Quickzips

Looks like the Zips opportunity to knock off a top 25 Can't team might not happen. BG is giving them all they can handle today. Up 8 with 12 minutes to play in BG. Still plenty of time for Can't to come back, but BG has answered the bell every time they've tried to make a run.

I think it will hurt him that he'll be 26 years old before the NFL season starts, with some still-raw receiving skills. Teams may be weary of taking a year or two to develop him if they have a similar 22 year old to choose from.The only thing I would add to that is that I don't expect him to run a very impressive 40. I seem to remember Hixon running somewhere in the low 4.4's to high 4.3's at his pro-day and it was only after that that he started flying up the boards. I don't think Jabari has that type of speed in him. Speed isn't really his game, but with the insane emphasis on 40 times in recent years a guy who runs a 4.5-4.6 at WR, RB or DB just isn't cutting it for scouts.I'm actually as much interested to see if anyone tries to pick up Jabari and convert him to TE. He's got the frame and overall athleticism to be a really nice TE at the pro level.

I'll second that.I'm all for anything that improves the MAC and all, but I draw the line at rooting for Can't. You'll never see those hippies rooting for us the same way you'll never see OSU fans rooting for Michigan, Duke fans rooting for North Carolina and on and on and on. Why should I root for them???

Please help me understand...why does the #3 seed matter? If you don't win the MAC regular season title, then all that really matters, IMHO, is being at least the #4 seed...i.e., the first round bye. I believe the Zips will achieve this with 1 more MAC win. Of course I want the Zips to win all of their remaining games, but I'll breathe much easier when they've guaranteed themselves no lower than the #4 seed.Winning the MAC regular season guarantees at minimum a berth in the NIT. The #2, #3, and #4 seeds in the MAC tournament, to me, are all of equal value to the team.It matters big time. Look at the side of the 4 seed and look at the side of the three seed. Would you really want to see Can't State before the championship game? Look at how it worked for Miami last year. They were in the same situation to slide through while we had Can't beating us up in the semi's. By the fourth quarter of the final game, we were dead tired. I see a similar scenario if Can't and Ohio would have to play each other. Going into the tournament as underdogs and in the 3 seed would be a potent formula for the zips.I understand the matchups. But, the way MAC teams beat up on each other, I just don't buy it. Look what happened to the Zips in 2006...should have beaten Toledo in the semis, but didn't.MAC teams do have a tendency to beat up on each other, but some of them do it more than others. Miami and Can't in particular are two teams that will really wear you down. Those teams most likely will be on the 1/4 side of the bracket. Teams on the 2/3 side of the bracket, not so much. Western and Central can put up a fight, but nothing near what Can't's all around athleticism and Miami's smothering defense would give you. Ball State, Eastern Michigan and Northern Illinois are the bottom of the barrel in the West. I don't think for one minute that the loss to Northern Illinois is indicative of how we would do against them in the tourney. Sorry to any Huskie fans out there, but that one was just a total fluke. If you wanna deal with Miami and Can't to try and get to the finals so be it, myself and most of the rest of Zipsnation I'd imagine would rather have to go through CMU/Ball State and Western.

So you are isolating the first portion of every game that accounts for 7 of our average 25.6 points ppg over the past 3 years. Which leaves 18.6 points over the remaining drives of the game. Assuming we answer the touchdown (which we didn't because of poor offense) that means the defense is playing competively. And that despite having to defend horrible field position they are only allowing 18.6 points. Sorry your point is completely invalid. The offense just has not been playing up to par. There is always room for improvement on both sides of the ball. But please quit trying to say the 3-3-5 and the defense is the sole problem when it's clearly not.Find for me one place where I said the 335 defense is the sole problem on this team. What I said, was it is a crappy gimmick defense which we don't have hte personel to run. Is the offense in need of a makeover? Heck yeah. This read-option crap only works for teams that have had a history of success recruiting players that are tailor made to run it (Florida, West Virginia prior to Rodriguez leaving). The problem isn't just on the offensive side of the ball though. That's what I've been trying to get through to you for a page and a half now. This defensive scheme makes it terribly difficult for us to pressure the QB, often times negating any advantage we get from having an extra defensive back on the field and it gives up rushing yards at a ridiculous rate, especially to mobile QB's. Does it help anything that our offense, this year in particular, couldn't stay on the field long enough to give the defense a break? Ofcourse not. Is that the only thing wrong with this defense? Not at all. A lot of it is based on the overall scheme and the fact that we haven't been able to recruit the talent to play it on our front 6.

Ok, let's try this again. Let's take it all the way down to the first two drives of the game by our opponents. Please tell me you won't argue with the idea that our defense shouldn't be torched during our opponents first two drives.Six times this season our opponents scored on one of their first two drives (Indiana, WMU, Buffalo, Temple, BG, OU, and as a side note Temple did it with a FG on their second drive which happened in the 2nd quarter). Twice (Buffalo and BG) they scored TD on both of their opening drives. Three other times (Army, CMU and Can't) our opponent got into scoring range before losing possession. Over the past three seasons our opponents have scored on us in their first two possessions 15 out of 37 times (40%) and have gotten into scoring position 22 out of 37 times (59%). To my untrained eye, that is far too often and cannot be attributed to this idea that our defense is on the field too much and is getting gassed, but I'll defer to your expertise and let you make what inferences you want from that.

Yep I did. Because I doubt very seriously you really know much of anything.And your qualifications are???? Ah yes by your logic, we were outscored drasitcally in the first quarter. Despite Jacquemain having his best numbers in the first half. Why? Because the offense was off the field way too quickly. Too many 3 & outs. But yeah it's the defenses fault that they have to play 75% of the minutes in the first half. And shoot outs happen. It's football.I'm not even sure what you are trying to argue here. Are you trying to argue that our defense wasn't giving up more points than a good defense really should in the first quarter and first half? I don't see it. Please explain. Ah yes my magical number. You must use magical because you simply can't come to grips with logical thinking. Use magic to explain what you don't understand. LOL. Also you can't "throw out" games. I mean if that was the case we could just toss out all those shoot outs and say our defense was stellar. But you seem to only want to look at one variable for the losses we have. Not the overwhelming number of different variables. Poor offensive adjustments, poor QB decision making, a defense that played injured most of the season, no pressure on the opposing QB. There are lot of fixes, but the main focus needs to be on finding a way to keep the offense on the field and sustaining drives. Because whether you think offense or defense wins games or championships, the simple fact of the matter is that points are what win games.Magical was a reference to the fact that YOU threw out an subjective number based on what YOU think constitutes a shootout. Sorry I didn't make that clear enough in my original post. Again I love the blame the offense for the defenses problems approach. It's all on the offense that the defense gives up too many points. I don't disagree that the defense being on the field to long tends to wear them, but when the defense is giving up points in the first half how is it fair to say that they are worn down at that point? The injuries might be another excuse, if it weren't for the fact that we have been consistently bad when for the last 3 years even in times when our defense HASN'T had a lot of injuries. As far as no pressure on opposing QB's. THAT'S EXACTLEY THE KIND OF THING I'VE BEEN TRYING TO SAY!!!! I don't think anyone thinks a QB is magically going to solve the problems. But an improved offensive scheme and better decision maker controlling that O is going to make a difference.Again, go back and look at the stats from 2005 and 2006. We gave up over 23 points per game in those two years, around 330 yards per game and over 140 yards per game on the ground. That was with JD running a better offensive scheme with a pretty good QB. So is it still on the offense that our defense was giving up unacceptable amounts of points, yards and rushing yards???

You guys can nit-pick my statements all you want. Look at the overall body of work for this team over the last 3 years on defense.2007:29.5 points per game183.8 yards per game rushing224.9 yards per game passing408.7 yards per game total2006:22.6 points per game136.2 yards per game rushing186.2 yards per game passing322.4 yards per game total2005:24.5 points per game159 yards per game rushing180.8 yards per game passing339.8 yards per game totalIf I'm the only one that isn't happy with giving up 25.5 points per game, 159.6 yards per game on the ground, 197.3 yards per game passing and 356.9 yards per game total on average over the last 3 years then so be it. The only thing in those statistics that is even mildly acceptable is the passing yards per game for our opponent and how much of that can be attributed to the fact that opponents can get almost 160 yards per game on the ground against this crap defense?

Very big win for the Zips. No doubt the sweaters will complain about the officiating at the end of the game, but with some of the ticky tack bs that they called throughout the game on guys like Bardo and Brett McKnight, I'm not too worried about it.Player of the game has to be Cedrick. The announcers mentioned that KD has started practicing him again instead of trying to rest those injuries in practice and it is really showing. Him finding his game again along with the return of Wood bodes well for this team. And how nice was it to see him can those two FT's at the end of the game to shutup the sweater crowd. Doesn't make up for the finals last year, but it can dull the sting a bit.Maybe I'm gonna be a bit premature in this, but ladies and gentlemen, Chris McKnight has arrived. His defense is improving game by game and he's getting more and more confidence in his shot. That block against Bramos was a thing of beauty for those of you who were there or watched on ONN like I did. If this guy can be the 2nd man inside to compliment Wood down this home stretch, watch out.Nate had one of his worst games in a while on the offensive end, but he was really big in keeping Bramos out of the game tonight. Bramos never really got in a rythm. He hit a few miracle shots in the 2nd half, but not much else. Nate was a big part of that.Has anyone seen Jimmy Conyers lately? My god, what is going on with this kid? Supposedly an outstanding player. One of the best pure ballers this University has ever recruited. I don't even think he played tonight. Is he really that bad? What is going on with him?Really nice play out of Bardo tonight. He's never going to be a guy who will get you double figure scoring inside, but he's pesky enough on the defensive end and he isn't totally lost anymore on offense.Another ho-hum workman-like solid night for Dials. Brett McKnight committed some fouls, scored some points, got lost on defense. McNees wasn't as much of a factor scoring, but Miami worrying about him opened some things up for other guys. Milum had a couple really nice putbacks and one good block. Roberts barely played.

Yeah, these announcers have been REALLY painful to listen to. Don't forget that Chris McNees was about to come into the game. Ohh and Dials is apparently still looking for the 1000 career points mark.

Tied at 27 at halftime. Typical Miami game. Slow, kind of low scoring, defensive ballgame. Cedrick looks to be getting his legs back a bit which is a good sign for us. Zips got in foul trouble early, mainly on Brett McKnight picking up 3 almost right in a row and some ticky tack bs called against Bardo. Miami seems REALLY concerned with McNees (rightly so). We have to take advantage of that and look for the open man. T.Pollitz with a couple too many second chance points there, but the Zips have gotten some second chance points of their own. Miami has turned it over quite a bit. We need to take more of an advantage of that. Made them pay early, but let them off the hook a few times later in the half.

I agree that any defense is better than no defense at all. However, if we are going to be happy to play the little bit of defense that we do for a couple games a year just because it is better than what LO gave us, then we really are selling ourselves short. This defense can do a whole lot better. Also, don't kid yourself about OSU. That game was played in bad weather that favored the defense and with Jim Tressel keeping his offensive scheme very close to the vest.As far as the point about defensive backs. You can put as many DB's on the field as you want. If they have to cover for 8-12 seconds at a time while the QB sits in a nice comfortable pocket sipping pina-coloda's and surveying the field because there is no real resemblance of a pass rush to account for it won't make one bit of difference.

When JD first got here our defense wasn't bad. Teams in the MAC didn't know how to deal with our defense and we actually had some players to be able to run it with Kiki, Reed, etc. At this point, everyone has adjusted to the defense and it gets worse and worse and worse. It has lost us a lot of games. We shouldn't have to get into offensive shootouts week in and week out just to compete. Put together a defense that you can get the personel to run and that has been proven time and time again to be an effective defense and watch the results change dramatically.Hey Quick, where you coaching now? Also how many shoot outs did we have this year? What is your definition of a shootout? Mine is greater then one touchdown per quarter so a score higher then 28-28 would be a "shoot out"? So we would have had 6 shout outs. Two of which were just non-conference blow outs (UConn and IU).Sorry to say that, the biggest problem with our defense is how many minutes they have to spend on the field. Take a look at the TOP and for the most part we are on the losing side of that. But what do I know.Ohh please tell me you didn't just play the, "you're not a coach what the hell do you know card." Tired, old argument that makes absolutely no sense when it comes to internet fan board debates. As far as the point about shootouts, go take a look at the scores yourself. Six teams scored 28 or more points on us. By your own logic 28 points is indicative of a shootout if we are gonna have a chance to win. That is half of our games getting into shootouts. In those six games our opponents averaged almost 17 points in the first half of the game and just over 7 in the first quarter alone (remember, you claim that a touchdown a quarter is indicative of a shootout). You can't logically tell me that our offense is so inefficient that our defense is burnt out in the first half or the FIRST QUARTER. If that is the case by all means, we need a new strength and conditioning team because that is just pathetic. Then lets look at the other 6 games that our opponents didn't hit that magical 28 point mark that you speak of. In those 6 games our opponents averaged 18.5 points per game. If you take the Miami game out of the equation it is almost 21 points per game. So by that measure we logically need 24 points a game (I know, technically we only need 22 points per game to win those games, but how many times do you see a team score 22?) in order to win games. I don't think I'm alone in the sentiment that going into a game needing to get 24 points to have any shot at winning the game is indicative of a defense that isn't doing it's job. Those of you who think that all of our problems are going to go away if we can just find a decent QB who can sustain and finish drives to put under center are sadly mistaken. QB is an important position on the field, but this team has a lot more problems than just at QB.

When JD first got here our defense wasn't bad. Teams in the MAC didn't know how to deal with our defense and we actually had some players to be able to run it with Kiki, Reed, etc. At this point, everyone has adjusted to the defense and it gets worse and worse and worse. It has lost us a lot of games. We shouldn't have to get into offensive shootouts week in and week out just to compete. Put together a defense that you can get the personel to run and that has been proven time and time again to be an effective defense and watch the results change dramatically.

The thing about the 3-3 is that it allows you to adjust to all of the multiple sets, stems and motions that you get with spread offs now. It allows you to bring heat without bogging yourself down with alot of checks. If you get a lot of two-tight stuff you better get some bigger bodies on the field. It does however limit your coverages a little. Its not real condusive to playing much cov 2 without adjusting the fronts.In theory it might do all that. In practice though, if you don't have the pieces to run a 3 man front it does none of that. Your front 3 gets blown off the ball, blockers can get to the second level and neutralize your LB's and DB's and you're done. I've heard over and over again that the reason we run the 3 man front is because we can recruit enough quality big bodies to run in a 4 man front. In a 4 man front you need 2 DT's in that 280lb or above range who can take up the middle and depth. Your DE's can be guys like Sewell who are in that 245-270 range with speed and athleticism. In a 3 man front you need to have 3 big guys who can take up those blockers and allow your playmakers to make plays. So now instead of needing to have 2 big men plus depth you need to have 3 big men plus depth. It's totally illogical.

I like hearing that Sullivan is a guy who looks to take it to the rack. We've got plenty of guards who can shoot the 3 ball on this team. What we lack in our guards is a slasher who can get to the hoop and finish. Cedrick has been that guy at times over the past few years, but with his injuries he hasn't been nearly as effective in that role this year and, well, next year he'll be gone so...Man are we going to be deep at guard.

The defense is crap and will continue to be crap until JD realizes that this 335 is a gimmick defense that actually makes it more difficult for us to recruit kids that fit in the scheme than if he actually ran a traditional 43 defense. The problem is that 3 man front. Any time you run a 3 man front you need big, strong bodies who can occupy blockers and free things up for your LB's and S's to make plays. Guys like Sewell are playing completely out of place in this defense. Sewell is the prime example in my mind. In a standard 43 scheme he'd be a PERFECT DE. He's a high motor guy whose athletic and can beat blockers off the edge, but he's being asked to take up blockers and is wasting his talent. If anything in this scheme he fits as a rush LB, but because we have noone else to play DE for us Sewell is left wasting his talents playing out of position. Until we either change the defensive scheme to a 43 or magically start landing stud DE's in the 6'3"-6'5" 280-310lb range and stud NT's in the 6'0"-6'4" 310-340lb range our defense is going to drastically underperform because guys are being asked to play out of position.

Wow, unbelievable. I agree with the sentiment that the braketbuster maybe isn't necessary to get back for. At this point our at-large chances are next to none. I'd rather have him back for OU, Can't and the tournament to make a run there. Either way. With the way Chris McKnight has been stepping up of late and with Nate playing stellar ball, Cedrick seems to be finding his rythm a bit. Maybe our luck is starting to turn a bit.

A 6-10 Redshirt Junior in BardoA 6-9 Redshirt Sophomore in Swiechand by the time he would get here probably at 7-0 Freshman in Zeke.Man that would take care of a lot of the size problems we've had in the past. Not many MAC teams would have the bigs to match up with a big lineup like that either. Especially if Swiech and Zeke are as good as advertised. Then you start adding in some of the talented guards we've got and the McKnights and....ok I need to wake up here.Man I wanna see this kid in Blue and Gold.

Next year will certainly be interesting. It's definitley going to be a new look Zips without Romeo, Dru, Wood, Dials, Cedrick or Quade. It will be interesting to see how things shake out and who steps up where. As far as I can see the roster looks like this next year.G: Steward, Roberts, McNees, Coblentz, Brooks, Sullivan, McClanahan, HitchensF: C.McKnight, B. McKnight, Linhart, Conyers, Caroll, Cvetinovic, ParrishC: Swiech, BardoI've got no idea how this whole thing will work out. About the only thing I can say for sure is that Nate will start at SF. Beyond that it's anyone's guess. Especially at those guard spots. McNees and Roberts would seem to have the edge up on everyone there, but you've got tons of talent in Steward, McClanahan, Hitchens, Sullivan, even Rydell Brooks could make some noise. The big thing I'm interested to see though is how the C spot works out. Can Bardo and Swiech combine to give us 40 minutes of beef in the center or are we going to continue to have to play small at times??? It's going to be interesting.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/14/universit...ting/index.htmlTerrible, terrible day at NIU. I can't imagine the kind of impact that something like this happening at Akron would have. To have it happen to another University in the MAC is heartbreaking. Thoughts and prayers go out to those at NIU right now.

This is gonna be a total kneejerk reaction. I know. You don't have to tell me.It's time to start rebuilding for next year. The senior leadership that was to carry this team this year is no longer capable of it. Wood is out, maybe for the rest of the year, Cedrick is a shell of his former self, Quade continues to be the rollercoaster that we're all used to by now, Dials is the only one playing remotely close to good basketball and even his game has fallen off some. It's time to start playing some of the youngins more. Why is Chris McKnight sitting on the bench the final 8 minutes tonight while Quade stays in there with his disappearing act? Chris played at least as good on the defensive end and, gasp, he can actually score! Brett McKnight is still lost on defense, but what is having him on the bench doing for us tonight? He made some very pretty moves on the offensive side and him and his brother were the only two on the floor for us tonight that could consistently score inside. Something we needed desperatley. And while I'm on the subject, can we officially call Jimmy Conyers a total bust? The kid is hardly getting any minutes and the only thing he looks good for at this point if giving up fouls. This out of one of the most hyped recruits in recent Zips history. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe this is just the bottom of the barrel for us and we will bounce back and make a run towards the tourney, but right now. This team needs to start getting ready for next year and it starts with playing guys like the McKnights, Roberts, McNees and Bardo more.

The streak ends at 25. This team is not very good right now. I'm worried for the rest of the season and just as worried for next year.

No more games on FSN please. Every time we get on FSN we stink the place up. Needed that miracle last second putback from Nate against OU, got slaughtered by CMU and struggling now against NIU.

The D's been there for the most part. NIU just can't miss a shot.