Blue & Gold

Well, at least next week should be fun. I would like to officially retract my above statement.

I'm actually much more excited about watching next year's Zips than I am about watching this year's Zips. Kinda weird. We should be a tear with the athleticism KD's assembled orbiting around a 3rd-year Zeke Marshall.

More on Deji, this time from a blog entitled CITY/SUBURBAN HOOPS REPORT by Joe Henricksen "There are always late bloomers. And there are always players who haven't been talked about or have been hardly noticed that grab people's attention in the spring and summer before their senior year. The City/Suburban Hoops Report hits on a few of those individuals, with more to come over the next several months, as they are all primed to spring forward in both player rankings, name recognition and as college prospects. ... • DEJI IBITAYO, 6-3, Olympia Fields (Rich Central) Maybe the least known among this chosen group, this high-flying wing will be opening eyes throughout the spring and summer. Ibitayo, who had a solid and productive junior year at Rich Central, is as athletic as any player in the state of Illinois. While his jaw-dropping athleticism and crazy hops have been his trademark, Ibitayo is slowly improving his skill level. He's made strides, looking better at the free throw line and looking more comfortable handling the ball on the perimeter, but he will have to continue making those strides and work on the mechanics of his jumper."

Here's a blurb on Deji from a blogger covering a Milwaukee AAU tourney. • The undervalued Deji Ibitayo of Rich Central, who plays with a solid Illinois Defenders team, continues to wow coaches and scouts with his great body and athleticism. The Hoops Report continues to love his upside. He is a high flyer who is still developing his skills on the perimeter. But Ibitayo is a high-major athlete who will surely draw continued interest throughout July. Sounds great! I've been coveting a 6-3 athletic guard! But... we have room for him? Someone has to be transferring out, right?

At least you probably get free pizza when their shift is over. One of them (and the Lord is my witness on this) is a pizza delivery boy!!! Yessssss!!!! He's got a very valuable degree in Journalism. K-ent sucks!

I'm neither a family man, nor an alumnus of UA (Walsh U. alum), and most of my friends, sadly, are actually Can't alumni. It's not an uncommon occurance I can't find anyone to go to the game with. But I'm a diehard fan & don't like to miss games, so I still go. I often just end up asking a girl or two - they don't really care about the game, but think the event is fun & like going out to eat before/after. But I'd say that, on average, I usually end up attending 2 games each season by myself (usually toward the end of the season, when it's cold/rainy & the Zips suck - which is like, every year.) I actually had 3 girls ask me (together) just last week, "When are we going to another Zips game?!" I was pretty excited until I heard why they really wanted to go: "We're hungry for Crave after the game!"

As sad as it is to say, I was surprised (pleasantly) when Igor made his first kick. Needless to say, that's just unacceptable for D-1 football.

I've been a big Zips fan since the last year of the Gerry Faust era. But last year's Temple game @ The Info was perhaps the low-point (of many, many low-points) for me as a Zips fan. I couldn't get anyone to go to the game with me (not that I don't understand why), sat by myself in a virtually empty Info, and watched us get utterly destroyed... by Temple. I have the feeling that come mid-season, I'll probably be going to the games by myself again.

I only know this from listening to Caleb Porter on the Akron Press Club last night (I'm not, like many on this board, trying to sound like a know-it-all). But Caleb said he's alright with being in the MAC. According to Caleb, the negative of MAC membership: The MAC doesn't have an "AQ," as he calls it - Automatic Qualifier, and he believes it is important for the conference to have that. According to Caleb, the positive of MAC membership: The MAC only schedules a single game against each conference team, so it enables us to be extremely flexible with the rest of our scheduling - it allows us to play as many of the toughest teams in the country as we want or that will play us. As it is now, we have the flexibility to schedule the toughest Big 10, ACC & Big East schools we want/can. Caleb actually seemed very happy with having that sort of freedom.

What do you know, Caleb Porter is on the Akron Press Club (channel 23 Time Warner Stark Co.). He's talking about the sort of character traits he looks for in players and tries to instill in his players. Cool stuff. Just thought you would want to know.

I feel you pain; I hate those comments. Over the last few years I've shied away from bringing (dragging) as many friends to the games as I used to. Under JD it got to be downright embarrassing.

I'm really hoping we clean up the penalties this week. I think this week will give our team a chance to take a deep breath, relax & execute. I absolutely LOVED seeing 4 down linemen. I thought the front 7 looked great (though I guess the stats really don't bear that out. Idk.) Weather's supposed to be great. I'm already looking forward to another day of college football @ the Info! We on ZipsNation are like Chicago Cubs fans - we're diehard fans, win or lose, we'll still be there hoping & cheering. Go Zips!

I have never coached and I knew that was a crap decision...I am sorry but no mulligans and shame on his staff for not calling him out if they had the chance to. We need a staff that will work together and step up when something is ready to go array. i get it, you can get caught up in the moment but that is where your right-hand man chimes in and says....woah Coach, lets go for it, 17-6 is still two scores and 4 and 2 is makeable. Had he admitted it then maybe a mulligan but don't sweep it under the rug. Just admit you screwed up...don't glance over the subject by saying... "When you give up a blocked field goal for a touchdown, when you have a chance to cut it to 17-6, but instead its 23-3, that's a huge turnaround in a game" What does 17-6 do? That was only maybe our 2nd or 3rd trip into their territory the whole game, what made him think we would get back there two more times! Plus 17-6 would require us to make the 40 yd field goal, score a touchdown and then make another field goal to get it to 17 all. Bad decision and that's it....maybe mulligan 3 to 4 illegal formations + bad decision = bad preparation...no mulligan Hell with it...move on and lets win this week. Forget about the mathematical logic for a second. Good and bad decisions can often be measured by how it affects the opposition. And in this case, I'm guessing that the Syracuse staff was relieved when we did not go for it. We squandered our last opportunity to gain a psychological edge in that game. We would have been on the attack, and they would have been forced to scramble to keep their more-than-a-touchdown margin. And by simply stepping up to the line of scrimmage, we may have even forced them to burn a timeout, which would have given us more time to decide the right move. Unfortunately, I'd have to say that this looked like the kind of thing you'd possibly see from someone inexperienced with in-game decision making. Even if iCoach didn't have confidence that we could gain 2 yards( ), we could have at least lined up and tried to make 'Cuse jump off-sides.

Just now chiming in on Saturday's disappointment. Just three thoughts. 1) Burn Georgio Bowers' redshirt this week. Get him on the field. Alex Allen doesn't hit the hole hard enough anymore and Nate Burney, while a good, hard runner, just isn't big enough. 2) Move Jalil Carter back to safety. 3) Burn Keith Sconiers' redshirt & get him on the field @ WR. Oh, and one more... 4) Throw to the TE - since we've moved a couple of our best athletes to the position, might as well utilize 'em.

They can laugh all they want. Anything less than $18 is selling at a loss, and won't be made up through concessions or merchandise. They're killing themselves financially (even more than usual) in an attempt to keep within the NCAA attendance rules. huh? By your logic, selling at $54 will be 3x less of a loss! It really doesn't make sense if demand isn't there to sell at $54, and the same is true for $18. Example of reducing price to make more money below. It's called optimizing volume versus price. 4000 tickets at $18 yields $72,000 6500 tickets at $12 yields $78,000 By lowering prices significantly, you drew more fans and offset price with volume. Not only could you make more money, but you create a real event experience which increases future demand. You assume a demand for tickets. What if there are no more people who wanted to go to the game Saturday than those who showed up? Exactly. No more fans would have shown up even if we lowered the price to $5 a ticket. And Can't's pricing structure simply lowers the value of their product. If people pay $5 to see them, they see that it's worth less than a high school game, and so must not be as important as one or as exciting, or worth the trip. I fully disagree...I know six people personally who planned to attend then changed their mind when they saw the price...SIX! If I know that many alone, imagine how many total. Then they really did not want to go and were looking for an excuse for not going. Akron can't build its future on this fan. Yes. If $20/person is too much to see a local team and a BCS team play in the nicest stadium in the state, they didn't really want to be there. I bet they would gladly pay per person at OSU what it would cost the entire group at Akron to watch a game. The only time I would ever go to an OSU game to watch football is if they were playing the Zips. I would rather go see Akron play than OSU any day. Amen! I know who I am. I know where I'm from. And it's not Columbus.

Well, at least next week should be fun.

TG Q: "Football attendance will once again be an issue. What is needed to bring more fans to InfoCision Stadium?" TW A: [paraphrase] "Blah, blah, blah... hopefully the team wins." Um, yeah. If the team were winning we wouldn't need much marketing. This answer was quite void of content. TG Q: "Attendance at Rhodes Arena for men's games has been disappointing. What can be done about it?" TW A: "...We need to figure out a way to fill the JAR on a consistent basis, not just for big games. Again, that comes back on us to come up with ways to do it." Um, yeah. So... um... what can be done about it? Once again, an answer completely void of content. Come on, TW, you're not running for political office here. We're on your side & we want to know what's going on within our athletic department. What's the plan? What's the vision? What are the goals? What has been done? What are the works in progress? What bridges are being built? What's the 2-year vision? 5-year? What is President Proenza's dream/vision for the future of the athletic department?

I noticed the floors as well. Stained concrete can look very nice/cool/industrial. But the floors in the Team Shop just look bad & unfinished.

7,000 pre-sale tickets for the 'Cuse game?!?! That's AWFUL!!! Today I was downtown having lunch w/ a friend and I mentioned I was going to the game tomorrow. "What game?" she asked. "The Akron game," I said. Blank stare. "Akron's playing Syracuse tomorrow!" "Oh... I didn't know anything about it." Oh, well. It's our own d@mn fault. We don't win. People don't care to follow losers. We need to win. However (on my soapbox again), I'll bet the Cleveland media hasn't been pimping either the 'Cuse game or the Zips in general, have they? What? No regular Zips' updates during the 6:00 evening news? Screw off, Cleveland. You suck. Go burn & fall off into the lake. But anyway, it's our own fault. We put together a few winning seasons w/ bowl appearances & people will care. If not, they won't. Look @ the Cleveland Indians. When they were winning it was hard to get a ticket (not that I tried). But any more they draw fewer people than the Zips do. Gotta win, baby.

The Team Shop is open! It's well done. Good selection of Zips gear. They've also got newer (not replica) football & basketball uni's to go along w/ the ALMOST replica soccer jerseys. I bought 2 Champion t-shirts. They're buy-one-get-one-half-off. It didn't matter. I just wanted to drop some $$ in the place. One nice touch I noted was of the two large posters hanging behind the register are pics of hometown Zips - Bryan Williams & John Mackey. Pumped for tomorrow! Go Zips!

I'm predicting Akron 21, 'Cuse 14. Zips D looks solid against a mediocre 'Cuse O. Cuse has one nice, sustained drive for a TD & hits a big play for their other. Akron's O keeps it mostly on the ground, eats clock & moves the chains behind a good OL & strong running from AA. At least once tomorrow, as 'Cuse packs the box, Patrick Nicely hits Jeremy LaFrance for a long 6.

That's precisely why my drinking coach made me take a freshman red-shirt!

While watching your BBQ emoticon, I just happened to notice this, but that was your 5555th post! Almost as thrilling as watching an odometer tilt!

You pretty well hit the nail on the head right there. I agree, outside of Cleveland State and YSU which bring some regional excitement, the home OOC schedule is a real yawner. Unfortunatly we are just good enough that the truly good teams are extremly reluctant to come to our place. It offers them no benefit in terms of RPI or national perception. If they come here and win, no big deal, they were supposed to beat us anyways. If they come here and lose its a negative headline and provides a hit to their tournament resume. As a fan I'm just happy that it at least looks like KD is softening his stance on the whole, "we won't go play at your place unless you agree to come play us at home" deal. It at least gives us some chances to beat some of those good teams on the road which could in turn generate enough interest to get a few more of the non-die-hards out to the JAR to watch us hammer Bethune Cookman. I think YSU basketball brings about as much excitement to the JAR as Wright State baseball brings to Lee Jackson Field. It is a guaranteed win... an easy-to-schedule annual home-and-home for Dan Peters (former YSU coach)... an easy road trip for the Zips faithful... but there is no amount of lipstick you can slather on the pig that is YSU basketball. People in Youngstown don't care about YSU basketball...and people in Akron care even less about it. Football would obviously be a different story. I just noticed your "yawn" emoticon!