now.I'd like to see the Big East forced into some action, needing at least 1, maybe 2 or 5 teams. B) Go Zips!

Merged topics.

News From the Worldwide Leader.Here's hoping they look East for #12. Opportunity exists in chaos. B) B) Go Zips!

Did you get to see Brian Kelly berate his QB after an INT during the Big East Championship game?No I didn't see it, and since I'm not a Cincy fan .. I pretty much don't care.

OH NO!!!!Adults using adult language.The language is going to happen .. that's probably why the family section is upper deck.My issue has to do more with self control. From the moment that Jacq made the mental error at the end of the half @ UConn, it was clear to me that the HC had no sense of self control or discipline. He chose to berate his player right in front of an ESPN(?/U/8) camera on the way to the lockerroom, rather than waiting 30 seconds and keeping it in the confines of the team meetings. The minute that event happened, I had doubts as to his ability to get the Zips on a winning path. That's when my opinion turned. Kept the hope, but somehow knew it wasn't going to happen.Throughout the past 5 years, the Zips were victims of their own lack of self control: timely personal foul penalties ended how many drives, pushed the Zips out of field goal range at critical junctures of important games. And I think that all points to a lack of self control / discipline to keep your head when it matters. Teams are generally a reflection of their coach .. and if the coach was unable to exercise restraint, how could the players be expected to?

Do we pay Syracuse or IU more than a North Texas?

Interesting thought.Assuming we don't go back to the "give the tickets away for free" mantra again, I figure a home game with 20k paid attendance is worth probably almost $500k gross to UA (before any payout that goes to the visiting team? Would there be one in this case?) before operational costs are taken out.20k tickets sold x $20 average sale price = $400,000Everyone there spends $5 on concessions = $100,000That doesn't include parking .. and I have no concept of the single game overhead the U faces to host a game .. but I'm guessing that the margin on a home game like this is something like 50-75%?? So the net take on a home game could be as high as $375k???

Great to be off of it early on.Go Zips!

The joke here is more about Beano Cook than Ron Pawlus. RP was a good college QB .. Beano was in over his head by that time.

Are monster hands soft?

One warning for all. Take politics to the Off-Topic Forum.

At last report, the ZipsNation.Org search party is still on its mission started to Put-in-Bay a few years ago in search of DA ZIPMAN!You'll have to wait to find Balki .. priorties.

how does the moon cross the sky without Chase Hoobler pushing it? First off, they all got to play the Zips.... or was that a rhetorical question? My bad.

Brief Ohio.Com article (presumably Gaffney).And just for Dr. Z:

Elton was there. They said at the end that they were moving Rob to one of the TV Booths for individual interviews. These guys are probably sitting on their best question in the hopes that their article tomorrow will be slightly different than everyone else's.That's my guess.Go Zips!

Here's a question:Would there be less questions / assumptions about TW knowing Rob previously if the Kokinis / Mangini arrangement in Browns Town had worked out differently?Is this Browns Fan neuroses creeping into the Nation? B) B) Go Zips!

Not singling you out here skip .. lots of people calling this out .. and you're just the most recent.When exactly did it become a BAD thing to NETWORK? Why is it a bad thing to leverage everything you have in your arsenal to find the person you think is the best for the situation? Do people really think that TW only interviewed people with whom he'd work previously??!! Really? The guy used everything at his disposal to find the one that he thought was the best fit for the situation. It might have included networking.One other thing I think that hasn't been brought up yet: I'm happy they got this done before the next domino fell in the coaching carousel. Whether it be Kansas filling their job, or ND hiring one .. the longer the Zips waited, the harder it was going to be to attract a top flight candidate to this job. Say Kelly goes to ND .. Butch Jones goes to Kansas or Cincinnati .. more and more mid-level jobs are going to open up .. and it may have been more difficult to get a guy like Ianello in here. So thanks for that Tom.It's a new day. B) B) Go Zips!

Haven't read the rest of your post yet, but +100 on that little nugget.

That would mean the guy won a ton of games for the Zips. I could handle that.I dream of the day when our FB program is as big and reliable a stepping stone as our AD chair appears to be.Go Rob! Win your a$$ off and be the obvious choice for ND when Edsell is canned in 2014.Go Zips!!!

So you can't get a Biology / Pre-Med degree at UA? Sounds like an excuse to me. I know enough surgeons who were ME undergrads to know that wouldn't be a serious road block for the kid.

No longer Notre Dame's Rob Ianello, he is now OUR Rob Ianello.As posted by Tom Gaffney @ Ohio.ComFor the record, the more I learn about Rob, the more I like about this hire. I don't believe this to be a reach at all, I think he brings some qualities to UA that will help improve the Zips, and I look forward to watching his impact on the Zips, both on and off the field.Welcome to Rob Ianello. Welcome to his family. Glad to have you as a Zip. B) B) Go Zips!