Captain Kangaroo

That's some bizarre logic.

You are wrong, but misrepresenting the facts suits your argument, so go ahead and have at it: Henderson, Lemon, Smith, Stoudamire are all expected to be a part of the Zips football team next season. Jackson may be too, depending upon his Prep School results.Boone had a family situation that required he drop out of school the final semester of his senior year. He needed to care for his sick father. Marshall, Hight & Garner didn't pan out. Every team has stories like this. Andre Jones did pan out. Ditto David Harvey. That is what SoFlaZips is saying above. Read his post and learn.

Click, and Prepare to be Puzzled

Wide receiver Toney Clemons, who has received 17 scholarship offers and said he will make a decision at the end of the season, has been quite the attraction at Valley. Approximately 10 coaches have visited the top prospect during the school day. Coaches such as Michigan's Lloyd Carr often call his cell phone just to keep in touch.On an unofficial visit to Akron, Clemons called a play at practice. "Four vertical," he shouted, before four receivers went flying at the sound of Clemons' voice and quarterback Luke Getsy connected with his target for a deep touchdown.The recruiting process makes Clemons feel like a star. The always-humble senior likes the attention, because he said, "It makes you feel like all of your hard work paid off."He said he fields 15 text messages each day from coaches. His mother complains because 15 letters a day fill the mailbox and she doesn't get half as much mail."You just have to keep going hard and keep working," Clemons said. "You never want to get your head in the clouds. You just have to keep a level head."

The whole "White out <insert team here>" or "Red Out <Insert team here>" is so f-ing unoriginal. Its about as original as playing freaking Michael Buffer's "Let's get ready to Rumble" before a game. I hope to God we don't "Gold Out" North Texas.Here's an idea for Can't State we came up with a week or so ago: Give all the students cheap toy duck calls and turkey calls. Every time we sack the Can't QB...make Can't punt...create a turnover, etc. the student chant "ON THE HUNT" and blast into the duck calls. That would be sweet.

I wonder if it will be on the Direct TV sports package?

Great. Now all we need to do is beat a team like NC State every day and we'll get coverage.The Beacon issues are well documented. Most people are tired of it, including myself. If the Beacon truly has changed their ways, great. I'll believe it when I see it, and see it consistently. Pluto's column was a good start, but it is only a start.

I am told it will be replayed friday morning @ 6:00 am on ESPNU.

Good for Mr. Pluto. 6 more consecutive years of columns like that and we'll call it even.

All can say is I never saw so many holding calls in a game. In the late 3rd quarter Crouch got called for something...facemask or holding, I forget. He wigged out...picked up the flag...started jawing with the refs...and had to be restrained by some of the other OL's. Very disappointing loss of composure in such a close, critical game. Especially from a senior.Crouch didn't see the field after that outburst. And the holding calls subsided. It will be interesting to see the starting OL this week. Glad to see the 'Dude still checks out the board!

The biggest cheer ever at the JAR was when Bryan Hipsher's eligibility expired.

Game Recap (Very late…but unfortunately work sometimes gets in the way of my hobby)What an unbelievable weekend! Where to begin? The wife and I arrived in Raleigh around 2pm. Our hotel was right on campus, about 4 miles from the stadium. Hillsborough Avenue was a great place to go out at night. It didn’t offer the pre-game night environment of Penn State, but it was a great time nonetheless.Saturday: We set up shop for our tailgate around 8:15am. Tents, beer, grill…and the parking was FREE (Did I just hear Pat Kreiger have a heart attack?). We hooked up with a few other Zips fans as time rolled on. Had the pleasure of meeting SoFlaZip. Great guy, and a very astute football fan. He brought some awesome Carolina barbeque with him, and Peach moonshine too. I will soon initiate a ZipsNation fund drive to get him up for the home opener. Please donate generously!Once about 11:30am rolled around we packed up shop and headed for the stadium. To get there we walked through a corridor of several thousand students, fans, etc. all partying pretty hard. It was definitely impressive…something the likes of which I hope to see at Zips games one day. Several NC State fans approached me before the game with well wishes. I didn’t meet one jerk the entire time in Raleigh. In fact, it was quite the opposite. The people couldn’t have been nicer. Many of the college girls wore red or red/white dresses to the game. Hands down the prettiest girls per capita I’ve ever seen. They alone were worth the flight 1 ½ hour flight!All right…on to the game. The place was packed. Mike Waddell is trying to assemble a “Sea of Red” for the Akron/Cincinnati game. He could go to school off the NC State’s fans. 57,000 were in attendance and about 50,000 wore the red. The students and fans alike were very vocal. Lots of cheers…the best being when one side of the stadium roared “WOLF” and the other responded, “PACK.” Lots of great graphics on the multiple Jumbotrons…again, something I hope to see at Zips games one day. The Wolfpack team emerged from the stands via a fan-level tunnel and walked through the crowd down to the field (as opposed to entering from a field-level tunnel). It was pretty cool.Once the game began, it was pretty evident NC State was red-ripe for the picking. There was no real size or speed advantage from the BCS-anointed Wolfpack. In fact, the Zips appeared to be even quicker than the ‘Pack, with Dennis Kennedy breaking off several nice runs on wide sweeps. Our running backs almost NEVER successfully take the ball wide in BCS games. It was amazing that we only had a 7-point lead at the half, considering how the had Zips dominated every facet of the game to that point. I’ll break off the paragraph format at this time and go into random note format…it’s already Wednesday for Rick Chryst’s sake:Kennedy was a stud. To have 25+ carries against such a premier defense for the second consecutive week and still finish off the game as strong as he did…with his third TD…was the stuff legends are made of. In a post last week I predicted 15 TD’s for Dennis this season. I may be on the low side. Complementing Kennedy, Walker showed some real quickness on his few carries. If Kennedy is going to last a 14 game season, he’s going to need a break every now and then. Looks like Walker will be a great change of pace back. Hope his carries increase as the season goes on. I also think the duo of Tuzze and McDaniel is working out well. Have two fresh blocking backs seems to be a big help to Dennis. It’s a luxury Brett Biggs never had.Luke ran for his life much of the game. If he did ever get time to throw, it usually was nullified by a holding penalty. I believe the Zips had 16 penalties? That’s utterly amazing. Some of that was BS home cooking by the ACC refs, but much of it was legit. I thought the holds that happened late in the game we the result of exhaustion. But on thing struck me as odd. Crouch was benched…reason unknown…in the 4th quarter. If I recall correctly, Kemme moved to the left side, and Schepp filled the spot vacated by Kemme. After that switch, no more holding calls. Coincidence? Do we see a shake up within the Zips OL 2-deep for CMU this week? As mentioned on this board several times in August…David Harvey is blatantly awesome. He’s pretty much the #1 WR in my book. Jabari was seemingly invisible for the first 119 minutes of the season, but came up HUGE on the last drive. I hope the competition brought on by Harvey’s emergence sparked something. BTW: Where’s Johnny Long?Kasparek was really no factor in the game…at least with his hands. Did we keep in to help pass-blocking? Beats me, but I hope we can get him the ball soon. He’s too good an offensive weapon to stay in the blocks.Talking to some “newer” Zips fans after the game is was interesting to hear some critical opinions regarding the Zips defensive showing. I can’t buy into that at all. Compared to the Zips defenses I’ve watched over the past 15 years, this one is awe-inspiring. Stopping the opponent on 3rd down is now almost expected. BCS-level opponents now need to ice their punter’s leg after the game. Unheard of! Take away Morelli’s perfectly tossed bomb to begin the Penn State game and the Zips have totally taken away the “big play” from the opposition. Again, unheard of! I was disappointed we let NC State convert that 4th and 5 into what could have been the game winning TD on such a simple, and predictable, RB screen. But overall, despite being on the road in the severe heat and humidity, our defense played one hell of a game. Stec shows great promise, but something needs to be done on his punts. He’s either taking too long to boot it, or the blocking is terrible. Or both. Regardless there needs to be some shoring-up of the punting game very soon, or one of these times it’s going to bite us.As some others stated, Groza had a great game. He’s really developed into a solid player.What can you say about Luke? He’s as cold-blooded as they come. How daunting a task was it to follow an act like C-Frye? It really didn’t even take a full season for Luke to escape Charlie’s shadow. He’s pretty much established his own identity as “Mr. Clutch.” He’s a winner personified. I know Chuck Amato would give his left nut to have Luke instead of Stone. The one question that results from his latest performance is: Since Luke seems to have such a penchant for late-game heroics, why not institute a little no-huddle into the Zips repertoire? The drawback is that we risk a quick 3-and-out. But if you look at Luke’s performance at the end of the NIU Championship game…the two quick TD’s at the end of the Motor City Bowl…the NC State 4th quarter…I have to believe no-huddle is worth a look? In the interest of full disclosure: I’m not a coach…and for good reason… so what do I know?After the game I had the opportunity to thank one of the player’s parents for giving me the thrill of winning such a landmark game. The parent was very gracious, but you could tell they didn’t know the pain so familiar to those of the ZipsNation prior their son coming to Akron. I now realize that, if you’ve only been part of the Zips family for two or three years, you really only know winning. 7-5 under Charlie. MAC Championship and a Bowl game last year. BCS win to start off 2006. “New” Zips fans almost expect to win games like the NC State match up. It’s time everyone does.A final closing note: A local writer wrote a Zips related column a few weeks ago that, amongst other things, stated the Zips should be playing YSU. That the Zips would get beat up both physically and mentally by the big, bad BCS teams they faced to start the season. He inferred the game was really all about the money. The Zips got paid $325,000 to travel to Raleigh and physically beat down an ACC school. Yes, it was NC State that had their hands on their hips, gasping for air as the Zips pushed them down field late in the 4th quarter. The Zips didn’t get lucky. Far from it. Despite playing Penn State the week prior…despite the heat and the pundits and the opposing crowd and the 100million dollar facility…the Zips won. They were the better team and they won. To be honest, it could be said the Zips played well below their capabilities, as evidenced by the 16 penalties. And yet they beat an ACC school on the road. It begs the question: “What are we capable of when we put together a ‘complete’ game?” I hope I find out this week.

CMU has had BC and Michigan back-to-back. They're physically in no better shape than us, and mentally they're coming off a beat down. Zips 27 CMU 17

I saw Hildreth punt in the spring game. Give me Stec anyday. Stec does need work. In my opinion...which means squat...he's too concerned with catching the ball. Hence he's too slow....hence the opponents are getting some easy shots at blocks. He needs to catch and kick quicker.

Vote for Akron’s “Pontiac Game Changing Performance” and the Zips Could Win $5,000 Instead of settling for the chance to tie the game with a field goal, Akron’s offense produced a “Pontiac Game Changing Performance” when quarterback Luke Getsy scrambled down to the 1 yard line. This daring move set up Akron’s game-winning touchdown with one second remaining against North Carolina State. Getsy’s aggressive play led the Zips to a 20-17 road victory versus the Wolfpack. Now it’s up to the Akron fans to determine if the Zips earned the “Pontiac Game Changing Performance” for the second week of the 2006 NCAA Football Season. UA fans can go to:Click Me to Help the Zips! where they can view video clips of the four finalists and vote for their favorite play. Voting begins on Sunday morning and ends at midnight on Wednesday. ESPN will announce this week’s “Pontiac Game Changing Performance” winner, on Thursday night, during the Pontiac Performance Halftime Report. The winning university earns a $5,000 contribution from Pontiac to their general scholarship fund. Additionally, the winning play will be nominated for the “Pontiac Game Changing Performance of the Year” in December. Pontiac will provide a $100,000 scholarship to the school selected by the fans as the “Pontiac Game Changing Performance of the Year”. New to this year’s program is that, each week one lucky individual who visits www.pontiac.com/ncaa, will also win a $5,000 scholarship for them self or their family. In total, Pontiac will provide over $200,000 worth of scholarships to universities and individuals throughout the season.

Surprised it has taken until Thursday afternoon to get this thread started?I believe the Zips defense is now big enough, deep enough and fast enough to make an ACC school punt with regularity. Especially one with such a shaky QB situation. That's all our offense needs.Make no mistake about it, this will be no cake walk. But I think 5th year senior Luke Getsy gets the nod in this one. If we can strike early and take the crowd out of it, and force NC State to throw...I think we're in great shape.Despite what Terry Pluto scribed in predicting the poor little Zips would be beaten up by the big, bad Nittany Lions...it didn't happen. We're as healthy as can be for this game.My prediction: Zips 29-NC State 28 NC State misses a 39 yard field goal as time expires. Pull down the goal posts. The crowd at Johnny Malloy's goes wild.

This seems to be the best spot thusfar. I will see if I can't get better info Friday night. But if nothing better pops up, this is where we'll hang out. For those who have my cell number, call me Friday night after 9pm and I should know the full story. If you still need my cell # to hook up for the tailgate, you have a short bit of time to send a message. I'm without a computer tomorrow & Saturday. Otherwise, happy hunting on Saturday morning!I'm guessing we'll have a group of 15 at this time. We'd love to have more. Player parents are welcome. Since the Zips road-following is growing, but still limited crew, parents have traditionally constituted the majority of our out of state tailgating group.See you there!

I disagree. I think we need two strong teams. We haven't had that very often in the past 8 or so seasons. With rare exception, our #2 team has not merited an at-large bid.MAC basketball is pulling itself out of a slump. While Can't has excelled, there have been too many teams that have fallen into the crapper. The Zips/Hipsher teams were a definite contributor to the crapper. EMU post-Boykins has been terrible, CMU, other than the Kaman era, has stunk, Buffalo has improved to "slightly above average," Miami, post Sczerbiak, has been consistently "good," but never great, Ball State has stunk the past few years, Ohio has had some decent teams, but no "great" seasons, WMU has been bad-to-mediocre, Toledo - yet another "good-but-not-great" last 8 years...BG had a nice run with McCloud, but has stunk up the MAC since Dakich decided to stiff WVa (boy, aren't the Mountaineers counting their blessings?).The Zips in 2006-7 are poised to dominate. Can't will be "in the hunt" too. OU? You never know. If Can't can improve on their last season, the MAC could get two teams in the big dance. That's our best chance. Charlie Coles has proven he can't do it, and O'Shea too much a question mark. Everyone else is mediocre to bad.

Thanks for the heads-up. I don't mind mixing it up a bit with the local fans or students. It makes for a fun game day. I'd rather that, than sit in a cow pasture by myself. I've been to just about every major stadium the Zips have played in over the past 20 years. Each game day is different, but always a blast. I look forward to seeing what it's like in Raleigh.

After my Penn State ticket order was screwed up, the new ticket office manager, Keith Ford, called to apologize. He found me six better tickets than the ones I was originally given and personally delivered them to Stow. Thanks, Keith.

My wife and I will be there. We arrive early afternoon on Friday. I'd like to begin some sort of tailgate at 8am Saturday...at least that's the goal right now. The fairground area is allegedly the best spot...maybe the only spot(?) to tailgate. I will send you my cell number. Give me a call Friday night and we can try and set things up. Or, give me a number where I can reach you (via the board message feature). I know of a few other Zip fans that will be there. It would be fun to get a group of 20+ together.

Shocker...The printing info from a "wire" story.

I will be there at 8:30am setting up shop. If anyone wants to hook-up, send me a personal message via the board. Article and Video of New NC State Tailgating - Click

Whether either of them is better than Dwight remains to be seen. But Dwight never had the likes of either of these guys to complement him. As a duo, Jones and Anderson are exceptional.Dwight's counterparts: Both great students, Rich Reliford was "ok" at CB and Jesse Smith played the softest corner I've ever seen.

Prior to the Penn State game, the MAC had a fairly inauspicious start. MAC East - Miami only scoring 3 in a 21-3 loss to Northwestern bodes well for the Zips championship run. Looks like we won't need a tie-breaker to beat them this year. BG played Wisconsin "ok." They're nothing to be scared of. Can't got absolutely drubbed. OU beat a weak 1-AA team. MAC West - Toledo played very well. Woulda coulda shoulda beat Iowa State. Versus OSU, NIU seemed to have the same issue as the Zips. Poor, mistake-prone first quarter, then a solid 3 quarters. CMU played BC very well, but their coach choked late in the game. WMU...EMU...Ball State...nothing special.Penn StateSeems like most everyone gave a good game day breakdown. I'll add the following:We (11 of us) set up camp at 11:15am. Tents and grills. It was brutal. TV didn't do justice to the constant, cold rain. By the time we walked into the stadium, we were all numb and soaked.The crappy weather didn't deter many Penn State fans. The place was pretty jam-packed. The first pass by Morelli was perfect. Not much we could do about it.Andre Jones and Brandon Anderson are our best DB tandem ever. Both are lightning fast, and hit hard. MAC QB's are going to toss a lot of picks to those guys.To me, the most apparent difference between this season's Zips and any of the previous, is team speed. Those plays that used to go for 80 yards against us only went for 8. We closed fast.Last season, when our first-string DL went to the bench, we got pushed around. In this game, when Reid, Gonzales and Cichetti sat, we lost nothing when Robinson, McPherson and Lively entered. We're 6-deep at DL? Whoda thunk!?Luke played a solid game. Lots of poise and good throws under tough conditions.I wish we'd have ran inside the tackles more, and outside less.I wish we'd have thrown downfield more, and sideways less.Great FG by Domonokos. It was huge to come off that drive with some points.David Harvey rules. Jabari needed more touches. He had a huge size advantage on the PSU CB and we never really exploited it.Kennedy had a nice day. But, why wasn't he spelled at game's end? No carries for McMillian, Reed or Walker...or anyone else for that matter.Ditto Jacqumaine or Jackson. It would have been nice for them to see the field and take a few snaps on our last possession.Kasparek and Poindexter are a tough 1/2 punch at TE. The 4th down catch by Kasparek was awesome. BTW - Speaking to someone at a bar prior to the game...apparently Northwestern is pushing hard for the younger Kasparek. PSU is also still high on him.Stec is pretty quick for a punter. He saved us twice with his coverage. His punts were ok considering the circumstances. Our kick off returns were solid, sans the Jones fumble. I think when the 2006 season is complete, the Anderson, Jones kick return tandem will have at least 5 TD's. Tuzze...I don't think he's a threat to take it to the house. (what was he thinking on his lone "return"?)Overall, a very solid effort. JD always seems to be at his best evaluating tape and making adjustments. I think we'll play even better vs NC State. If we can get off to a good start...and keep the turnovers low...and aggressively challenge NC State's defense...we can beat them. Over/under on ABJ reporters travelling to the game: 0