Blue & Gold

I'm not so sure that I could.

Didn't someone post on ZN.o that we're making more money by playing SC in SC rather than in Hawaii on a neutral floor?

Not to pile on the poor guy, as he's a much better head coach than I'd be. But I do wonder if he might be the single worst college football head coach of all time? If not, he'd at least be near the top of a very short list.

Thaaaaaank you.

This is an exaggeration, but I get it. The St. Ed's -vs- Mentor game at the Info is on t.v. right now and there aren't many more people there than were at the Zips' game.

Amen, amen and hallelujah. I would add that we need not only alumni raising Zips fans, but Akronites & Summit County residents also.

Was watching some of this game yesterday. They had a really nice crowd @ the game.

Story from ABJ. It was noted above that Dante Booker is a physical freak, but, IMHO, Newman Williams is the best player on the team. With his height and athleticism, Dante has more "up side." But in the STVM games I've seen Newman has been far-and-away the most productive player on the field. Even on offense, if STVM needs critical yards, they don't give the ball to Paris Campbell, they hand the ball off to Newman Williams. He's a beast.

A sign of the apocalypse? Next thing you know the Cleveland tv media will actually let people know when Akron plays a football or basketball game. Then, of course, it'll be dogs and cats living together; mass hysteria.

It's about time. Newman Williams is a stud.

PG is a problem. But I'd just remind everyone that we were only down 3 with 12-minutes to play. It was somewhere around 5:00 in the morning EST. Our shooters obviously had no legs. I believe we only made 2 3-point shots all game while the 3 is a big part of our offense. I'd love to play St. Mary's again at a decent hour & on a neutral floor.

That sounds about right to me. I think Nyles is going to be okay. I had a dream last night that while at the Diamond head Classic, Zips wide receiver Imani Davis was named the Zips starting PG.

You've hit on something (lack of recognizable offense) we've been wondering about / complaining about for years. We've said in the past, the offense consists of perimeter pass - pass - pass - pass - pass - pass - pass - pass - launch a contested three. Now that we've got legit bigs, our offense has changed, but I still don't see much resembling traditional basketball offensive movement. A few years ago an assistant coach (IIRC) posted on ZNO about the offense we run & tried to explain it, but it was so complex it was hilarious - like reading Greek. Basketball should really be a relatively simple game.

Agreed. I was, unfortunately, unable to attend last night's game, but saw a glimpse of pre game team intros @gozips.com & was pretty underwhelmed. I thought the excitement surrounding the new lighting system was in large part due to the fact we could now turn the lights off during pre game intros. Whatever. Looked like a great crowd for an opener & they got to see a Zips win. Go Zips!

I don't think anyone's posted THIS yet. It's George Thomas' breakdown of the Bluffton scrimmage. GT mentions something I noticed - the starting 5's lack of outside shooting ability. The starting 5 for the Bluffton scrimmage were Pat, Tree, Harney, Q & Melo. I didn't like that combo. Only Q presented a real outside threat so Bluffton just packed it in on D. IF Melo is running the point we really need to replace either Harney with Reggie or Tree with Kretzer. Thusly, I think Nyles will win the starting PG job; maybe not against CC, but sooner rather than later. To make the defense play honest, we need our PG to at least be a threat from the outside & Nyles looked to be a legit shooter. PG....Nyles..........Q 2G....Q...............Reggie W.....Harney.......Kretzer PF.....Tree..........Harney C......Pat............Big Dog Toss in a little Deji & Melo once in a while & there's my predicted rotation. I love Kwan, but I still think KD's gonna redshirt him (I appear to be in the minority position on that).

I also like the Zipper stripe. Looks great on t.v. If anyone from UA Athletics reads ZNO, I vote to bring the Zipper stripe back; at least get it into a more regular rotation. But I don't believe they removed the wording (yet) in the front of it. The wording is pretty cheesy. Get rid of the wording & put that stripe back on the helmet.

One amazing thing about Cheatham is that he just turned 18 a month or two ago. He's still very young. Because of that, and in spite of how good he seems to be already (I have to watch myself; we were playing Bluffton after all) I'm thinking KD will redshirt him if at all possible. Kwan will probably come back next year at 6'10" & definitely be stronger and more developed as a player if we just give him a year to watch, eat, lift & practice.

All good questions from George Thomas. Ohio.com

Looked great! But I'd like to see us wear the Zipper stripe more often. It really makes for an extremely sharp look.

Excellent! Welcome to ZipsNation and thank you for the insight. Go Zips!

I'm hoping, for their own sakes, we're able to redshirt BJ, AJ & Cheatham (who just turned 18). Give them a pressure-free year to mature, watch, learn & develop. It's a luxurious position to be able to redshirt very real talent. We're there. Winning is primary, but if we're able to avoid wasting a redshirt year for nothing but 5-minutes a game I think we should.

Part of Friday's scrimmage pitted the newbies plus Kretzer against the "Varsity." The newbies hung right in there. IIRC maybe lost the quarter by 3 points.

Lehigh Valley dot com.

I was @ the scrimmage today. KD had Big Dog switch teams, so Isaiah took off his jersey & turned it inside out. If you see Big Dog without his shirt on you realize this guy is not fat. He's just simply huge. My $0.02 - I was incredibly impressed with the freshmen. Big Dog, Kwan, BJ & AJ held their own against Forsythe, Tree, Harney & Q. They are all tall, can move, handle the rock, shoot from the outside and have pogo sticks for legs. Crazy good recruiting class. I'm guessing BJ & Big Dog will not be redshirted. Redshirts will go to Kwan & AJ. Edit: As I look at the numbers, I guess BJ will probably get a redshirt too. There's just a numbers crunch & too many good players. The only freshman we'll really need is Big Dog to provide minutes at the 5.

3-and-Out: Ball State. By George Thomas.