Z.I.P.

Beautiful football display by The University of Akron as Nick Hinds combines with Joao Moutinho for the FOURTH goal of the game vs HashtagNumberOne Michigan State!!!! 4-1 Akron. Can I add something? OK. David Egbo really looks good, and has a winning attitude. Freshman!

Okay, Michigan State broke the shutout, and the scorer paid for it with potential briken ribs, as he took a knee in the side as he poked the ball in. Also off-topic: I see a kid in a Zips Nation shirt. Do they sell those??

Three to Zero!!! Nick Hind's adept placement creates an Akron own goal off the knee of a Spartie defender. Off-subject, I see Whole Foods sponsoring with signage in the corner area. Is there a WFM in Akron now???

Nice work by the ESPN crew in Akron tonight. I like that shot of the #NachoCheeseBall! Overall excellent. Attendance: Looks like AKRowdies are in good form. Behind goal is what -- 3/4 full?

And, three minutes into the second half, Ben makes a fingertip stop on Michigan State's first real chance, other than the false alarm break-away that the player passed up.

Twenty-nine seconds to play in the half, and NATE SCHULTZ may have put this on one ICE with a put-back for the big 2-nil advantage and his second goal of the half! At halftime, Akron 8 shots, 5 SOG. #1 (??) MSU 1 shot! One shot?! I don't think these guys had a chance to prepare themselves for what they had coming tonight!

WITH THREE MINUTES LEFT...sooo close to number two!! MSU plays it off their line.

Possession 70% Akron! MSU has had VERY little to hang their balls on so far! er, I mean their hat...

Wow! Michigan State had a breakaway in the box, and their player passed the ball when he was 10 ft away from Ben. Missed opportunity for #1.

What I'm watching on ESPN3 is another game where Akron looks like the better team on the field -- though less here than any of the previous games (I've watched all except UMass-Lowell). MSU is probably the best opponent we've played -- which is perhaps why they're ranked #1! NONETHELESS, Nate Schultz just put the Zips on top with a goal about 20 minutes in! And....

We won! 5-0. Unfortunately, 6:00 a.m. games on Sunday morning do not go over well in my household. C'mon Jared, you're taking after the American football team! Let's have your ratings of our victory. Hopefully this is enough to propel us back into the vaunted coaches poll.

I received an email from the Seattle Sounders with info about their S-2 reserves game vs Arizona Rising which features Didier Drogba and Shawn Right-Phillips. Looked at the S-2 roster and saw this. https://www.soundersfc.com/s2/riley-grant. Riley left Akron after his freshman year, but was a strong prospect.

Sad that Sinisa did not have a more impactful -- and top-flight career as a pro. I really expected him to be at least a semi-star when he arrived in MLS. Coincidental that I met a Red Bulls fan at the USMNT game vs Honduras watch with AO Honolulu who knew Sinisa well.

I'm assuming you're referring to Alex Ramart -- ? He looked very good, making a nice tackle early in the game. Now that I think about it, that might have been a punt defense. The announcers mentioned his status also. And while I'm at this, the broadcast showed the "targeting" re-play about three times, and it was clear the hit was with the shoulder. The play-by-play man was pretty flabbergasted by the call. There ought to be a way to litigate these calls after the game, as there often is in professional sports.

The medical research industry is a multi-billion $$ industry. This is just one report on soccer concussions caused by heading the football. There have been a number of such studies, In fact, there are a number of studies just on the injurious prevalence of goalkeepers breathing in rubber pellet dust from artificial turf fields. http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/01/health/soccer-headers-concussion-study/

Yeah -- this is NOT the type of schedule that is needed by a young team trying to get some level of confidence going into MAC play! Doesn't Arkansas-Pine Bluff have a women's soccer team?

review the past two seasons' recruiting threads. Youth players who can make a career at football/soccer are taking their talent to another shore. In our case look to Las Palmas and Sporting KC, who managed to take away forwards who could have been all-American players as freshmen at UA. We are hardly alone at losing top players however. It is the future of the college game. The good part is that there are so few really good players at this level that winning a national title is becoming something of a crap shoot. We're not out of contention for 2017, IMHO.

End of OT, 0-0 Well, it was certainly an exciting game -- very physical and hard-fought contest, but sloppy on both teams' parts. Akron had the last chance, and a SLU player cleared the ball of their line with seconds (under 10, I think) on the clock. This one could have gone either way, and since we finished with 10 men, I suppose some will say we "escaped" with a draw, but the escape was mostly due to our lack of final 20 yard attacking strategy. We just look messy (no Messi) there.

Well, we escaped the free kick from just on top of the circle, following a red card against Nate Schultz for taking down the attacking St Louis player. Borderline call, in my opinion.

There's no audio, but I just noticed from the flags it is very windy, and the wind is benefiting SLU in the OT period. A cross-field pass by Akron went straight out.

End of regulation, no goals! As ZipME87 said, there's been a lot of trouble creating an effective attack on top, and when we have, St Louis strength seems to be inside the box defense. I hope we can make something happen, and not happen to us!

Halftime stats show Akron with just 2 shots in the first 45! Considering that we controlled 80+ percent of the possession that I watched, that is pretty poor. St Louis keeper made just one save to three for Ben. 1 corner kick each side. 2 OS for us none for the Billis. We have to find an attack.

Tuned in and there is no scoreboard on the screen -- on top of a highly pixilated picture. Now I see a pic of the field scoreboard...0-0 as the 1st half ends. For the ten minutes I watched, it was clear that our side was far superior -- however we made some poor passing decisions and had no scoring opportunities that I saw. This reminds me a lot of Utah Valley! Clean things up the second half, and we SHOULD come away with a 'W'.

Billikens certainly have plenty of height! 18 position players on roster over 6'. http://www.slubillikens.com/SportSelect.dbml?&DB_OEM_ID=27200&SPID=93202&SPSID=632576

Most interesting game promotion I've seen in recent times: PROMOTIONS -- Fans are encouraged to bring their dog to the game for the “Howl at Hermann” promotion. Fans who bring their dog to the match will receive a free SLU-branded water bowl. This sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen!