Captain Kangaroo

500 members probably equals at least 2,000 potential customers, assuming family and friends. These people are football fans used to paying $100.00 for game tickets, big money for parking, sitting in nosebleed seats and watching their team get waxed every week. At the Zips game they will be getting tickets at 1/10th the Browns' price, great seats, field access, a shirt, cheap parking with tailgating... and a chance to see "their" team actually win. I hope it works out, and they have a great experience. If so, the dividends will only multiply in the future.

If this were the Zips basketball team, the App State game would be the one where fans get all excited, buy in to the team 100%...and then Lucy yanks the ball away. Without placing any undue significance on game #3 of a 12 game regular season...App State is a big one for the Zips Program and Joe Akron. Can the Zips pull through? A win gets the bandwagon in high gear. A loss... and it's "the same ol' Zips."

Those guys can lumber to the line, but we need someone that finds the crease and hits it hard. That's Warren Ball. Hope he's healthy soon. It will be interesting to see if/how Chapman is used in the red zone again this week. The little guys did a nice job gaining positive yardage Saturday. We'll see, if Ball remains out, if they can do it back-to-back. Our best bet on 4th and 1 might be the play-action quick slant to Natson.

For the record, you're the only one that compared the crowd noise to the Wisconsin game. I only mentioned that is was great to hear the Akron crowd loud and clear in Huntington. I will stand by that comment.

One interesting note from this game as I watched it on TV - If you'd have told me I'd be hearing the Akron fans in the stands loud and clear over the Marshall crowd, I'd have said you were nuts. But you could. Nice job Zips road warriors!

To all ZipsNation members - I want to put in writing the following - This site was created to allow Zips fans an venue to discuss the various athletic programs. There's no other reason. Rather than sit around with our thumbs up our butts waiting for media coverage, a few of us banded together and did something about it. It would be very easy to drop out and move to a back page of the MACbbs board like K.e.n.t. But I think that would be embarrassing. We created something nice here, with high functionality and a higher standard for content. When opposing fans visit our site, I want them to be impressed and think we are legit. I pay to maintain ZipsNation. Happily. I deal with all the a-hole opposing fans attempting to post, and a bunch of stuff that's invisible to the general public too. I'll sit in a dark Subway parking lot at 10 pm, after a 14 hour work day, talking to some Marshall Podcasters/bloggers to help promote the Zips and ZipsNation. Whatever it takes. Dr. Z has done yeoman's work to ensure to make it look sharp, and install upgrades. He also gives us great pics, which you don't get on other MAC boards. This site has to be about Zips athletics, and fun. It can't exist to cyber-bully other fans. I do not want good people to avoid posting for fear someone will threaten, or just be downright disrespectful to them. Can you tweak someone's nose? Yes. Can you have a passionate debate? Yes. Can you say "The AD sucks!" Yes. But when it gets to the level of "Meet me behind the church after school..." or "Suck <insert something lame>", that's not acceptable. It can't be. One of our posters was a bit out of line the other day, and penned an apology. It takes a man to do that. It isn't easy. It's 100% accepted, and we move onward. I've got around 10,000 posts here. I'm pretty happy with most of them. A couple... I wish I hadn't posted. And I've had to apologize. It happens. I hope K'92 returns to posting. The backbone of this board is the guy that travels to Wisconsin and posts a trip recap complete with a humungous soft pretzel pic. I wish we had 100 more of him. Times are great for Zips football. We've won 7-of-8 games, with the lone loss coming at Wisconsin. Compare that to the Brookhart recruits on Bowden's first team - they won 6 games in their entire 4-year careers! This weekend should be a blast. Great weather and a great home opponent. And I look forward to seeing what that guy under the scoreboard has cooking in his smoker.

App State - Miami Game Day Environment Sounds awesome.

If Woodson keeps getting that time to throw, look out MAC. I agree with LZip & BuckZip that seeing some of the young, new names shine was great too. Kwad Smith was another one. Of all the guys contributing on offense today, only Natson won't be there next season.

The Zips win screws me out of a 3-for-Thursday title (damn Zips), but I'm happy with this prediction.

I want good weather and a great crowd for App State!!

I have to assume Chapman had been practicing that specific red zone situation and play sequence, and that's why he was in? If true, kudos to Milwee for throwing a great curve ball. Kudos to Chapman for executing in such a key situation after seeing such little PT thus far in 2016.

So far, you get my "Observation of the Thread" award. "Litton Gets Lit" will be the Sunday News headline if the Zips can play a solid 2nd half.

You got your wish.

Those crappy Bowden recruits seem to be holding their own today? C'mon...you know I wasn't the only one thinking that...

Who thinks that slow-mo handoff in the backfield will ever work? Show of hands please... A Gladney sighting?! TD Natson!!

Marcus lines up offside? Shocker.

Finally, they showed a good angle!

If you can't see the ball, you can't reverse that call.

I'll guess the two times we beat Marshall back in the Owens Days we were equally as big and underdog? It would be great to see the offense meet their potential today and put up 40+ points. I think that's what we'll need to do to win this one.

Zipsoutsider posts nice observations, and a lot of interesting links. Certainly one of our better contributors. There was nothing in that post that was pro-Bowden. It was simply a little local insight from a person who'd been to a location were most of us haven't. I appreciated it. You on the other hand, think this is a forum to attack any positive people, and complain about recruiting. The recruiting complaints are fine, but the attacking has got to stop. Your posts in the Wisconsin thread were so embarrassing I had to send an apology on behalf of ZipsNation. Please stop it.

HerdNation.com Pregame Podcast

Key-ping track of the Keydets Why not? I thought they looked good enough to have a 5 or 6 win season. We'll see.

He's fast, elusive, has great hands and also seems to have a lot of fun on the field. Glad he's a Zip. Hope he gets a lot of touches the remainder of this year.

I wonder if any 1-AA team ever asked Bill Muse for his template on making the jump from 1-AA to 1-A?

The noon start is a tough one. I won't be making the trip. Marshall and App State are where we aspire to be as a football program. We aren't there yet. Hence the large point spread. The last time we played Marshall they out-athleted us at pretty much every position. It wasn't fair how easily their DB's covered our WR's. We'll have better match ups this time, but as K92 pointed out, defensively we downgraded in talent and production at two DL and three LB spots. That's essentially half the defense. I trust that Amato will keep adjusting, scheming and improving. But those 5 holes limit our defensive ceiling. The lack of offensive complexity and scheming...the inability to sustain drives is a big concern. As last season progressed, the simple offensive play-calls and 3-and-outs weren't as noticeable because the D was so dominant at year's end. If we are going to make Marshall work, we really need Milwee to move the chains. We don't need to eschew the splash plays...that's probably our biggest offensive strength. But we gotta do some underneath stuff. A sweep. A reverse. Anything but that slow hand off 5 yards deep in the backfield that never goes anywhere. Tough match up this week...