Zip Watcher

Depending on how it's done, I don't hate the concept. Say for example it settles at 18 teams. So you have 2 nine team divisions, divide by East & West. You could have 8 divisional FB games and a conference championship game. Add one crossover game each year to make things interesting and cut down on the need for FCS non-cons. In hoops, you keep divisions, play home & home w/ your entire division, and say 2 crossover games for an 18 game conference slate. In the non-revenue generators where possible, it's divisional play only until the title games. Keep the championship games in the middle (say Memphis or St. Louis) .. and travel isn't completely ridiculous. Divisions could look like: East: Akron Toledo/Temple Marshall ECU UAB S. Miss Tulane Rice Tulsa West: UTEP Wyoming Air Force Colorado State New Mexico Fresno State Nevada UNLV Hawaii The real detail would need to be in the media contract & rights. If this league could garner a C-USA type deal where each team is getting significantly more $$$ than the MAC. Then I'd take a hard look at this. I would think this league will do better in the media rights than the MAC will. Curious times. Go Zips!

Why no love for Enrico Polazzo?

Indiana is an exception.

Let the western C-USA teams go shore up the MWC. Take the remaining Eastern C-USA teams and some MAC schools who invest in athletics and you get: North: U@B Toledo Temple UMass Akron Marshall South: So. Miss E. Carolina UAB Tulsa Rice Tulane All sports for all teams & there's some historically good teams there for both sports. Travel isn't out of control, and there's a good mix of urban and traditional campuses. If the travel is too wide, you could let Tulsa and Rice go west , and try and get WKU and MTSU in from the Belt. Then the hoops in the league would be immediately a 2+ bid league most years. It's tough with all of the flux to take a flyer on something like this. It really is. I want UA to keep pushing itself and make the most of it's investments in athletics. Those investments can benefit the entire campus if they yield results. Not sure if I would jump at this or risk staying pat where they are. The investment in FB tells me that LP & the Board would probably go for a transition like this. I think we would need to bring a rival with us .. so hopefully UT would see it the same way.

Due to weather & the responses. We will do this on Wednesday before the Miami the game. Time confirmation and location details to follow. Go Zips!

Seems like good interest. Next two games are Saturday vs. NIU & Wed vs Miami. What does everyone think about meeting at 5:30 or 6 tomorrow before the NIU game? Next choice would be 5:30 before the Miami game. Fire away.

George Thomas has reached out to see if Zips fans would take him up on the offer to get together and discuss the ABJ coverage, what we like, what we'd like to see, and the coverage in general. This isn't an invitation to attack the ABJ, but a chance to have an open, constructive dialog with the new beat writer. I've been on the road this week with crummy data connections, so I'm slow in posting this. If there's sufficient interest, we can set a time and place to meet with George prior to one of the hoops games. I reitierate that the hope here is for a constructive dialog, not a ranting session. Post here if you're interested. Go Zips!

Nice!!!

JoePa and his superiors and staff allegedly enabled repeated abuse of minors in one of the most despicable ways there is. They knew about it, and didn't stop it. These two topics aren't in the same universe, let alone the same level.

I think Coach Bowden should be left to be successful on his own. He doesn't need to parade recruits by JT's office across campus. Bowden can and will sell recruits himself on the merits of the program, the facilities, the staff, and the education. It's enough, and I'm pretty confident he'll be successful without resorting to name dropping or hand shaking w/ JT. I think JT's been brought here for much bigger picture things than a few recruits here and there. A bunch of it is development ($$$), and a bunch is probably selling Proenza's vision to the students and community. If JT being around UA helps FB attendance, everybody wins. But Terry Bowden doesn't need to pull JT into ANY FB items. I'm confident that he and Chuck are up to the tasks well enough by themselves. I will echo someone else's comments yesterday that the timing of this seems odd to me. Not necessarily bad, just odd. George Thomas was on a roll with the recruiting coverage and Bowden / Amato. It could have kept the news cycle for the rest of the week on its own. Travel schedules must have been a component of this. Otherwise, don't you space this kind of publicity out to maximize its impact? When TB was hired, I expressed some reservations that we attend to the needs of our other programs and not just go all in for FB to pay for the stadium. Mostly, I meant the hoops facilities. Depending on how the JT thing works out, this could end up being a great move by LP to help accomplish that very thing. Keep JT where they're saying he will be, with the students and in and around the community. He's great at that stuff .. and he can help us take care of KD & hoops in a fiscally responsible fashion. A rising tide lifts all boats. I continue to hope that TB & staff raise FB .. and JT helps really bring UA over the top in other ways apart from the gridiron. Interesting times. B) Go Zips

Got my flight to Tulsa booked. Do you?

Charlie Coles doesn't even like to watch EMU.

Dadgum, I thought I had figured it out. I'll have some more time later I think to check into it. I'll let you know. ZW

Found a bunch of not found errors for an icon. Reuploaded it and added it to the required directories. If you don't mind trying it again, I'd like to hear how it goes. Thanks, ZW

It's screwy. I can't seem to generate one, even editing those same threads. I'll try to look into the logs a little bit today to sort this out. Sorry for the inconveniences. The info has been awesome.

There's getting a draw against Murray State or Creighton .. and there's everything else. What would be good, no matter who it is, is to dismantle them on ESPN or ESPN2.

Sounds to me like you're already worrying. You see this team finishing 4-5 with 6 of 9 reamaining games @ home?

The cmu feed was the best I've seen.

What he said. B)

I tweaked my original list to add ZFF .. which means that one of the other names on the list may be wrong? I am pretty certain that ZIPMAN was unable to catch the ferry in time to make it. Less than 1 month later, Zips hoops was saved. Coincidence?

Member 1 is probably Admin I think. Porky's Seven as I recall it now: Captain Dr. Z ZFF Zip Watcher Z-P Hilltopper Z-Pouch or zipboy???? I feel like maybe this is close .. but not sure. Met by Porky's at halftime during a DHip special one year to discuss the difficulties w/ Dreamwater.

Ok, so the Zips are in the top 5 of RPI among the road teams. The top 2 RPI home teams are Creighton and Murray State. The Zips played Creighton in the BB last season, so it won't be the draw this year. Due to the mix of MVC at the top of both lists, there's perhaps an outside chance the Zips could sneak up and draw the Racers. Unlikely .. but could happen. What would help would be the following: St. Mary's loses to LMU & BYU this week. Wichita loses to Evansville & Drake Long Beach loses to UC Riverside & CS Fullerton Northern Iowa loses to Indiana St. & Missouri State. Each of these teams has a bad RPI team in their 2 remaining games before the selections .. so maybe they can all help the Zips out by tripping over a should win game. The biggest help would be if one of the West coast teams really tanks as well as Wichita St. The remaining good West Coast team could take the Creighton game, and Akron to Murray State is a manageable travel, leaving Wichita to go to ORU .. and maybe Northern Iowa to the Dakota? Gotta win in Mount Pleasant and hope for some bad bounces by the teams ahead of us. I would love Love LOVE a shot to go into old OVC territory against an undefeated, ranked Racers team. Go Zips!

I have the same feeling late in games when he has the ball as I did when Roberts had the ball the last 4 years. "Get the ball to Roberts" was a very common goal late in games with a lead. Good times!

His turnovers were in the paint or near to it in most cases last night. Not as cut and dry as that. We need him to be dual threat, as it really helps open the paint up.

Last I heard, dude is going to Med school.