Blue & Gold

Eh. Bleacher Report is sort of the National Inquirer of sports media. I think our class filled areas of need. CJ Mizell should be the best LB in the MAC for the next two years. Jon Shelby adds quality depth. (J-Lane & D-Moore are excellent signees but I think redshirts would do them well; give them a year to fill out their frames.) DT Keontae Hollis is a stud. He'll push Caponi & Grice to start next year. If DT Lavonne Gauthney turns out to be a contributor, we'll have 4 quality DT's. That's all you need (assuming health). Throw in C.J. James (& a non-rusty Jamel Turner) to compliment Albert Presley @ DE & the front 7 could be rather stout. IMO the front 7 was our greatest area of need and we stocked up there.

Honestly, I think both UA & OU are without-a-doubt NCAA-quality & deserving teams. It's just a shame the rest of the conference is so weak.

Where are you getting this? (Obviously the R-Bowl's foundation wasn't in as bad of shape as UA let on?)

Last week I was in the Team Shop at InfoCision Stadium and they have soccer jerseys. I believe the Team Shop is open 9-5. It's locate right on Exchange Street adjacent to the ticket lobby. Go Zips! Go Pioneers!

This season we're playing almost as many games at Canal Park as we are at Lee Jackson Field. 9 @ Canal Park; 11 @ Lee Jackson. Good move. Both Walsh & Malone have fields much nicer than Lee Jackson. (Edit: by "field" I mean a fan-friendly facility.) It's really rather embarrassing. Honestly, most high schools have nicer fields than Lee Jackson. I live near Lake High School's facility & it blows Lee Jackson away. It'd be tough attracting top talent playing solely @ Lee Jack.

The "Fire"? Hmm. I don't think I'm too down with that nickname. Pretty generic.

I think it has more to do with us staying a hot topic in the national media than us really deserving to be selected, should we lose the MACC. We only have two signature wins on the year - OU & MTSU. Both at home; MTSU taking us to overtime @ the JAR. Losses to CCU & Detroit are killers. Creighton destroyed us. Additionally, our winning streak, though nice, is probably fool's gold, as much of it has come against the MAC. Posters here know I'm rarely negative, but we've been playing awful recently. Embarrassingly bad. We should have absolutely throttled both CMU & Miami. KD says we're going to be taking every team's best punch. Whatever. If we're as good as we say we are (National Championship, Rico?) CMU & Miami's best punches should be like my little sister hitting me. Instead, they almost knocked us out. So I think keeping our name in the media is vital. Keeping the streak going will do that. I think it'd be almost impossible to keep us out if we went into the MACC game at, what, 28-4, no matter who the cupcakes we've devoured happen to be.

Is this game on t.v.?

Better to let Chauncey heal fully. We'll really need him come the MACC and if we hope to win any games in the NCAA tourney. When healthy he's still our best all-around/most-versatile player. Keep your head up, Chauncey! We need you!

Where'd you hear that? And any talk of a desired seating capacity?

Just wanted to say that I'm not going or I would have definitely given you a ride. Sorry.

I really like this class. Considering we're coming off 3 consecutive 1-11 season, I love this class. I think the fact that LB's Jon Shelby and C.J. Mizell should be eligible to play next season is huge. Also, the signing of JUCO DT Keontae Hollis is huge - I've been looking into him & the guy's a big, strong, mean, aggressive, hard-working stud. We were in so many tight games last year where we just couldn't overcome our lack of depth. Since we've now got Keontae Hollis, C.J. Mizell & Jon Shelby in the box, I'm going to say that the key to us going bowling next year is how DT Lavonne Gauthney pans out. If he turns out to be a player, that would give us 4 solid DT's. IMHO, that's where we lost a number of games last year - Cody & Caponi are very good, but by the end of games they were simply gassed. Our front seven has a lot of potential: DE------------------DT------------DT------------DE Presley-----------Grice--------Caponi---------J. Turner C.J. James-------Hollis-------Gauthney--------??? -------------------J. Price ---------LB-----------------LB---------------LB ------Shelby-------------Mizell------------March -----J. Brown----------K. Baines--------J. Williams ----D. Moore-------------Rizzo------------J. Lane

Thanks!

Nice! I now see it on facebook. I checked GoZips.com & YouTube w/ no luck.

Who is "them." Could you, or anyone else elaborate? I wasn't able to watch the presser and I don't believe they've got it archived. (Extremely disappointing.) CJ Mizell will be eligible this fall?

What did he say concerning last year's grey shirts?

I couldn't get the stream at all while I was at home - just kept showing me the little swirl indicating it's still loading (does that thing have a name?). Now I'm away from the computer (posting from my iPhone). Does anyone know if GoZips.com plans on archiving the presser?

Jerome is signed.

George Thomas on the CMU game. Tree receives huge props from KD: “I thought he came back and played within himself really well,” UA coach Keith Dambrot said of Treadwell. “He’s a big key for us now. We have to have him now. That’s our new Romeo Travis. We don’t have anything that equals him at this point. Treadwell’s our best player. When he got back in the game, it was a huge difference.”

Hmm. Jerome Lane hasn't faxed in yet.

ZipsFB tweet: In Jan. @ZipsFB signed 3 JUCO transfers...Cedric Brittnum (Asa CC in Brooklyn), Donte Williams (Asa), Jon Shelby (Nassau CC) #SigningDay ZipsFB then tweeted: All three are enrolled and will participate in spring practice in April #SigningDay So it sounds as if Jon Shelby will be eligible to play this year, no?

I noticed that as well. However, they have the "Big 6" conferences labeled as "national conferences"and then the MAC in their second-tier of conferences, strangely labeled as "high major."

George Thomas on tonight's CMU game. I love Coach D's wisdom: Point guard Alex Abreu, who had a huge game in Saturday’s win over Ohio in what can be viewed as a statement win to take control of the Mid-American Conference, said after the game that the team deserved more recognition outside the region. Dambrot has little problem with what Abreu said, with a proviso. “You can’t make the statements you made in the newspaper unless you practice as hard as you can,” he said. “You can say those things if you believe them, but you have to follow through.”

I was wondering.