Blue & Gold

I'd assume that, due to past successes, TW was salivating at the opportunity to hire RI. TW probably just wanted to cover his bases & go through the charade of interviewing other candidates, but knew who his dream-candidate was all along. It hasn't worked out like - or as quickly as - we all had hoped. That's for certain. And, perhaps it never will under RI. Who can say? But I'm with the party of those who want to give iCoach some more time.

Just a little F.Y.I. According to RI's presser, we had 8 true freshmen play last week: FB Nick Rossi (boy, I hope we get him more involved this week!) LB Justin March SS Bre' Ford DE Isaiah Williams RB Karl Bostick DT Dajour Morris FS Devonte Morgan LB Gary Ransom (PT on special teams) That's a lot of true freshmen seeing the field. Additionally, 4 redshirt freshmen saw action: RB Jawon Chisholm S L.T. Smith LB Jamar Williams TE Anthony Ritossa

Awesome breakdown! Thanks! As for me? Well, I only know that in soccer you aren't allowed to use your hands.

+1 L.T. Smith was absolutely ALL OVER the Columbus WR Devin Smith when he caught his TD from Braxton Miller. I watched the replay of that reception about 5 times and can't believe it squeeked past L.T. Also, Columbus' longest passing play of the day wasn't due to poor man-coverage abilities or a breakdown in coverage scheme, but was simply due to that absoutely amazing one-handed catch by the Columbus WR. Nothing you can do about that, other than say, "Wow, good for you." Stoneburner was the Zips killer last week. We had no answer for him. On two of this three TD catches, our defenders were in the correct position. But on the first (IIRC) Stoneburner shoved Emmanuel Lartey out of the way like a rag doll and on the third (IIRC) Stoneburner out-athleted our SAM LB Troy Gilmer. Again, what are you gonna do? Too big for our DB's & too athletic for our LB's. He's got to be one of the best TE's in the nation this season.

"Football returned last weekend, and amid all the uncertainty surrounding the sport, it was reassuring to see that some things remain the same. Ohio State (2) can play defense with or without Jim Tressel, shutting out an admittedly awful Akron program that now has scored a total of 10 points in its past three season openers."

Good question. Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of the magazine. I do remember that they were your usual BCS suspects. But I also specifically remember the MAC, Mountain West, Missouri Valley & C-USA also listed as High Majors. (They probably had the Atlantic-10 in this category as well.)

Unfortunately, no link. It was on the newsstand @ Giant Eagle.

I was looking at the Sporting News Basketball Preview rag today and I found two things interesting. 1. They have the Zips picked to win the MAC East, w/ Can't Statecks as #2. 2. They have the MAC listed as a "High Major" conference. They had High Majors, Mid-Majors and Low-Majors, and, yep, I was pleasantly surprised to see them list the MAC w/ the High Majors.

The idea that haunts/scares me is that when TW hired RI, both said that this was not a rebuilding job; that the cupboard was not bare.

I agree. To lose the number of players that we did and to begin this very next season ranked between #4 - #5 is insane.

The only caution I'd have is that these modern uniforms may be just a trend and look out-of-style in a couple of years, whereas you can't go wrong w/ a classic uniform. But there's no reason we couldn't switch back to something more traditional if that is indeed the case in a couple of years. On the other hand, these modern uniforms may indeed be the uniforms of the future & pretty soon anyone under 30 will think the old classics just look boooooooring & unoriginal.

My question would be....would you really want to add to the negative stigma of soccer in American as an insignificant Euro-sport? As I've run around bragging about Akron being national champs in soccer since December, this is normally the response I get from people outside of the Akron soccer community. Wouldn't european flags just add fuel to that fire, and place a major obstacle in front of our efforts to make the sport, especially at the college level, more appealing to American sports fans? Now I find this very interesting, because it's almost the exact opposite of what I've experienced! My experience has been that, basically, Americans think that anything European is cool & so soccer is considered quite cool - almost as if it's cool to say you like soccer, even if you really don't. Thus, for a while now I've thought that having flags of internationals would be a great idea; it would just really make you feel cosmopolitan. I've also had the thought that flying flags in front of the Info - flags of the various nations represented by students at UA - would be a great way to advertise that this is now an honest-to-goodness international university; quite gone are they days of "hilltop high."

You maybe the only person that thinks they are "cool". They got destroyed on twitter....they are hideous. I like them. A few years ago, Oregon's crazy uniforms also got lamblasted - they're just so different - but now most people, especially younger people, absolutely love Oregon's uni's.

Do they run the same offense he ran here? Whatever it was, it usually produced a lot of yards and points.

This one goes out to the former players on ZNO & those w/ more X's & O's knowledge than me. What offense did Paul Winters run under LO's watch? We were a rather legit, high-powered offense that often put up big numbers. Did we simply have more talent under LO? Better QB play? Better OL? And then what did Brookhart run? The spread, right? Or was it a special version of the spread? I know that JD seemed to be more into the newest gimmick O & D because he didn't think he could recruit well enough @ Akron to run the typical 4-3 D & pro-style O.

If only we had Nike to pay for these, I'm all for it..... LeBron gives us some shoes....Big wup!!!! LeBron can only get gear for the basketball team. Our contract is still with Adidas.

ABSOLUTELY, YES!

awwwwww - were those mean Ohio State boys blitzing you guys. Maybe you can try scheduling Lake Erie College or Baldwin Wallace. Hey now. The context of my quote was that we were trying to figure out what RI was complaining about to LF after the game.

AMAZING tweets!!!

Wow, couldn't have said it better myself. Absolutely spot on.

The MAC had a pretty good opening week. (Probably not good news for us.) Ohio - 44 New Mexico State - 24 Ball State - 27 Indiana - 20 NIU - 49 Army - 26 Buffalo - 16 Pitt - 35 W. Michigan - 10 Michigan - 34 K.e.n.t. - 7 Alabama - 48 Miami - 6 Missouri - 17 BGSU - 32 Idaho - 15 CMU - 21 South Carolina St. - 6 Toledo - 58 New Hampshire - 22 Temple - 42 Villanova - 7 7 - 5 overall OOC record.

I'd have to watch the game again to be certain, but without double-checking, I think this is what happened. I think the coaching staff threw in the proverbial white towel & put in some subs - Nicely & some OL - but Columbus kept the same heat on as they had with our starters.

Concerning the vanilla playcalling, either Speilman or Myer noted at least twice that, "Akron keeps running plays into Ohio State's wheelhouse," i.e., just coming straight ahead into the strength of Columbus' defense. Discouraging. And with Rossi, if we're going to waste his LB talents by playing him @ FB, let's not completely waste all of his talents by having him ride the bench. I really don't understand the thinking here. I know many of you are upset w/ not going for it on 4th down. I was hoping they'd go. If we can't QB sneak for 6-inches then we don't deserve it. However, it was on our own 20, so I'm not as upset about not going for it as many other posters. We really should have taken more shots downfield. We didn't challenge, stretch, or confuse Columbus' defense a single time all day. Discouraging.

Recruits really have nothing to do with it for me. It's the potential fan base. This week I've taken a ton of heat about being an Akron fan, from fellow Akron-area residents!! It's sickening. It's demoralizing. I'm not looking forward to work this week. Still won't bow down to Columbus.

Sorry, I'm not defending today's performance, but 5 years ago, Brookhart looked just as pathetic if not moreso in the blOSU game...screen pass, screen pass, screen pass, punt...blOSU shitty possession...screen pass, screen pass, screen pass, punt...blOSU shitty possession...repeat until halftime, with an Akron safety and a blOSU field goal thrown in there somewhere in the first half. Then it was screen pass, screen pass, screen pass, punt...Akron repeat until, thank Heaven, the game ended...with 2 blOSU td's and 1 FG thrown in there somewhere. I agree. As bad as our O looked today, it was better than the last time we played Columbus. However, I do think we should have definitely taken quite a few more shots down field.