ToledoRockets

They are going to be looking for football powers as the Big East will be divided between football and basketball. For football, they are going to want traditionally strong programs to enhance their football conference. Only one team can be the conference champion at a time so it does not matter if there is any team right now that can win the Big East.If they are looking for football schools, they will be more apt to look at schools like Toledo and Miami. They are not going to look at schools like Akron with zero fan base, zero tradition, zero nationally-ranked seasons and even recently are only about 13-11 in the last two years.Make plans to build whatever on-campus stadium you want. It won't help you just like it does not help WMU, CMU, Ball State or Buffalo.

I don't think he said, "We will be moving to the Big East", he said, "...we have a chance to move to the Big East." It is common knowledge around these parts that there has been discussion and once our merger with Medical University of Ohio is completed in July, I believe that talks will resume.

You guys will not be attractive to the Big East. Period. You have one MAC title and a 7-6 record to use as your poster board. No MAC titles in basketball. It is not going to happen.The Big East will likely take two MAC schools and a couple of Conference USA schools. I am not saying it will be Toledo, but we do have the history of success and way more household recognition than Akron.Just worry about trying to not go 6-6 next year.

QB spot will be fine. We do not have a fancy offense. Bubble screens and short passes. RB position is going to be much better than people think. Parmele had 300 yds this year at about 4.6 a carry and Davis had around 250 yards at 7.1 yds per carry. Add to that the return of McDougal and the addition of Jones (Orlando, Fla.) as well.Only lose four starters on Offense and four starters on D. Entire O-line returns but one and entire D-Line returns.PK will be suspect.Toledo will be the MAC West Preseason Favorite. Miami will be the East Favorite. Mark my words.

So I guess that AK-Zips has a pipeline to the AD at BC? That makes a lot of sense! I am sure that the last thing BC cared about, if they cared at all, was that you guys won the MAC Championship game. Prior to that game you were a 6-5 team just like the year before. If they were going to switch the game, and I HIGHLY doubt it, they would not have cared about playing a 6-5 Akron or a 7-6 Akron.Unless you have actual facts and sources to back up your facts, you are just speculating and dreaming.

Sorry to keep telling the truth on your board. I guess you guys do not want anyone here that posts facts that are not pro-Akron.The BC game was a pipe dream and a rumor. It was never Akron's game. What is so stupid, assinine, jealous or BS about that statement?

BC game was never a game so there was nothing for them to pull out of.

I called this last week but you guys thought I was crazy. No, we won't play at Akron in 2007, but we will go in 2008. Maybe by then you can draw at least 15,000. My prediction is that Toledo wipes the floor with you guys at Toledo next fall!It will be an October game. November is filled with West games plus BG. You guys are not important enough for a November game at our house!

This just in. Let the games begin! Get your tickets early because we actually sell out our games!Toledo Future Football Schedules(Subject to Change)2006 ScheduleHome GamesKansas (9/16/2006)McNeese State (9/23/2006)Akron*Ball State*Central Michigan*Bowling Green*Away GamesIowa State (9/02/2006)Pittsburgh (9/09/2006)Eastern Michigan*Can't State*Northern Illinois*Western Michigan*

ooooo...I guess you really got me there!First of all, how ignorant are you to try and argue that you guys had great crowds as a I-AA school and now you don't get good crowds? Akron never, and I do mean NEVER outdrew Toledo. Not when you were I-AA. Not now. You had a couple of big crowds at the Rubber bowl back in the day AGAINST YOUNGSTOWN! And ONLY against Youngstown.Yes, you are right, we here at Toledo have been shaking in our boots that Akron has not gone a whopping 13-11 in the last two years. That 20-0 whooping you took to Army really has us scared you are on the rise. Or is it the 13-6 throddling you gave Buffalo? I am not sure. But, you are right...we are really worried about you and Can't State becoming powers!

The Glass Bowl was a dump until 1990. We still had great crowds eventhough it was a crappy stadium. Yes, it is nicer now. But people do not come to the games because the stadium is nice. They come because of the support and the product we consistently put out on the field.

Not to burst your bubble, but Toledo has been consistently good for decades and has drawn great crowds for decades. The Glass Bowl has been in its current spot since 1936. It started as am 8,000 seat stadium and as the team became more and more successful and the attendance kept rising, it was expanded. Up until 1990 it only sat 18,000 but we sold out every single game. It was then expanded to 26,400 and we consistently average about a sellout per game.It took years of great seasons and MAC Championships and national rankings to build the crowd support to facilitate explansion. We are the first MAC team to EVER host a Big-10 school. As a matter of fact, I believe that Toledo had hosted four Big-10 games before any other MAC school had hosted a single one.You guys had a great year. But it takes more than a nice stadium to bring in the crowds. It takes years of consistent winning and a consistent fan base to start talking about giant stadiums and big home games. You guys bite off more than you can chew and you are stuck with a huge cash cow.You averaged 10,500 per game in a year you won the MAC. If the attendance rules were still in place, you would be in jeopardy of going to I-AA. By comparison, you have to go back to 1965, when the stadium sat only 12,000, to find a year that Toledo averaged under 11,000. Even in 1993 when we were 4-7, we averaged 16,500 and in 1991 we were 5-5-1 and still brought in 19,500 per game.The whole theory of "if you build it they will come" does not work. You need to have someone with some reasoning skills making your plans.

Finally you have someone on here being realistic. This is what I have been saying all along. It is good to dream, but you have to realize that you do not have a good fan base and you do not have a winning tradition. Maybe it will happen. But right now, it is only a maybe. Potential basically means that you have not done anything yet.You have one MAC Championship. Great. You can't go from that, and a 10,500 avg attendance, to Big time home opponents and huge stadiums all at once. You guys put together a strong of 10 years where you are consistently good and you may have something to beat your chests about. But you don't so be realistic or you will end up way over your heads financially.

I was not saying you had a small stadium. What I was saying is that you can't evenpartially fill the stadium you have and you are talking about building a bigger one that would just be a huge white elephant. I agree that 10-miles is a long way for the students but most of your students are commuters anyway. Our campus only has about 4,000 students living on campus and yet we draw over 10,000 students a game at least.

First of all, show me where there was an estimated 15,000 people from Akron that went to that game. The official attendance for the game was 45,000. If you guys had 8,000 fans I would be shocked.If you had ever been to the MCB before, you would know that Toledo has been the biggest draw for that game. Last year, there were over 20,000 Toledo fans at that game. The ENTIRE home side was in blue and gold. The official attendance for that game is the current MCB record of over 52,000.You guys also drew a pathetic crowd for the MAC Championship game! Toledo brought over 18,000 fans to the MAC Championship game in 2004. Again, the entire home side was blue and gold.Watching the crowd shots on TV this year, there were random crowds of gold and blue at the MCB and the MAC Championship game.Make all the excuses you want about Thnanksgiving morning and bad weather. Your excuses are your own. Other than saying you lost to Army 22-0 instead of 20-0, it is impossible to find anything inaccurate in my posts. You guys just do not want to hear the truth. You want to live in lala land. Since you can't point to anything I have said as inaccurate, you resort to name calling and giving me the high school comebacks.Facts are the facts. Yes, you won a watered down MAC Championship. I am saying that it takes more than one decent season to start talking about being a great program and 40,000 fans a game and BCS teams, etc. You guys are 13-11 over the last two years and 53-72 over the last 10 years. You couldn't sell out your own stadium unless Youngstown State came to town and brought their fans. As a matter of fact, your average attendance this year, your only MAC Championship year ever, was your worst year for attendance since 1999!

Obviously this guy does not know how things work. Forst of all, the MAC did not "screw" you guys with road games at Miami and BGSU. They are in your division so, obviously, next year those will be home games. You see, in your division, you play home and away match-ups.Secondly, the East is ALWAYS weak. That is the only reason you guys played in the MAC Championship game in the first place.As far as attendance goes, you guys had a MUST win game at home versus your arch-rival and you still can't get more than 5-6,000 fans to come and watch. Your fan support and attendance are terrible. You had NIU at home opener and got a whopping 15,000. You follow that win up with a staggering 10,000 for CMU. Your 22-0 loss to lowly Army brought in 12,000. You then bring in Ohio and pack the stands with 7,500 and your arch-rival total was 8,900. WOW! I am not sure what kind of math they teach at Crackron, but that is an average of 10,700.You talk about beating Miami next year when you got crushed by them this year. You talk about easy wins over Buffalo and you beat them 13-6 this year.All this talk about BCS games and 40,000 seat stadiums is a joke.If Toledo plays Akron, it will likely be an ESPN game because it will pit the preseason West Champion vs. the Defending MAC Champion. It will NOT be at Akron because they want there to be people in the stands. That game at Toledo will draw a sellout. That game at Akron will be 18,000 if you are lucky.You guys are so new to actually winning anything, you do not even know how things work at this level.

You guys crack me up. I guess that is why it is Crackron.I said this a long time ago that you guys should be proud of the improvements made, but don't get ahead of yourselves. That is exactly what happened to WMU back in the late 90's. One good year and they thought they were going to light the world on fire. Their fans started talking about big time schools going to their stadium, they dumped so much money into their football program that it killed their athletic department and they had to cut a bunch of sports. It was a flush in the pan year.Next year is going to be a rough one...at Penn State (L)at NCSU or BC Game (L)vs IAA (W)Miami (L)BGSU (L)Ohio (W)Can't State (W)Buffalo (W)my guess on crossovers:NIU (L)Toledo (L)Eastern Michigan (W)That puts you guys at 5-7 (4-4). Avg home attendance in 2006? with a BC game you'll average 16,000, without, 13,000.If the Toledo game is a crossover, it will be at Toledo for sure.

I have been reading your other posts about next year and about new stadiums, etc.. I think you guys need to keep it realistic.First of all, congrats on winning the MAC. But one MAC Championship does not make a "program". You guys need to learn how to win consistently and pack the stadium that you have before you start getting too big for your britches.A lot of Toledo fans talk the same unrealistic stuff...bigger stadium, BCS teams, another conference...We have the top program in the MAC. Toledo is the program by which all other programs measure themselves. We are the first MAC school to ever host a Big-10 school. We hold the MAC records for season and single game attendance. We are battling for the MAC title year-in and year-out and going to bowls nearly every year and still holding a top-3 MAC standard for attendance. Yet, we are not in a position to be building a 30,000+ seat stadium.Toledo is in a position to have the most expensive season and single game ticket prices in the MAC, by far, and still fill the stadium because we have a 26,000 seat stadium. You guys need something like what we have: #1 stadium in the conference, on campus, 26,000+ seats, largest press box in the country for any level of football. You create a demand. We have NEVER had an empty luxury suite and it is 10,000 a year for each suite. We put a great team on the field every year, not just once in a lifetime.It is good to dream but you have to be realistic. If you bite off more than you can chew, you create a black hole of debt and unmet expectations. Learn to win. Learn to get good crowds with what you have. A bigger stadium at Akron will be a joke. You MUST be happy to be winning MAC titles and anything bigger is an added bonus.

So I guess your 8,000 at the Can't game was overinflated? HOw about the 7,600 for Ohio? Or is it like any other school where you claim schools with good attendance must be lying and home attendance at your own school must be underestimated?

What is a WPIAL?

What have I said that is not true?

I guess it is tough to hear the truth!

What a pathetic showing by both schools ! Who cares who had more. The point is that neither school brought very many at all. A good percentage of the people Akron brought got in free. It must suck going to a school or rooting for a school that can't pay fans to watch!

Akron has never had over 35,000 at a game unless it ewas on the road. The largest crowd for Akron was about 34,000 in like 1993 when you got blown-out by I-AA Youngstown and the majority of that crowd was the Youngstown fans. 20,000 at Akron...no way! You guys had 8,000 for your arch rival in a game you HAD to win to go to the MACC ! You had 7,600 for Ohio ! There is nobody, outside of Akron, that believes that you guys have the best team in the MAC. Like I keep saying, enjoy your 15-minutes. You'll be battling Youngstown State for the Gateway Championship in a couple of years when you get bounced from the MAC.

Half empty? There were 21,000 people in a stadium that seats 26,000. It was also snowing at game time. Have you guys ever had 21,000 for any game...ever?