Captain Kangaroo

You pretty well hit the nail on the head right there. I agree, outside of Cleveland State and YSU which bring some regional excitement, the home OOC schedule is a real yawner. Unfortunatly we are just good enough that the truly good teams are extremly reluctant to come to our place. It offers them no benefit in terms of RPI or national perception. If they come here and win, no big deal, they were supposed to beat us anyways. If they come here and lose its a negative headline and provides a hit to their tournament resume. As a fan I'm just happy that it at least looks like KD is softening his stance on the whole, "we won't go play at your place unless you agree to come play us at home" deal. It at least gives us some chances to beat some of those good teams on the road which could in turn generate enough interest to get a few more of the non-die-hards out to the JAR to watch us hammer Bethune Cookman. I think YSU basketball brings about as much excitement to the JAR as Wright State baseball brings to Lee Jackson Field. It is a guaranteed win... an easy-to-schedule annual home-and-home for Dan Peters (former YSU coach)... an easy road trip for the Zips faithful... but there is no amount of lipstick you can slather on the pig that is YSU basketball. People in Youngstown don't care about YSU basketball...and people in Akron care even less about it. Football would obviously be a different story.

I really like Hazime. He's big, and fast. If I were to place a dark hourse ( ) bet on the Biggest Pleasant Surprise of 2010, it would be for Hassan. The 4-3 suits him perfectly.

I tend to agree. However, I would like to come to the defense of Jones Jr High. I'm sure that every once in a while, the administrator at JJH makes a good decision. I'm still waiting for a good decision by TW. I still have not forgotten the Reno disaster that basically ruined the career of a good guy. If Karma does exist, TW will get fired and never come close to having a good job again. A friend told me that Reno is putting his West Point Engineering degree to use, and is working in Louisiana/Alabama area (subcontracted by BP to work with them on the oil spill clean up). He's doing well.

According to the ua employment site, the answer is they are working on it as a position is posted. No esta' bien, Jalapeño Zippy.

Or not. GZDC has written nothing on the football team since August 25th. A D-1 A football program playing a BCS program at home, and it is 6-days-and-counting with absolutely zero promotion or information from what is obviously the 3rd ... maybe 4th most popular place to read about Zips athletics. Outdated roster. No 2-deep... They should be kissing our feet that ZipsNation promotes this freaking team.

Maybe it's just me, but I'm getting mixed signals from you Cap'n. Do you think we'll see 25k+ or are you saying that marketing/TW have failed miserably if we don't get 25k+? I see 25k happening. Barring a crappy, cold, rainy day. You should be able to fall out of bed and get 20k for Syracuse @ home. If we get 15k - 17k, someone really screwed up. We could get that for a crappy team at a Rubber Bowl opener.

Dan Gilbert disagrees.

Hard to believe our ticket sales would be lacking, with the cancellation of the golf outing and booting long time fans from their parking spaces? Man... I thought that was a sure-fire way to get folks fired up about the new team and staff? I guess it just goes to show that Joe Akron will never support the Zips? K.e.n.t. has their "90k" Program to drive attendance. Temple has: This neat promo running. I also think it is pretty insane to not be promoting "Still Great Seats Remain," or something similar. I think a lot of people are assuming the Syracuse game is a sell out. If fans think the game is sold out, the ain't showing up. 25k minimum for the Syracuse game. There is no alternative.

Stams foursome also won the Zips Basketball Golf Outing scramble.

A slight upgrade over last season's schedule. Now we need to win one of the marquee OOC games. CSU @ home is going to be awesome. It'll be cool to see Gary Waters back in town. Also good to see the Billikins on the schedule. Rick Majerus has done a nice job resurrecting their program down in Saint Louis and it should be a nice match up (I assume Millikin is a type-o, right?).

What if this match were being played across the street?

I don't believe this for a minute. I don't care if we win the national title every year for a decade....people don't care about soccer. Believe whatever you want. On campus, nobody is excited about football. Might have to do with the focus on marketing being "hey, we have a new coach, but that's all we really have going for us right now". The coach's face is plastered on everything related to the team but there's almost nothing about the actual team, who they play, or any of the actual players. A great marketing tool is to create a star player (we have several in Allen, Nicely, LaFrance, Wagner, and Sewell) and show that the game is about the players and what they can do on the field. We get none of that, though. Then lead them there, ZTZ!!!! I believe ZTZ has mentioned several times he will be watching soccer on Saturday, not football. I think we could do a little better as far as a Pied Piper goes... Sorry. I have not been following his tweets.

I don't believe this for a minute. I don't care if we win the national title every year for a decade....people don't care about soccer. Believe whatever you want. On campus, nobody is excited about football. Might have to do with the focus on marketing being "hey, we have a new coach, but that's all we really have going for us right now". The coach's face is plastered on everything related to the team but there's almost nothing about the actual team, who they play, or any of the actual players. A great marketing tool is to create a star player (we have several in Allen, Nicely, LaFrance, Wagner, and Sewell) and show that the game is about the players and what they can do on the field. We get none of that, though. Then lead them there, ZTZ!!!! I believe ZTZ has mentioned several times he will be watching soccer on Saturday, not football. I think we could do a little better as far as a Pied Piper goes...

Sure...BTW, my goal is to have all our food/beer/soda consumed before the game...seriously come on by. I don't want to drive anything back to NY. BTW, you can't miss me...I look like a slightly younger light brown haired version of the actor Tim Robbins...same height and build. So do you look more like Tim Robbins, or the guy who looks like Tim Robbins?

From Rasor's Edge:

If that is true, and I don't believe it is, someone should be held accountable. Who? The same guy that spend his summer creating a huge buzz-kill surrounding the football program rather than marketing it. 25k should be a "given." And YouTube Tom should live another day, and create more videos.

You can't be serious? It will be 25k+. And everyone in Akron knows Syracuse is BCS. And I will drink a lot of beer on Saturday. Those are three stone-cold locks. If we had 15k in attendance for our home opener versus Syracuse, Tom Wistercill (AD) would be fired before halftime.

I was thinking the exact same thing as I watched it. It's because he's a pretty good QB. Matt Rodgers had as much chance in the Zips QB "competition" as Eugene Jarvis has being a kidney donor.

What's the phone number? Is it the 1-888... one? I need a good laugh...I gotta call.

It was only a matter of time before Mike got sucked into "The ABJ Way." I give him credit... he lasted longer than most. This oversight, however, reeks of David Lee Morgan. I have to believe Mike had a ghost writer. Both Odefin & Dawson are still listed on the GoZips.com roster. We suck. Maybe Gaffney is getting his inside information from David Lee Morgan? Some how, some way, this involves DLM. I'm sure of it.

It was only a matter of time before Mike got sucked into "The ABJ Way." I give him credit... he lasted longer than most. This oversight, however, reeks of David Lee Morgan. I have to believe Mike had a ghost writer.

It would be an interesting debate - "Which is more short-sighted?" The Zips knee-jerk, ill-conceived, unbelievably poorly-planned jump to 1-A back in 1986 or A Zips poorly planned, number-massaged, wasteful drop to 1-AA If we play our cards right....we could hold the record for the two dumbest moves in D1/D-1-AA history. Wouldn't that be cool?

After seeing the 398th post from GP1 calling for the Zips to drop to 1-AA, I got to thinking... has The Great One quantified exactly how much money the Zips Athletics Department would save by dropping it's football program to 1-AA? Let's begin with 22 scholarships. At a value of $20k/scholarship? That's $440,000. For Game Day -- Let's fly to the campuses of SE Missouri State, Illinois State, Southern Illinois, Murray State, James Madison etc instead of taking bus trips to Oxford, Toledo, Bowling Green, K.e.n.t., etc. I'm guessing we'd lose about $100k on that deal? That's puts the savings at roughly $340,000. At at lower division, we'll save on coach's and Athletic Department salaries...maybe that tacks the $100k back on? I think you can go back and forth all you want...at best you save $500k if you drop to 1-AA. Being an "equivalent" to a directional Michigan school ain't the sexiest thing in the world... but it beats being Morehead State Junior. Dropping to 1-AA is not worth saving a measly $500,000 ($20/student).

JT picks the Zips

Didn't they just change the look of the whole thing like a year-or-so ago? I remember someone getting their panties all in a bunch when people complained about it?