Blue & Gold

Linhart, McKnight and Cvetinovich would be my guess. Has Cvetinovich really impressed people this offseason? And why not start Sweich? I've been looking forward to having a truly big-bodied center for 2 years now! I want to see his 6-10 250 lbs. out on the floor!

YES! ABSOLUTELY YES! And I was one of biggest nay-sayers on the board - thinking that JD was blowing smoke always commenting on how much Jac had improved this off-season. JD was ABSOLUTELY right! Jac's looking magnificent! That's a winning D-1 QB right there!!! (Truth be known, though, after last year's showing I've still got my fingers crossed that he keeps up his excellent play all-year-long.)

Agreed. Now, the questions for me are:1) Is Pitt that bad?2) Is Minnesota that good?3) Is BG that much better than Buffalo?4) Where do we stand???In week #1 Minnesota was fortunate to squeak out a victory over Northern Illinois. NIU should have won that game; Minnesota scored a TD with about 30 seconds left in the game. So another question is whether NIU is that good?!

Good.Funny thing is...if he was in our backfield, he'd be 3rd string.Or 4th!

Does anyone have any information on how the West Virginia game is going?

I'm with uakronkid. I think we've found something with this guy! After the Wisky game I said on another thread that I have a new favorite player - Tyler Campbell! I respectfully disagree with Kadar. When I read his comment I just had to laugh at the different perspectives. I know TC got burnt on a handful of plays but IMHO that's because he was ALWAYS AROUND THE BALL. When you're involved in almost every play from scrimmage you're going to win some and lose some. IMO, the number of tackles he had is more indicative of the ineffectiveness of our D-Line, but none-the-less, TC was a ball-hawk. He was never out of the view of the camera; always around the ball.When I heard that this walk-on named Tyler Campbell was pushing Jalil Carter for the starting job, I was surprised and frankly, thought, "Whatever." Jalil Carter is a much better athlete than TC - I believe Jalil finished second in the state in the 100-meters both his junior and senior years. But TC is just a throwback, blue-collared, ball-hawk football player. He is our next John Mackey.

I agree. I don't think most people realize how good Ball State is. Buffalo is an up-and-comer and also very good. Both BGUS and Cincy are good teams and I always like playing Toledo. This year's home schedule is great!

I really like the last sentence of the article!:The stadium is on schedule for the Sept. 19, 2009, opening at InfoCision Stadium/Summa Field as the Zips take on the Indiana Hoosiers, marking a new era for Zips football on the attractive and growing campus of The University of Akron.

I hope DT decides to play a little D, because if not, with RB Dale Martin coming online next season, DT may have to get used to watching from the sideline.

Along the DL I know freshmen Hasan Hazime and Dan Marcoux were in there and I believe I also saw true freshman James Harvey out there.

I thought Jac looked VERY good today! JD was right and I happily eat crow! The D was just a bit overwhelmed today. We're not going to see another team close to the caliber of Wisky the rest of the way out, so I think it looks right now like we're gonna have a good year! The new wide receivers are really special and I have a new favorite player... Tyler Campbell! That dude was flyin' all over the field hitting anything that moved today!

Go to Ohio Brewing Company! I wish I could but I've got some work to do while I'm watching the game this afternoon. I wish I could still just drop $25-$30 in there just to support the Ohio Brewing Company for having a Zips' watch party!

I just called TWC's customer service line and got a recorded message. The message was pretty clear though, and said that the Big Ten Network is not going to be "launched" today until 12:00 noon. It won't show up on, or be recognized by, your digital cable box until then. The BTN will be on channel 77. The recording also said that the BTN would be on channel 333 with the BTN "alternate feed" going to channel 334. So I'm guessing/hoping that at 12:00 noon, just as I'm about ready to have a stroke, channel 334 will become available with the Zips - Wisky game. Unfortunately, if you're unable to be physically present w/ your DVR at 12:00 noon, I'll bet you won't be able to program it to record the game.

Currently I'm in the same boat as you. I'm confused because I don't even have channel 334 listed on my on-screen channel listing. I scroll down and it jumps directly from channel 330 - the "Outdoor Network" to channel 350 - another CNN.

That's a great find. The juxtaposition of realities in that video is so strange - 5 of the most famous, most talented, multi-millionaire athletes on the planet simply eating Wendy's @ a dingy little truck stop w/ every-day common folk going on about their business in the background. Kind of reminds me of a time I flew coach from Pittsburgh to Philly while sitting next to the band Quiet Riot! Yeah, sad; they were flying coach. The whole time (1 hour?) I couldn't quite believe I was sitting next to Quiet Riot.

I'm hoping they are considering having a WRQK pre-game tailgate party station somewhere outside InfoCision Stadium next season. Fill Exchange Street w/ WRQK rock before the marching band begins their new ICS pre-game traditions/show! WRQK could broadcast live from The Info an hour-or-two before the game, give away some prizes, make their presence seen and heard, add to the festive atmosphere, yada, yada, yada.

Yeah, TexanMark mentioned that they're pretty lax w/ the seating designations in the Carrier Dome - now that the crowds are only about half of what they used to be. He made it sound like you wouldn't have much trouble sitting wherever you want after the crowd is settled in.

I'll go one step further regarding Elton -- About 2 months ago he wore a nice feature on Zeke. In it he mentioned ZipsNation. Well he did, except for one thing...he made a conscious decision to NOT say "ZipsNation." Instead, he chose to say "the Akron fan message board."Elton had a chance to score big with us if he wanted. It wouldn't have hurt anything, and I believe he mentioned Scout.com and Rivals.com in the same column, so it isn't like there's a policy against direct mentions of sports web sites. But, he elected to pass. Thus I'm not going out of my way to help the PD any more than I already do (by links, content, etc.). Beyond that, Elton has been a real jerk to the Zips in the past. Hence why so many people tag him as "Ellen." He's not a real "lovable" guy. He kind of relishes being a poor man's Steven A Smith. Good for him. But it rubs me the wrong way.You know, I posted on that PD story about Zeke a while back. I signed up a screenname specifically for it. My post said exactly this: "Hey, that Akron fan message board is Zipsnation.org. Thanks for the coverage! GO ZIPS!" The screen name I signed up for was banned immediately. I wrote an email to ask why, and I was never responded to.Hmm. Do we live in China?

Does anyone know if the UA soccer match vs. Notre Dame will be broadcast on 1350?

I was disappointed to open the paper this morning and see that the ABJ's Akron preview, that, while on the front page of the sports section, is in a hodge-podge (sp?) of a college football preview also previewing Can't and, of course, most prominently... OSU.

That was a fun little article! it's great to see Elton giving the MAC so much ink. But I think CMU's gonna get drawn-and-quartered @ Georgia.

How do we know QB is bad? Maybe the guy has improved? I know...and monkeys might fly out of my butt too. But Jack is our QB, and he's had 9 months to mature. I'm going to see what he can do in 2008 before burying him. Maybe...just maybe he surprises us all?The Elton article on "Jack" that you posted on another thread has me optimistic. Okay, cautiously optimistic, but I think all Zips' fans are well conditioned to be "cautiously optimistic." Ha. But he does sound like a new man. He sounds confident and ready to go and ready to show everyone what he can do! Being the clear-cut number one QB sounds like it's taken a lot of undue pressure off of him.

I've been in this camp for a while. The only caviat is IF Bain is able to play effectively most of the season. Everything else will work itself out on that side of the ball. I even think the D can be good enough to carry this team with but a mediocre, "don't screw things up" (ala Trent Dilfer and the Ravens Super Bowl year) offensive showing.I agree. But isn't that a shame? Because, aside from the all-important QB position, this team's LOADED w/ offensive talent.

You're spot on. I keep hoping and keep hoping for the ABJ to just start pimping the daylights out of UA athletics, I mean, why on earth wouldn't they? This is their city, this is their D-1 university; wouldn't it be the natural thing to do to make UA athletics out to be the greatest thing since sliced bread? The Canton Repository does this for McKinley freakin' high school athletics and freakin' little high school athletics in general (whoop, whoop, go 16-year-olds! Yippie!) There's not a single podunk town in all of the U.S.ofA. that doesn't have high school athletics, and yet The Repository treats them as if they're something faaaaantastic. Why can't the ABJ learn from them? Because on the other hand, there is the UofA. How many D-1 football programs are there in the whole freakin' entire country? 117? 117 D-1 University football programs in the whole entire country and the ABJ has one right across the street from them and they give the U just disgustingly laughable coverage.I know my ranting does no good, but it just makes me feel a little bit better.

I suppose this is a dumb question, but the new soccer stadium will be for both the men's and women's soccer programs, right?