Captain Kangaroo

Sounds like the new League has already begun making improvements?

If JD wins that game he's the hot name for the Cincinnati job, and not Kelly.

Another oldie but goodie:

I think the only truly "bad" teams in the MAC this season are Akron, UMass and EMU. Buffalo and Miami are below average. CMU is average. The rest are having pretty awesome seasons. Lee Owens used to go .500 or slightly below in the MAC because he had guaranteed wins vs Buffalo, K.e.n.t. and EMU (they always ended up on our schedule somehow). There really are no such guaranteed MAC wins this year. The top 7 teams are very strong by MAC standards, and despite that strength, the bottom-feeders are no longer getting waxed 65-0 by those top dogs.

I applaud him trying #7 to return kicks. Everyone else we've stuck back there has been pathetic this season. And last season. Have you seen enough of #22 racing to catch a ball at the 7 yard line rather than let it go OB and give the Zips the ball at the 35? Such horrible decisions on punts and kickoffs have been routine this year. You mention we need a burner...I don't think we need one at WR all that desperately, but we sure need one returning kicks. It heartens me that TB is trying whatever he can to jump start the team. It reminds me of an old Lee Owens comment, when discussing his defense getting pushed all over the field - "Maybe I'll put Charlie Frye out there on D next week...at least he'd try to make a play."

Would we throw it deep if we had any burners? The sub bigfoot-sighting frequency of any passes beyond 15 yards makes we wonder...

So it's pretty much exactly like D'Orazio. Good to know I still know what I'm talking about. I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.

I knew you'd be there to one-up me.

Whether you pay or are scholarshipped, your eligibility clock starts with your first class attended. I guess you could consider early-enrollment a "greyshirt without benefits?" Ie. no "bonus" 6th year of eligibility possible. I'd just call it a "shirt."

How can he enroll early, and greyshirt? Once you enroll and take classes, your eligibility clock starts ticking. You have 5 years to play 4. Greyshirting is for non-scholarshipped recruits who enroll a semester after the scholarshipped members of their class sign, either with the promise of getting "the next available scholarship," or achieving a 6th year of eligibility (see D'Orazio, who enrolled in January, greyshirted, then redshirted).

Makes you wonder how many 1-year guys we'll pursue next season. Are we still on the lookout for guys like Williams, Commack, Magnum and Hines? Or is recruiting year #2 of the Bowden era going to be 75% Freshmen and 25% JUCO (as I predict)? Obviously with the stable of young QB's we've assembled, another Williams-like 5th year Senior QB is not going to be recruited for 2013.

I thought he meant Jermaine Reed?

"Yardbarker" is commenting on bad nicknames? That's like Rob Ianello commenting on "Winning Football Strategies."

By the time Akron is going 9-3...10-2...Bowden will be 60 years old. The market for 60 year old D1 coaching hires is fairly small, if not non-existent. Yeah, I know his dad coached until he was 97 (or thereabouts), but that's a different circumstance. The mid-tier schools that would be interested in a 60 year old Terry Bowden are in Akron's "league," and I think we would successfully compete for his services. Proenza will not drop back into the football abyss without a massive fight. Personally, I see Bowden staying here. He'll get good money, he's got great facilities, and Father Time is on the Zips' side. If he does leave...Tressel's banishment should be about over, and we can give him a whistle and a blue vest and let him have at it.

Do you realize we scored 3 or fewer points in 1/3rd of our games in 2011. The running joke of being out-scored by our soccer team seems like a lifetime ago.

I am tired of playing good MAC teams. Where the hell is EMU or Buffalo this season? I tend to agree with JZ84...if we can get some help on the D-line, we can compete. Otherwise, it is chasing points for 4 quarters...and as improved as our 2012 offense is...we can't successfully chase points against mid-and upper-tier MAC teams. The MAC is too improved this season. GP1's generalization that you simply need to wait for an opponent to blow the game is not applicable in 2012. The Zips picked a bad year to make big improvements...the MAC in on an upswing, and everyone else got better too.

Isn't K.e.n.t something like 5-1 right now? How putridly pathetic has K.e.n.t been for decades? How crappy are their facilities (in comparison to Akron's)? Yet it is possible they can get recruits, but the Zips cannot? If anyone thinks Bowden is a worse coach than Dennis Hazell, and/or has worse facilities, then they should be worried that Akron cannot get the recruits it takes to turn it around. If anyone feels TB is a coach at least the equal of Hazell...and that UA's facilities are at least equal to K.e.n.t.'s...then there should be no concern that the Zips will soon be the MAC team that rose from the dead to be 5-1 after week 7. I have no concerns regarding Zips recruiting. I cannot wait for Signing Day 2013!

Rats. We do better when we're 20+ point underdogs.

Awesome to hear. W/o McClanahan and Diggs, CG should post some monster #'s. And minutes. This is why he left UMBC, right? Time to shine!

I can't remember the last time I attended a BB game at the JAR and there wasn't an interloper (word of the day) in my seat. Maybe the Wisconsin GB CBI game, since there weren't any fans at that game.

I hope I never see Egner at the 2.

If it weren't for InfoCision taking their money, the old ladies would be blowing their life savings at the church bingo hall, or on their bi-weekly bus trip to Windsor or Mountaineer. Personally, I think it's better they build the Zips a stadium and give a few bucks to the diabetes association.

So much pro-Faust spinning I don't know where to begin.... You make an argument that Faust had terrible facilities. You are arguing with yourself. I never mentioned Faust's facilities. And everyone knows they were laughable. You make the argument that Faust was short scholarships. Again, you are arguing with yourself. Everyone knows we needed time to go from 63 scholarships to 85. To the point above - Faust left Owens with a complete train wreck. Jason Taylor, Nate Boyd...and the rest amounted to a can of beans. The graduation rate of Faust's last class was 17%. They were essentially all incarcerated, or flunked-out. Owens was short on scholarship players when he took over too, due to Faust's reckless recruiting. Faust had a 7-win season with Dennison's players. That skews his win percentage a bit? Put Gerry on the sidelines with Ianello's remnants...think he'd win 1 game? Faust went 7-3-1 as a D1A coach. Two seasons later he was Ianello's idol at 1 - 10. That 1 - 10 was will all his own recruits, with a full allotment of scholarships. I'm not even sure you were around at that time, but Faust did leave Owens with the starter "dregs" of his 1-10 team. Lucky Lee. When Faust was fired, he was 1-10. That's a 0.090 winning percentage. That's what he built the program to in 9 seasons. When Owens was fired he was 0.500 against 1-A competition (5-5) and 7-5 overall. That's what he built the program to in 9 seasons. Bowden is in the same situation Owens was in in his 1st season..inheriting a 1-win train wreck, and trying to scrape up a 2-win season anyway he can. He's a far cry from JD's post-Owens situation, where he had a decent nucleus of talent, and could win a championship.

If our OL can rebound from its butt-whipping in the 2nd half of last week's game, and play as solid as they have for the better part of 2012, I like our chances. W/o Pressley and Caponi, we will give up points and yards. But Williams will shred a depleted OU secondary...if he doesn't get snowed-under.