Captain Kangaroo

P S ...

"Promoted the hell" out of the K.e.n.t. games? I don't recall that at all. Previous Akron/K.e.n.t. games (within the past decade) were never promoted well. And more importantly, they were often held in November. It isn't too shocking that they didn't draw well.The K.e.n.t. game this year is in September, where it should be if you want fans to come. And it will be at, or very near a sell out.

Furthermore -- It doesn't need to be positive coverage either. I highly doubt we'd have been stuck with Hipsher for 9 years if the Beacon would have done some objective coverage of where his program was headed. Ditto 9 years of Lee Owens. Terry Pluto wrote his "feel good" personal interest stories once or twice per year regardless of how the respective teams were crashing and burning, and that was about it. DL Morgan does a shoddy job. His feelings towards the Zips program are very evident in his writing. If I were him and I read the Rasor site, or this board, I would be pretty damn embarrassed. For the sake of argument, say only a handful of people care about the Zips in Akron. How does that excuse their beat writer from doing a decent job on what actually makes it to print? It doesn't.

Like I said in my practice overview a few weeks ago:DL Morgan came to the scrimmage after it was 80% finished. This was the "big showdown" scrimmage where Jac and Jackson were battling for the starting QB position. The ABJ office is about 3 blocks from the practice fields at Shrank South...he's the Zips beat writer...and he shows up with 20 minutes remaining? When people complain about the lack of coverage in the print ABJ I always wonder "why?" Do you really want to read more stories from an absentee beat writer who could care less about the team. Like Steve French said after the Zips won the MAC Championship: "THE ZIPS JUST WON THE MAC CHAMPIONSHIP! They're going to The Motor City Bowl! And who knows...the Beacon Journal might even send a reporter to cover it?"

Bastards.

You select your music to match your hair? That's attention to detail!

From what I am told, there is gravel in the lot. I doubt you can pound stakes into it, however. Maybe you can toss a cinder block or two in the Menace family Pinto and secure it that way?

Our group...about 20 of us...will be at the west 3rd street lot. Probably arrive around 1:30pm.7am? God bless you, Bleacher Bum!

With all due respect to Sean Hakes, I think the topic of his departure will be closed. I'm sure this will break some hearts, but sometimes tough decisions need to be made.

You can take it as bad news, but Da'von Moore is officially cleared to play for the Zips.

More words...we want to see MORE WORDS!!!! Is that the best you've got?!

You need to type more words.

I certainly have no problem with you either, Buckzip. GMann-17 deserves some backing. I agree with the guy regarding the pro-OSU banter on this board. It has no place here. Aside from two people, no one wants to read it. Likewise, incessant OSU bashing has no place here either. Anything between these two extremes is subjective, but usually stays posted as-is if it is not ridiculously off-topic.I also agree that OSU bashing is VERY welcome on this board in 2007 because they are our opponent. Once the game is over, if people want to bash, they can do it in the smack forum.

I was told a former Zips basketball coach works at ESPN and helped arrange the internship. I don't know the name.

OSU fans can't help themselves. They MUST talk up their Buckeyes on the Zips board. It is as predictable as the sun rising in the West.OSU Fan is so used to getting his way in NE Ohio that he thinks people even want to hear his "wisdom" on a Zips board. It is kinda like the drunk chick at Karoke who thinks she's Toni Braxton, but really sounds like Rosanne Barr pinching out a 4 pound turd. The chick really thinks she's compelling...but she isn't.Truth is -- no one cares about OSU here. Ok...we've proven that two people utilize this board for OSU discussions. One person is grunting out the turd, and one thinks she sounds great. Out of our 1000+ members (ones that aren't porn spammers) I guess that's not too bad.F OSU. Oh, and Hakes....who cares. He's at a California JUCO. You'll see him at North Texas next season. Or maybe Sam Houston State. Either way, who cares.

The numbers I heard were: He could do 5 reps at 185 lbs (bench) at the end of last season, and he's up to 10 reps at 185 right now. That extra muscle should be a big help on the boards. He's taken a physical beating the past two seasons...but he should now have the body to turn from being the "nail" to the "hammer."

Late Friday night I gave Blair Danner a call to see if there was a slot left for the Zips Basketball Golf Outing yesterday. Luckily there was a foursome in need of a hacker like myself. So, like about 130+ other Zips fans, I woke up at the unGodly hour of 5:45am and headed down to Raintree.I played with a good group of guys. Two were pretty rabid Zips hoops fans, the other was a former Zips golfer from my UA era ('84-'89). We finished -10, which wasn't too shabby. I think -16 won it?But the day really wasn't about golf. Even though football season is only a week away, it was fun to get the banter started regarding the upcoming hoops season. I've never really had much luck establishing any repore with the basketball staff. Football staff? Those guys have always been EXTREMELY helpful to the ZipsNation. But the couple emails I'd sent to the Basketball staff always seemed to have met with the same virus that infected the Microsoft Outlook "Reply" button of so many UA Athletics Department computers.And the few times KD had shown up at past Golf Outings, Mike Thomas' golf cart wisked him through the course like Dale Earnhart Jr. driving the Pope Mobile. If you were lucky, you caught a glimpse.This Outing, the basketball staff was COMPLETELY accessible. KD was great. Jeff Boals probably spent 25 minutes after the lunch just talking to my buddy and I about anything from recruits to eligibility to his 39minutes of PT during his Freshman year at OU. All the guys were great. I'll do my best to follow up on that and get the ZipsNation hoops coverage on par with the detail provided in the football section for the upcoming season.The Outing itself was fun. My group didn't drink any beer...ok, I did but the other three guys abstained... so I thought maybe the basketball crowd wasn't as party-oriented as the football outing crew. Buy at days end the kegs located throughout the course were floating, so SOMEONE out there was hitting the kegs-n-eggs? As rabid a fans as the two guys I golfed with were, both season ticket holders in the lower JAR section, neither had heard of ZipsNation. To me that was pretty surprising. Sweet, black mock-turtleneck golf shirt with an embroidered Zips Basketball logo as an entry gift. VERY nice!ZipWatcher spoke to a lot more staff members than I did, so I'll leave it up to him to discuss any player-oriented details gleaned from the day. He's better than me at that stuff.I'll throw out that much more is expected from Jimmy Conyers this year. His defense is apparently really coming along. He had the expected adjustment problems last season, coming off a year away from competitive hoops. But he's ready to go in 2007-8, and he's definitely on track to get his 4th year of eligibility back.KD also mentioned that, of his 12 recruits, 11 of them will get their degrees. If may take a while for some, because they've elected to play professionally instead of finishing. But all eleven will graduate. Matt Futch is playing pro basketball in Mexico, BTW.KD also mentioned that the Zips offer unlimited summer school to incoming Freshman. Having a player with 6 credits under their belt is a huge advantage in keeping them on track to graduate and keeping them eligible. Of course, this costs money. He also mentioned that the Zips need money for road game charter flights. He brought up how great it was that, for the Binghampton game this year, the Zips tipped off at 7pm, and were back on campus by midnight the same night. They missed zero class time. The more they can do that, the better it is for the kids and the program. You know the additional $325,000 OSU isn't paying us to play in two weeks. That could have paid for all of that. And much more.Great event! It will be held again the 4th Saturday in August (23rd) 2008. I highly recommend it.If anyone esle was at the event and has some comments, please post them!

This is the previous tailgate thread. Click for Tailgate InfoI still don't know where I'll set up shop. Maybe here, maybe the muny lot. A parking deck seems pretty sterile? Is it really a decent place to fire up a grill? Is the atmosphere good...or is it just like...well...grilling in a parking garage?

Yes you can. It is somewhere between $650,000 and $700,000. The math isn't that difficult.

I wish Mack would have told OSU, loud and proud wherever he could get some press, to F-off. There's no one that could side with OSU on this one, unless you're a pathetic shill for their program. We should play there for free. GOD, it is such an F-ing privilege to play in the Horseshoe. There's no excuse for us to take 1/2 the pay-out of Youngstown State or K.e.n.t!! None whatsoever!! F-ing dirtbags. Total F-ing dirtbags. I hope we never schedule them again. If we do, I'm not going.

My opinion, based on a grand total of one scrimmage watched:Jacquemain and Jackson are both better-than-average passers. Jackson is more elusive. However, he defaults to running too soon. Jacquemain gives his receivers a chance to finish their routes.I think that slight edge in overall pocket poise outweighs the couple plays where Jackson's footwork might come into play.If the offense sputters under Jacquemain and needs a spark, that's when Jackson will probably get a chance. BTW -- I hate the term "He can manage the game." Give me a guy that can put the ball in the endzone and move the chains.

Anyone else have fla.shbacks to:Butchie leading us to a 14-10 1st quarter score at Penn State, then Owens puts Gromek in, and...21-10...28-10...35-10...in the blink of an eye.

A well-researched "scoop" blows up in someone's face. Glad that's never happened to me! Great job on covering the practices throughout August, Mike. Outstanding information.

I agree. If we could have held this group together for another 6 years we would have crushed the Buckeyes this year. Stupid NCAA eligibility rules...

Domonkos might be useful as a kick off guy, but that's about it. If I see him trot on to the field to duck-hook a 40 yarder this season I'll scream. Igor has been underwhelming thusfar, but at least his kicks sail end-over-end and don't rotate sideways.Either way, we need a kicker that makes 75-80% of his kicks. Not 33%.