Kangaroo Craig

I know. I was thinking the same thing. Plus, didn't they finish just ahead of Buffalo last season. I'm not sold on their head coach either. I wouldn't read much into these predictions, Phil Steele is about the only one who occaisonally gets it right. Most of these threads are based upon just picking the teams who finished first last year or those schools with rich traditions to finish near the top. Conversely, because they are uninformed, they just choose the schools with the not so rich traditions to finish near the bottom. These guys from the sporting news probably didn't spend much time scouting the MAC. For what its worth, I would pick it this way: East: Ohio, Can't, Akron, BGSU, Miami, Temple, Buffalo. The top three or four should be very close in overall talent. I think Miami is going to suck right along with Temple and Buffalo.West: Who cares.

I agree 100%. Looking just purely at statistics does not say a thing. Also, Squeeler fans will never say anything positive about Cleveland. Payton Manning would suck, or at the best, would be barely average playing on last years browns team. Brady Quinn now has Joe Thomas to protect his blind side and Eric Steinbach and Jammal Lewis to bring life to an otherwise dead rushing attack. Both of these things will make any QB better. Charley will eventually be traded elsewhere and he will probably flourish. he will then come back here as a visitor and stick it to the Browns. The only saving grace would be if he sticks to Pittsburgh and Cincinnati worse. I love the Browns, but they are stupid. Drafting Thomas was the best thing they done for themselves since drafting Matthews and Newsome in 1978. Quinn may also be a good pickup, but I am not convinced that the pick was not necessary.

I like how it is personalized! I also like the fact that the order form has last years info already typed in so all you have to do is return it with your $$. This is the most professionally done season ticket package that UA has ever put out. Nice job! Its funny how two tickets to the OSU game cost as much as my entire family plan that gives me four seats to five games. THis has got to be the best bargain in sports and yet very few of us watch.

I saw it. It was great. Showed a picture of him wearing one of those old unis with the moving A on the helmet. Pretty cool!

If nothing else, this post has at least generated some anxiety. Only time will tell if it is genuine or just some BS in order to get our attention. If the latter is true, then for what? Is this the first of many posts designed to remind us of the heart break of our team and, more importantly, our disgust towards the NCAA? I trust not. However, if there is some new, realistic plan out there designed to generate more interest in Zips athletics, then I am certain that the nation would be happy to help with this effort. Mr. Hagen is correct when he refers to this athletic program as a sleeping giant.

That's the way I would like to see it unfold except replace Thomas with Peterson.Most Browns fans, and local news media types are ignorant, scarlet and gray glasses wearing homers! Instead of going through with the draft, why don't the Browns just send a bus down to Columbus and bring back all of the suckeye players. That will certainly satisfy all of the stupid fans around here.Charlie, for the most part, has had about a years worth of game experience behind a truly awful line. Remember that game last year when Braylon Edwards was grabbing his dirty jersey on the sidelines while berating the offensive line for not doing their job? He basically said, "How can this guy have any chance to be successful when he is spending the entire game lying on his back?"The Browns do not need to waste a pick on another QB when they have much greater needs. Plus, Romeo and Phil need to show improvement in the win column next year or they will be run out of town. They can't afford to draft a QB who will sit on the bench all of next year as an understudy to Frye or Anderson. Drafting Adrian Peterson and some OL men will improve the win total over last season. How much? That's anyones guess. As a Browns fan, I am salivating over the thought of lining up Jamal Lewis and Adrian Peterson in the same backfield. It brings back memories of Mack & Byner.Give Charlie at least one more year. If he fails with a good line, a strong running game, and more than adequate receivers, then I will say it is time for the team to move in another direction. Give the poor kid a chance. Also, please do not draft Troy Smith because neither we, nor Charlie needs to deal with the constant distraction of listening to the Suckeye homers crying for his playing time every week. Besides, Smith was not as good a college QB as Frye. Smith was the benefactor of playing on a loaded team. Frye passed for all of those yards while playing on a team with not much talent. That is truly amazing!

Northside. The live blues is great and when you're finished drinking you can get some great food right next door at Lugi's.

SMQ must be a Can't grad. That is the only explanation for his hating on Zippy.

The University and Scott Wolstein need to join forces and build that domed Soccer/ Football/ Basketball stadium near the campus. Give Mr. Wolstein a few adjacent acres of land on exchange street to add his shopping complex and you may have a deal!

He'll get a tryout with the Cavs because of his relationship with LeBron, and his local exposure.

I believe that Charlie is good enough to be a very effective NFL starter if you give him an offensive line and a running game. The formula for success in the NFL is simple: Run the ball effectively, stop the other team from running the ball, and don't turn it over. The problem is finding enough good players to execute this plan. That has been the problem with the Browns since they returned in 1999. There are a lot of succesful QB's in the league right now mainly because they are on teams that do those things well. I'll bet if the Chargers and the Browns swaped quarterbacks (Charlie Frye for Phil Rivers). Charlie would be going to the pro bowl and Phil would be lying on his back with multiple injuries.

Lee Owens talks about Superman at recent Pro Football HOF luncheon. The only part of this speach I disagree with is where LO says he was born to be a football coach. LOL. Former coach Owens talks of FryeSteve King, Staff Writer 04.03.2007Lee Owens has been a football coach for 30 years, so he knows what tough is."I was born to be a football coach," he said Monday without hesitation.Also, his son is just finishing up a tour serving with the Army in Iraq during which he was awarded the Bronze Star."You watch CNN every night and see what's going on over there, and you just hold your breath," he said.That's not just tough. Rather, that's Tough with a capital T.So it comes as no surprise, then, that when Owens is asked about Browns quarterback Charlie Frye, he just shakes his head and smiles."Charlie is the most inspirational football player I've run across," Owens said after serving as the guest speaker at the weekly meeting of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Luncheon Club in suburban Canton's Canton Township. "He is such a tough young man."Owens should know. He recruited Frye to the University of Akron and served as his head coach for his first three years there. Those seasons brought Frye national attention and eventually led to him being a third-round pick of the Browns in the 2005 NFL Draft."Some guys play football to position themselves for the draft, or they do it to attain individual goals, or they simply just for the money," said Owens, who has been head coach at Division II Ashland (Ohio) University the past three seasons. "But not Charlie. Jason Taylor (another Akron product who is now with the Miami Dolphins) is the same way."Those guys play for the love for the game. They play for pride. Money doesn't matter to them. That may sound corny or unrealistic, but it's really true."And then Owens proved it."When I was at Akron with Charlie, we had a game at Iowa," he recalled. "It was halftime, and Charlie was all dinged up and in no condition to continue. We're down by five touchdowns, but he wanted to come out and play in the second half. He insisted on playing. It got to the point where we actually had to hide his helmet from him."More proof, Owens said, was when Frye, despite having missed the previous 3½ games with a badly-bruised wrist on his (right) throwing hand, willed himself into playing the season finale at Houston."If I'm going to be the quarterback of this team, I felt like I had to be out there," Frye explained at the time.Again, Owens just smiled."That's Charlie," he said. "He told me how much the wrist was hurting, but he said he wanted to play."Neither the Browns nor the Texans were going to the playoffs, so the game didn't mean anything from that standpoint. But Charlie doesn't look at it that way. That's not the way he's built. Whether it's the last game of the season with nothing at stake or just a pickup game, there's always value in playing for Charlie. It's a chance to win a football game and for him to get better.Owens also spoke about Frye learning a new scheme under new offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski."Charlie's not going to let that bother him. No matter where he's played in his career (he started at Willard, Ohio High School), he believes every year is the one where he's going to be the quarterback the other players will rally around, and that he's going to lead his team to the championship.'It's all about winning with Charlie. I remember one of those Mid-American Conference preview luncheons. Ben Roethlisberger was playing for Miami, Josh Cribbs was at Can't State, Josh Harris was at Bowling Green and Byron Leftwich was at Marshall. Somebody asked Charlie who the best quarterback in the conference was, and he said, 'The one whose team wins the championship.' "Owens then recalled another story where Frye, after having set 11 Akron records, wanted to take his medals and make them into ribbons to give to every other starter on the offense."Charlie's a team guy," Owens said.And a tough guy.Which means more when it comes from a 30-year football coach and, more importantly, the father of an award-winner in Iraq. Related Players Charlie Frye

Here's a great story from the Browns website on Andy Alleman. ESPN rates him as the sixth best guard in the draft. Most experts believe he has the most upside due to his relative inexperience At the position plus his tremendous work ethic.The following link will get you into ClevelandBrowns.com. From there you'll have to navigate by clicking on the story when it pops up or the "third dot".http://www.clevelandbrowns.com/

I believe it is named the Wolstein Center after the late Bart Wolstein.

Great Job Jason!We'll all be there when they unveil your bust in Canton!

The critical path estimates predict that the design should be completed by June 15th of this year. That means in just a little over five months we should know what this thing looks like. To reiterate what Zip81 said: Please do not make it look like a glorified high school stadium! The Zips are a major D1 school. Our facilities need to reflect that! What scares me is that $54M is not a very much of a budget for this sort of a project. They got it right with the field house. That at least gives us some hope on this one.

Nice view. Those SC Song Girls have always been the hottest cheerleaders in college football. I agree with the blogger when he says she should have showed us the front view.

Those are interesting stats. I wonder how many of the games were played on the road for MAC schools. I would guess that all of the against BCS scholols were. If the MAC went 39-43, but 60% or more of the games were on the road, then the record really isn't that bad.

I agree with you 100%. Anyone can look good when they have enough time to stand in the pocket and eat a sandwich. He just waits until one of his faster than coverage receivers gets open. Troy is a great athlete, but the jury is way out on him. Put him in in a situation where he has to run for his life every week and the results will be much different. I've also thought the same thing about Roethlisberger. He is the recipient of a great offensive line and powerful running game. In the first three quarters on Sunday he didn't do much because he was pressured and the Browns shut down their running attack. In the fourth quarter, the Browns went into prevent mode (Bad coaching, usually prevents you from winning) and he picked them apart. I noticed during the Michigan game that when Troy Smith was pressured, he forced some throws into double coverage. Do that in the NFL and it will go the other way for six. There is a reason why most NFL scouts look at him as a late second or third round pick. The average fan isn't smart enough to look any further than the scoreboard. The average fan also cannot comprehend the very large gap in talent between the NFL and the best college team. How can the best college team with maybe five (and that's a reach) NFL starters on it, beat a team of experienced NFL veterns? They would get slaughtered. When a team loses, its always the quarterback's fault. Charlie will be fine. Did anyone notice that he hasn't thrown a pick in his last two starts or that half of the ones he has thrown were balls that hit receivers in the hands and then bounced off and right to a defender? Those go against the QB's rating, but are not the QB's fault. Hail Mary picks at the end of a game or half should not go against the rating either.

The weather will be nice, the Zips have a chance to become bowl eligible and there is no OSU game. There is no reason for the fans to stay home for this one. There better be at least 15,000 at this one!

I disagree.Frye is only as good as he is running for his life in Cleveland, because he was good at running for his life in Akron. First, Cleveland needs a good offensive line. Second, Charlie has done a good job of adjusting to the speed of the NFL.It always takes time to devlop a quarterback in the nfl, especially w/ a weak line. Show me rookie phenom, Rothle.., Brady; and i'll show you a quarterback surrounded by a good line and teammates that are willing to do the small stuff to make things happen. Look back in time...... Kosars diminshing skill couild be directly related to a weaker offensive line and injuries to his supporting cast. Frye is a good quarterback in the mold of Brady and Rothle... There is a reason the Pats and Steals are good year in year out. They don't rely on one overpaid superstar, who tends to do more harm than good (81?). Charlie has progressed nicely. Benching him for a rookie, another unproven Quarterback, or someone unfamiliar w/ the system would be foolish. Its good to see a post from someone who gets it, someone who understands the game. Football games are won and lost at the line of scrimmage. Period. Your right. Take anyone of the great quarterbacks in the league and put them behind Cleveland's line and they will struggle. Roethlisberger had a shitty game yesterday. As matter of fact, he's had a few of those this year. All of this is behind a Steeler line that is far superior to the Browns. Charlie Frye would be the All Pro that Big Ben is if he played for the Steelers. Put Ben on the Browns and he sucks!

This is not a joke. Normally I would not post anything on this site regarding the Big Ten, but this guy was a legend in college football and it is sad to see him go. Last night on ESPN U prior to the Zips game, they aired a showed called "Woody and Bo, the ten year war". Off the field, these guys were very close friends. Its ironic that he died one day prior to one of the biggest OSU/ Michigan games in history.Here is the link to the story:http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf

You are correct. This is the same dude. He was a steal for Faust and Co. because all of the BCS schools felt that he was an academic risk because of the home schgooling thing. Not only is he a hall of famer, he may very well be a first ballot selection. The key for him is to stay healthy and put together a few more seasons like the ones in the past. I have no reason to believe he won't.

Don't forget LeCharles Bentley is coming back next year. That will help tremendously both on and off the field. I heard a rumor that Bentley has developed a staff infection in his knee and is now doubtful for the start of next season. When he returns he will be a big plus. The guard and tackle play has been poor. Andruzzi and Coleman are past their prime. Tucker still has a few good years left in him at best and Shaffer is just a very average tackle. They need to blow Andruzzi and Coleman out after this year and try to replace them with young talent either through the draft or free agency. I would keep the two tackles for now, but try to get some quality depth at that position because as Browns fans, we know there will be another rash of injuries come next year. It seems that the Browns only have bad luck. One would hope that eventually the law of averages goes in their favor.

It would be perfect if they extended the same structure on both endzones. That would make it 50K. We would be set for a long time. It is a lot less expensive to build for the future now then it is to try to do a retrofit later (I'm afraid they really don't have plans for that either). Just do the damn thing right the first time. One would think they would have learned their lesson with the JAR, but Nooooooo! This school has no trouble spending necessary money to upgrade the campus, especially the athletics training facility. It all looks really great. Why do they have such a hard time spending a few bucks when it comes to sports venues. Don't worry, there will be a payback. Just like the voice told Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams "If you build it, they will come".