LosAngelesZipFan

Again, Tressel is going to have a coaching ban, and many people are speculating that it will be about 5 years. So, even if you can see past all of the negatives, it isn't going to matter. He is going to be unavaliable for at least several years. Given that the permissive and entitled culture endemic to a program like OSU bears almost no resemblance to the situation at Akron, maybe there is a "show cause" argument to be made. As in, Akron's program is so incredibly pathetic right now that trying to turn it around would be a more severe punishment for him. Can't had to wait for Senderoff's ban to expire, so it can be done. I also think it's worth noting that Tressel's violations were not tied to recruiting or cheating per se. He clearly still has the fire in him to coach-- well, let's put that to good work by having him make something of this program. Kind of like working on a chain gang.

Just a thought, but the penn state situation is so vile that i'd contend it makes anything that Tressel accommodated look insignificant. And from what I can gather, Tressel's big sin was not reporting his players small time commerce like selling meaningless trinkets, right? I haven't seen anything that implicates Tressel in major recruiting violations (not doubting that they occur at a program like OSU but I haven't seen those specific allegations come up against Tressel at this point). So, I think we should be making an all-out play for Tressel. He is a man on a mission of redemption. His honor has been sullied but he is not an inherently bad guy. What he did at YSU and OSU in terms of on field performance says it all. He would provide an instant jolt of support to our football program, completely transcending the current abysmal state of things. Best of all, he is an Akron alum returning to the place of his first coaching job, his last stop and only hope to redeem a great career. He could create an amazing program here, one built on high ideals (because he know he would have to be beyond reproach) and performance (because he is an excellent coach). He would attract great talent (We would have an instant recruiting advantage over any other school- play for Tressel with no worries of him moving on). He would attract amazing coaches and set up a great successor. We are adrift and at rock bottom. We don't need a hot shot bcs asst that breaks rules and uses Akron as a step ladder. We can't attract a quality hc at this point because the program is so horrid. We need a coach that needs redemption as much as we do. That we could get that in someone that has a deep connection to Akron and that has no need to move on to greener pastures seems as good a situation as we might ever find. It might even be sufficient to win a show cause argument.

So this OSU support discussion is why I continue to bring up the whole merge UA and Can't State thing. I think UA could possibly attract a Cincy-level support if and only if it had a decade of winning big, including regularly defeating BCS teams and getting top-20 rankings. And even given that, it's more likely to be like Toledo-- which has knocked off several BCS teams and even been ranked-- and yet still only garners above-average-MAC-level support. If you want big time college sports in NEO and a world class institution that really united and dominated NEO, merge Can't and Akron.

I'd say that BG and UT should combine too but would be fine if they remained status quo--less competition that way. Relatedly, Gmann makes the ultimate point-- a combo of Akron and Can't would really scramble the political calculus for Ohio State. I would hazard that is one reason why Fingerhut thought about combining UA and CSU, not Can't. No doubt OSU supporters would much rather in remain unchallenged in all ways in Ohio. It's all just something to noodle.

All the examples you cite are privates next to publics--Duke, Xavier, USC, etc. I don't know of any other situation where two 30K+ enrollment public institutions that are inherently competing for the same pool of students and state resources are sitting right next door to each other. From an economic dev perspective, the state would ideally have a major university aligned against the major population centers. OSU and Cincy do that. NEO never had that happen-- Can't was never strong enough to do this and whatever ambitions it had to do so were obliterated by May 4.

Whoa, we are in seriously in danger of entering black helicopter territory here Go Zips.Your point about competition is spot on-- will UA be better competing against Can't (and YSU and CSU) for a static/shrinking pool of NEO students, talent, money or having the institutional heft to compete against OSU and other land grant schools? Can either Can't or UA afford an effect way to tap into India or China that connects NEO to those markets in some way? No, but together they might be able to. The point is that a combo reframes the competition. We can compete against Hiram College every day-- as a football team or an accounting program-- and not get much better. As far as the $400 toilet seat...it was for a nuclear attack sub, specially milled to muffle sounds. Not everything the gov't does or touches is stupid and wasteful. For instance, the rate of growth of cost in the private healthcare sector are much higher-- at least 2x higher-- than that in the public system, despite the waste and fraud. Go see my company's new movie Contagion to see a portrayal of the value and importance of the public sector in combatting things like pandemics!

Why did this topic re-surface? Did something new pop up on this?I still feel that UA and Can't State should be combined. Makes no sense for these 2 huge schools to sit 12 miles apart. There's even a frickin' train track that directly connects them. Combine 'em. Make one world-class institution that can really serve NEO. It would have 70K+ students. All those branch campuses woud knit together all of NEO (ex-Cleveland), creating a true fan base and an unstoppable political force that would even the funding playing field with OSU. There would be a couple of truly world-class, synergistic programs (polymers, liquid crystals) that could readily lead to others. It would have a huge business school and nursing program. Linked architecture and engineering programs. It would logically take over NEOUCOM, adding medicine and pharmacy. It would raise $60-80M a year (to start but probably grow quickly) and have an global alumni base of something like 400K. The potential impact on the athletic programs is obvious-- an institution of this size and scope immediately warrants the attention of BCS conferences; the cost efficiencies and increased support would unlock significant increases in funding to key sports like football. To fully get the impact, imagine someone like me living in LA. There are a few 1000 alums floating around here from UA and a few thousand from Can't State. Individually, it's really not enough to sustain an interesting alumni network. Putting them together and adding in the yearly flow from this much larger institution would provide the real potential for thriving alumni outposts that support the school, financially and otherwise. These two institutions so close together and so similar in scope and scale is an anomaly. I love UA and the time I spent there. But I think we'd all have to admit that the reason we are here on this board is because deep down we want UA to play at a bigger level in every possible way. For us, it's an article of faith that it can. But clearly UA lacks the resources, scale, and footprint to readily spring to that next level. A combo with Can't would immediately eliminate most of those barriers.Start with a confederation that merges alumni, some academic and our mutually woeful football programs-- it certainly wouldn't make the teams worse-- and over a few years pull the institutions together. UA is the science and graduate campus; Can't the undergrad and liberal arts campus. Run the train back and forth and keep the buses going to make it essentially a seamless dual-hub campus. Not saying it's easy, just that it is the one clear, obvious, and almost certain path to dramatically alter the trajectory of these 2 schools. Do it proactively-- don't wait for the state to one day decide that Akron should be a branch of CSU. Take control of the future by doing something historic!

That's a really cool icon-- make a great shirt! I flew up to Seattle this week and was about to post this pic when I saw you beat me to it? You said you saw it at work-- do you work at Alaska Air?

Just wanted to say how amazing it was to get to see the Rowdies at work yesterday-- they dominated the stadium and all the UCSB locals were amazed. It was all just awesome to experience!!

Live from the stands... Nice Zips crowd..beautiful day and setting to bring it home!!!

I am hoping to drive up tomorrow morning-- anyone have any deets on getting walk up tickets, where the Akron section is, etc? GO ZIPS! BRING IT HOME!!

UCLA, Stanford, UCSB, Cal I'd like a yearly west coast trip from one of the teams

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/socc...DB_OEM_ID=10800 This is an AMAZING article... He didn't even reference LeBron.

It wasn't quite as awesome as that-- the reporter was trying to get some time with LeBron during his camp at the JAR and asked for a private space to interview him. There was some oddness about LeBron not liking to be in unfamiliar rooms (hard to believe there is any space in the JAR he hasn't been in) but they found a small room that overlooked part of campus. I hope he maintains a link to Akron and UA, but I think the way he left the Cavs was truly dreadful. He's taken a huge hit to his reputation and brand as a result. He's gone to Miami to be Robin. I don't get it. Icons don't recoil from being 'the man', they long for the opportunity and, if they are great (and lucky) take full advantage of it. One telling thing in the interview was his views of Cleveland having grown up in Akron. Basically, he says that folks in Akron don't really care about Cleveland because the latter looks down on the former. I don't disagree with that per se, but the lack of true regional thinking is one of the things that really has held back NEO. Akron shouldn't be "competing" against Cleveland-- they should be working together to compete against other regions in the country and world. I hope someday LeBron endows a huge scholarship fund for Akron kids-- that would be great. He could also cajole his corporate sponsors (Nike and Coke mainly) to support a new arena, which could help make it happen. As great would be if he committed to getting his degree from UA-- I tried to make that happen a few years back when I did brand work for him. God that would have been a great story and a great piece of an amazing brand. *sigh* It was not to be.

How can he not know that SU is playing at UA? Why isn't the U/football program attaching themselves to the hip of JT? That's kinda a bummer to me...

I forced myself to skim the GQ article on LeBron the other day while killing time before a flight. I'm sure people in the newsstand were concerned that I had Ebola or some other highly infectious disease as I was dry heaving much of the time (2 girls 1 cup-like reaction). One cool little nugget popped up was the writer interviewing LeBron at the JAR-- he said they found a room that looked out on Akron's campus, which he described as 'lovely' or 'beautiful' (again, the retching kept me from fully absorbing the exact words)-- regardless, it's pretty amazing to have UA's campus described as such, particularly for those of us that were there when Buchtel was still a multi-lane hazard through the middle of campus.

The NYTimes Sunday Magazine today was all about the World Cup. They also had a feature on the "Next Gen of American Soccer". 11 were featured. 2 of them were Zips. No other university had an entry. Amazing! http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/06/0...n-soccer-7.html Featured: Kofi Sarkodie Zarek Valentin

Is coleman commons shaping up? When they announced it a few years ago the design looked great but I've never seen a picture of it. Did it happen? Or is it partly waiting on Memorial to be razed? Could someone on campus post some photos? Thx!

It would be fantastic if they re-routed Exchange. That's the missing piece. Unify the campus, gain a bunch of space to build new academic buildings on. It'd be amazing. They said Buchtel could never be closed. It happened. This can happen.

I get what the ideal is, but we don't have that yet. What's the fall back plan-- SVSM? Wouldn't you rather have the fall back be a beautiful brand new stadium with the latest turf tech rather than a high school (or worse, losing the game altogether)? Just askin...

I am still confused on why Info was built to accommodate soccer... artificial turf seems to be fine for the Sounders and others around the world. After what happened last year, why wouldn't we want at least the option of moving to turf to eliminate any possible playability issues.

What a strange year it turned out to be, made all the worse by expectations. Someone should make a top ten list of the bizarre stuff that happened.This would make my list: adding 2 former head coaches to split the offense between them and ending up with the entirely wrong talent at QB and RB, a porous OL, and playcalling dominated by shotgun handoffs up the middle. How can you have 3 offense oriented head coaches and still end up with all that??It's a bummer about JD-- there was a moment in time that really felt like he was going to lead us to someplace great. But, the writing was really on the wall a couple of years ago.

Just checked out the cams-- fantastic day for football! Looks like quite a few folks are already filing in and it's 2 hrs til game time. That's amazing!!

I would love for someone that tivo'd the game to tally up the number of runs up the middle. The PennStaters around me were like "WTF is wrong with Akron's coaches that they keep running the exact same play given that it never works".We just had no game plan to deal with this team-- we knew what we'd be facing, we knew what personnel we had, and I think the coaches had already decided that there was no way we could win. And that should be completely unacceptable for a University that has just invested in this program. This kind of effort should no longer be allowed at Akron.I know it's only the first game... but the O just had no attitude at all, no swagger, nothing. With Frye, you felt like there was always a shot at something breaking open. Getsy was a gunslinger, and demonstrated that he could make magic happen every now and then. But Jacq is now on yr 3 as a starter never having demonstrated that. He's just good enough to win half your games if everything else breaks right (and you are playing against lousy teams). It seems like they have limited the play calling to things that won't result in him tossing the game away and precluding a chance at winning, but the result is the O is tentative and unimaginative.I think JD has swagger and attitude and is a very smart guy-- everything you want and need. But not beating the bushes to get a first rate QB when that was the most obvious hole on the team for going on 3 years is unpardonable.

Hey dreal-- I was at the bar wearing an Ohio 8 tshirt (my UA gear needs to be refreshed). I left just after the Akron's TD. I'll meet up to watch other games-- I'm in Sherman Oaks.