Captain Kangaroo

I don't see anything wrong with it, nobody playing on NIU played in that game anyway, what should they care. If they are focused on that, great. Too bad Luke won't be there, Pitt has a game Saturday also. Hixon might be there since he is on the IR and not practicing with the Giants right now. Still time to send a ZTV camera crew to Pittsburgh to get video commentary from Luke to play on the InfoCision big screen.

The Syracuse game was as non-competitive and a 26-point loss as you could get. Defense was so-so, but everything else was non-existent. The Gardner Webb game goes in the books as the worst loss I've witnessed as a Zips football fan. Getting beaten at home by a 1-AA program in your shiny new stadium is about as low as it goes. The offense perked-up a little, as they should against a team with 22 fewer scholarships, but the defense got rolled, as they shouldn't against a team with 22 fewer scholarships. The Kentucky game saw the first signs of legitimate life from the offense. The WR's actually got separation from an opposing DB. The offensive game plan gave us a lot of opportunities to score. But PN7's passes were either errant...or the receivers dropped the ball. Defensively, the Zips hung in there...until the offensive drought wore them down. After 1.5 quarters, fatigue caught up to us. The Indiana game saw the game slow down for PN7. The WR's continued to build off the Kentucky game, and also made some catches. Gary Pride showed games 1-3 might have just been shaking off 4 years of rust. The OL created ample holes for the Zips' two Youngstown-bred backs to average 5+ yards per carry. The defense played well enough, and Igor showed why he was rated the #5 kicker in college football a few years ago. Unfortunately, a few lapses, and dropped passes, ruined the chance for a Big 10 upset. Now we face MAC opponent Northern Illinois: Can Latina continue to keep the opposing defense on it's heels with clever play calling? Will the WR's continue to get separation? Can the Zips finally connect on a home run ball? If Hixon is returning for the reunion (he'd better be!), can he have a short meeting with Jeremy LaFrance to relay the importance of catching a deep pass? Can someone on the defense step up and have a "wow" game? 14 tackles from an LB...3 sacks from a DL...an INT returned for a TD from a DB? Can Igor keep kicking like it's 2007? Can we keep "First 1/3rd of the Season MVP" Zack Campbell off the field? Will the game continue to slow down for PN7? Does Phil Tonga see his first action of the season? Can the defense keep Chad Spann from going "Travis Prentis"/"Garrett Wolf" on us? Bad MAC teams always have the appearance of a disorganized, ill-prepared train wreck. This is what kills K.e.n.t. State every single year. They do stupid, stupid stuff that you never see even at the pee wee level, and they lose. And lose. After being emotionally crushed by our performance in the first two weeks, I'm heartened by the improvement in weeks 3 and four. We now look like a good football team. The Zips look well-coached. They look organized. They look to be improving every week. Now, it's pretty much up to the players to win a game. Can PN7 lead his team to a victory? We have a MAC-level opponent, at home, homecoming. It is time to put on a show. Absolute worst-case, I want to see a good college football game in Akron on Saturday. Ideally, I want a Zips blow out.

I think that if two teams are tied after two overtimes if should be declared a draw. Co-champions...!!!! Think about it. It is necessary to determine advancing up to the championship game by penalty kicks when neither team wins out right. However, why punish one team with a loss by penalty kicks when they played an equal score game? Is it really necessary that one team is declared a winner when the teams actually tied? And, no, its not like kissing your sister. Your sister might be Pamela Anderson. Make the kick.

Link to it In their Zips thread, two funny things stand out -- 1.) Some clown remains irritated at the "lack of class" shown by the Zips fans after the Zips won the MCB. If there is one Universal Truth in all the world, it is -- If you use the term "lack of class" to blanket-describe anyone's fan base, you, as an individual, are pretty much a douche. 2.) Funny that GP1 is the spokesperson for all Zips fans. Boy do they latch on to him. Looking forward to better discussion as the week proceeds.

Minnesota would pay their HC $1.2 million? Holy Crap, Lois!

I am happy to see niufan99 likes our emoticons.

Mark Nori went from being OL coach at UA to OL coach with the SF 49'ers. He increased his salary by roughly 5X. I have to imagine Johnson is now making a similar multiplier above Ianello. UA couldn't afford him. Regardless - Kudos to Mike. He to 26 credit hours over a single summer to become eligible for the Zips back in the late 80's (for those of you that don't know, he transferred from JUCO after a 1-year stint at Arizona State) and has not stopped busting his butt ever since.

Wow... and the decade is not even 9 months old?! This highlights the importance of getting the campaign started early! His biggest competition will be from his wife. Any chance they split their votes, and Zach sneaks in for FOTD? He should be up to around 943,456 posts by then?

Wow... and the decade is not even 9 months old?!

....at this time of the year.... Football teams, get better throughout the season, get worse, or stay the same. We do have a chance to get better don't we? I remember former ZN regular ZipDude had the tag line: "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." The Zips only need one eye to win the MAC.

I think a better analogy is -- Say Dambrot schedules Fordham, Nebraska, DePaul and Penn State. Fan complains: "Jesus...the guy is scheduling the Atlantic 10, Big 12, Big East and Big 10...what a suicide schedule!" Nope. He'd be scheduling very beatable teams that just happen to reside in nationally recognized conferences. I would love it if we regularly scheduled hoops like we did 2010 football.

What if the opponent is offensively 1-dimensional, with a crappy quarterback? Interesting historical note: Garrett Wolf ran for around 200yards against us twice in 2005, and we beat Northern both times (going off memory, but I believe it is true).

Man amongst boys against Minnesota last week

Adding to the "little victories" topic -- We have lost 1 fumble and thrown 1 INT through 4 games. That's pretty good. Penalties are also minimal. I watched the NIU/Minnesota game last night. NIU is really good. They manhandled Wistersill's former employer. Oct 2nd could be our toughest game to-date. LaFrance will need to catch the ball, or it could get out of hand quickly.

+1. I liked the schedule too. Just because we suck doesn't mean the shedule sucked. All games were very winnable, if we were an upper-echelon MAC team. OU beat Kentucky a few years ago. We beat Syracuse. Others have beaten Indiana. Additionally -- In all three circumstances, the Zips received home games with these opponents (a scheduling debacle in 2009 robbed us of the home game vs. Kentucky). Additionally -- Title 9 means we need to play a "money game" each season. Someone has to fund Zips women's tennis. Additionally -- Northern Illinois killed Minnesota last night. Toledo pounded Purdue. Temple performed well in Happy Valley and beat UConn last week. Upper-echelon MAC schools have proven to be more than competitive against lower-echelon BCS programs. If the Zips get better, a schedule like 2010's will be perfect. If we don't improve, the schedule won't matter.

14 carries for 71 yards vs Louisburg College

Certainly. I've seen more aggressive "calling out" of players in my lifetime. Also - if any of our defensive players watched the game tape, they'd see that they looked like a more like kickers and quarterbacks making tackle attempts. We hit soft, shied away from contact, over-pursued and took bad angles. Some of that can be blamed on the offense never giving them a break. What's the old saying..."Fatigue makes cowards of us all"? But not all can be blamed on our 3-and-out offensive machine. The defense has regressed since week #1. That is certain.

At the last football game, I think they limited the students to 176 entries.

He is correct in saying that. We need to fix major areas of concern, not minor tweaks. IMO, we need to fix the offensive line play, defensive secondary and the wide receiver group. Those three areas have been grading below average each week. We need them to improve before we start to scheme against other teams. I hope practices are focused on such problem areas. Oh I tottaly agree... Ive had season tickets to this Akron team since 1990 and while we have seen some bad teams... I really think this is the worst one I have seen over 3 games by far. Its not a quick fix, but it needs a major rehaul for sure! In my book, no team compares to the one Faust left Owens. We played YSU, and they dwarfed us size-wise. Junko was a 187lb starting OLB. This team has much more talent and size. But if they get the elusive 0 - 12, I'll concede your point.

People look at stats and see what they want to see. If you don't like the QB, it is low-hanging fruit to point to his completion percentage and say the guy sucks. Game's #1 and #2, we had ZERO WR's that could shake their DB. No one was open. Ever. Beyond that, Nicely often ran for his life. Game #3 saw the first signs of improvement in the WR group. They actually began separating from the DB's. Unfortunately, Nicely missed his mark several times...and the open WR's dropped balls multiple times. If the WR's start catching balls, we will move the chains. If they continue dropping them, we won't. And changing the QB won't help. If the WR's continue to get open, and Nicely misses them...and it continues for another game or two, then he gets a seat on the bench. But be prepared for the INT count to rise dramatically. Rodgers throws a lot of them. And good luck banking on a running QB with that big ankle brace. It is a major disaster waiting to happen. How would Charlie Frye's numbers look throwing to LaFrance, Pride and Russell... as opposed to Cherry, Sparks and Irvin? Identical?

Luckily it is on a 1-AA website, so no one will ever see it.

I have been awaiting a certain player-to-be-listed from you all day long. Don't let me down! James Battle Geof Beuchesne Bret Hrivnak Jarvis Givens. I don't know who you mean. I'm very disappointed in you. Click here if you are a quitter.

I have been awaiting a certain player-to-be-listed from you all day long. Don't let me down!

I agree, that photo will last forever. You know OU students will be using that for the next decade. Looking at your signature, Dr. Z... is there any chance Joe Tuzze was inside that Bobcat outfit?

Bates Szakos at WR? Or do we need to place him on the all-IR team?