GJGood

Went to see Aaron Jackson, or at least I thought I was, play when Gahanna played Pickerington Central. I was disappointed, though, as Jackson did not play and I can only assume he was one of the players on Gahanna's bench in street clothes. I never was able to find out why he didn't play against such a high level opponent. Does anybody here know? I guess it could have simply been because it was a Friday night and they had another game Saturday but I would doubt that was the reason since Pickerington Central would have been the more marquee of the two games.

If the MAC title was the first goal of the program at this point then I may agree with the statement above. The first goal for the Zips now though has to be to get to that magical 6 win total and bowl eligibility so that the team can get the extra practice time that comes with a bowl bid. In that respect the 2013 MAC schedule does indeed hurt and I'd rather play Buffalo and EMU.

I just wish the MAC bowl games were against a wider variety of conferences. I realize that some of these games have MAC schools filling in for conferences that couldn't fill their tie-ins but I sure think that it would be nice if any conference gets 7 bowl bids that they would be opposite 7 different conferences. The MAC-Sun Belt thing is one thing because of the fill-in teams but things like three Big Ten-SEC games just creates more boredom for me. Each conference should try for more diverse TIE-INS with respect to who their opponents would be. I know it will never happen because of the $$$ though.

Quite true, stay away from those tournaments where the semifinalists are not based on performance. That is, of course, unless the Zips are a guaranteed semifinalist and will meet two high-major opponents.

I'd like to see the Zips in the Paradise Jam... always a field with high majors mixed in with good mid-majors. No teams selected yet for that one in 2013?

At the very least next year's roster will be full of guys that have a year in the Zips new offensive and defensive schemes as well as a FULL incoming class that is recruited to play in those actual systems. Let's not forget that at least 80% of this year's team was composed of guys who were brought in to play an enirely different style than what they were endoctrined into this season. I am looking forward to seeing what kind of players TB and Amato can get in this year's recruiting class since they will have the full amount of time to recruit.

I really like all of this except instead of "buying" an FCS game I'd rather play a team at or near the bottom of the FBS like a South Alabama, Memphis, Tulane, or Colorado State. I honestly believe the trend of bigger BCS type schools playing FCS schools is a win-win for both sides but that it hurts the "lesser" non-BCS FBS schools because of the fewer opportunities to play the big boys and garner national attention and also makes it even more difficult to recruit. Most recruits want noteriety and/or a chance at a national title. The BCS schools can give you one or both and the FCS schools have their own championship to play for, but what does a MAC or Sun Belt school have as an edge in recruiting? I'd just like to see FCS vs. FBS go away completely.

Except we don't have Buffalo on the schedule. They are the one MAC East team we miss while we play just about every team at the top of the MAC West. The Zips have the toughest in-conference schedule of any MAC team if you ask me.

ESPN website is now showing this game as being on ESPN3 at 7:30 PM. http://espn.go.com/college-football/team/_...2006/akron-zips

The place kicking throughout much of college football confounds me. I go to high school games at various schools every Friday night and each year I see a number of 45+ yard field goals. I go to mostly Ohio Division II thru Division V games and most of these kickers making the long kicks never get recruited. Then I watch college teams who have kickers whose range isn't even 40 yards. What am I missing here?

I think things are getting better but there still is a long way to go. We need more depth and some of Williams' passes were scary. I love the way the kid plays about 80% of the time but those passes into double and triple coverage are frightening. I don't want to be too critical of Coach Bowden who seems like he is doing a great job overall but I wonder if the outcome would have been different had we attempted and actually made a field goal in the first half when we elected to go for it own fourth down well into FIU territory and ended up not converting. At least things seem to be getting better and I got to yell happily at my screen in the 4th quarter, I hadn't been able to do that in a long time.

Which job pays more? Boals current gig or the head job at OU? Boals turned down the job at Fresno State which plays in a higher profile league than the MAC, but going to OU would be "going home" for Boals. KD doesn't like to play against his friends but how do we get OU off the schedule?

I'd actually like to see Justice earn some playing time. Going into this recently completed season I heard a lot of the same expectations for him that I heard for Gilliam, and he has turned out all right.

How much playing time and how important of a role do you all see the incoming freshman and returning inexperienced players on the Zips roster getting in 2012-13? I am particularly interested in how much playing time some of the returnees like Justice, Ibitayo, and Egner will be getting next season. How big a role would you like to see these guys and the incoming freshmen have next season? How deep can the rotation go effectively?

Did I read somewhere that the winner of tonight's game in Evanston will play their second round game on Thursday? That is terrible. Why would the NIT want teams playing twice in a little more than 48 hours and be doing so at the same time as the NCAA tournament's first full day? For a team like the Zips which would likely have to play both their first two NIT games on the road (and the second likely all the way across the country) this is just brutal. It reminds me of the year we beat Temple in Philadelphia in the NIT and played Creighton in Omaha 48 hours later and the team looked exhausted. of course that year Creighton had something like 8 days off leading up to the game, so I guess that is a little better this time around.

Go Zips! and as an added bonus go Texas-Arlington Mavericks! UTA at Akron would be a great second round matchup!

4 regions, 8 teams each.... 4 x 8 =32

I agree with this statement. The only thing I saw last night that disturbed me a little with the officials was that it seemed as if they were trying to protect Cooper from the physical play more than any of the other 9 players on the floor. It did seem like he got away with a few slaps of Zips' hands and arms while there were one or two phantom fouls that led to him shooting free throws. I'm not saying the officials did this on purpose at all but that maybe it was done somewhat subconsciously. That thing tends to happen with star guards at all levels of basketball though I guess. I also thought it was interesting that OU had the same officiating crew two nights in a row. Could that be an advantage, since the officials may have been more able to anticipate what OU would do and vice versa OU would have a better feel for what they could and could not get away with? I know both teams had this crew many times throughout the season but what the stripes are told to focus on changes much more from week to week than it does in a 23 hour span. No excuses, I've just always wondered if that creates any type of advantage at all?

That same site had us as a 3 seed in the NIT the year we were 26-7 and got left out all together. I am thinking we will be a 6 or 7 seed, that should be low enough to assure we don't get a home game but are still competitive.

Yeah, remember the guys in charge of seeding the NIT Tournament are the same guys that left us completely out of the NIT when we were 26-7 with the conference MVP on the roster. Why would they give an Akron team that is 22-11 a top four seed? Not saying it isn't deserved but the "good ol' boys club" that is in charge of such things is not likely to let Akron be in position to get a home game unless both the Zips and another bottom 4 seed team pull off upsets in the same part of the bracket.

I will take a deep run in the NIT over a second straight one and done in the NCAA, but I would DEFINITELY take the program's first ever NCAA tournament win over anything the NIT can offer (other than possibly bringing home the NIT hardware but even that is an extremely close call)

Our team has the potential to be very special next year, having the experience of playing as many good and possibly bigger name teams as possible now can only be a good thing for next year. I'd love a deep run in the NIT.

We pretty much got the game we wanted except for the end result. We had a lot of inside looks and open threes. We had no bigs in foul trouble. We even severely limited Cooper's drive and kick out ability and contested most of his three point shots. Those contested shots just went in and whether it was too much adrenaline or not we missed some of our inside shots. Too many turnovers but that is OU's forte and tends to be our biggest weakness and it was nowhere near as bad as it was in Athens a couple weeks ago.

I love that field for the Zips. Most of those teams are the very types of teams I'd like to see Akron schedule in the first place. Plus, I love the fact that this is an actual tournament and not like that thing we played in this season where even if you won you couldn't make the semifinals. Being guaranteed three games against those programs shouldn't be harmful to the SOS or RPI compared to other seasons.

At least they have the NIT, I fear if the regular season champ auto bid to the NIT rule was not in place the NIT wouldn't have taken them either. The NIT selection committee has absolutely no respect for leagues like the Summit, and only a very small amount for the MAC.