3rd&twenty

Why wait until the season is over? That should be enough to spur on the players this season! And then just carry it through to next season.

get a beer bellyhttp://www.thebeerbelly.com/Or go out at halftime.

I think its just an illusion, because its always about midway through the 3rd quarter my buzz wears off and I get sleepy. Maybe the same thing happens to the Zips?If you're like me, you get sleepy watching the 3rd quarter offense, not necessarily that your buzz is wearing off. I think, and this is a much simplified answer, they get lazy in the 3rd. How many times have we gone into halftime leading or close on the scoreboard only to come out in the 3rd and fall flat? The stats above prove this to an extent. I think they go into cruise control a bit and then say, "oh, crap" we're getting beat". Then they perk up in the 4th. That's all coaching. You have to keep the players motivated and up the entire game. Like I said, a much simplified answer.

Kind of puts a damper on "Bearcat Burgers" for the tailgate.

lol, how often do you use words like "proactive", "dynamic", "fresh", "innovative approach", or "sensible".I do use "fresh" occasionally. My most used line is, "too much copy. No one reads anymore"

Totally agree with your assessment. The university's marketing effort over the past 10 years has been completely top-notch. The athletics marketing, however, has not. Not even close. And I AM one of those creative directors, although not a stiff in a monkey suit. Plus, I do refrain from using cliche buzzwords whenever possible. Unfortunately, I can't apply for this since I don't have a master's. Not even a bachelor's.

Thanks for that perspective on OBC attendance, skip-zip. This was my 1st venture to OBC for one of these, and I was frankly surprised (like SeeTee) to see what I thought was a good turnout (especially with OSU playing at around the same time). If there were more for 'Cuse then great! Perhaps the later game time (3:30) may have helped with the crowd.....plus Syracuse is still a bigger name than Army, regardless of the recent Orange struggles. Also, I don't think there are any more TV road games, but I could be mistaken. Perhaps that means yesterday was the last event like this at OBC for the year? (I guess they COULD have them for the Toledo and Buffalo games, but what's the point in that).The Temple game Nov. 28th should be on one of the ESPN channels, but other than that, it may well be done for the year (excluding the home games that will be on ESPN). At least OSU will not be playing that day and they should all be wearing Zips gear.

Try walmart, Kohls, steve & barry's, the University Book Stores. It's not as hard to find now-a-days. So sorry they have no excuse.Call me crazy, but shouldn't a University employee walk across the street the OBC and say "How many shirts do you need, and what size?" Then, about 25 minutes later, walk in and say "Here are "X" shirts, free of charge. All we ask is that you wear them on game day. Thanks for your support."Then walk out the door, into the sunset.In theory it should work, but this is Akron. When I ordered my first beer, I said to her "Nice, we have a UA party and you're wearing that garbage (OSU shirt). Her reply, "I was told by my boss that I had to wear this".They were wearing Fear the Roo/OBC shirts for the Wisconsin game, so I know they have them. For the 3 road games so far this year, we've given them a decent amount of business, the least they could do is wear the Zips shirts.

Addition to #5) The bootleg, QB option, scramble are all there for him. He doesn't have to do it every time, but like you said, at least once in a while. It may not be pretty, but it could occasionally gain some good yardage.6) Try to teach Jac NOT to look at his primary as soon as the ball is snapped. Everyone in the stadium knows who he's going to throw to. I'm sure the opposition does as well. Look around a bit more.Coach Fleming,5) Have the CB's move up on the receivers a few yards. The 10 yard cushions consistently yield at least that.OK, there's my post for the week.

The column lists our attendance @ 16,000 for the past two seasons. If we have a brand-spanking new $60 million dollar stadium...have our home opener vs. Indiana, + home vs. K.e.n.t, both of which will be GUARANTEED 30,000 SRO...there's no way on God's green earth we should average 20,000!! Only 4k more than at the Rubber Bowl!!?? That's lower than the most low-aiming expectation I could have expected to see in my worst nightmare.I expect 25k. Anything less is unacceptable.Yes, anything less is unacceptable. I give it 25k for at least the first 2 years because of the novelty of the new stadium. People who never, or hardly ever, will show up because it's new. After the thrill wears off, it's up to the U to put a winning product on the field.

"The harsh reality: the Zips whipped the Orange" 'nuff said!

I caught that as well. But when the BJ does a good story like that on the Zips, I don't get too hung up about a small error.

It's hard to tell after only one game, but it seems he has the intangibles (enthusiasm and wreckless abandon for his own health) that may set him apart. Some call this heart. I can think of two others that played like this - Jay Rohr and John Mackey... not a bad group to pattern yourself after.Earlier this week I was telling a friend who didn't see the game that this kid really reminded me of Mackey. He was all over the place. The skills will develop over time, but he obviously has something that's pretty hard to teach: a good work ethic. 10 more like him on defense and we won't fall apart in the 4th as has been the case too many times in the past.

I agree with this, although it still seems like he doesn't want to give the ball up on handoffs. His handoffs from the shotgun do not look very fluid. I realize he probably has the option NOT to hand off, but it just looks like when he does, they're (QB/RB) fighting for the ball. I will be interesting to see which Jack shows up this week, though. If he can string together 2 decent games in a row, we may have something.

Does anyone have ATT uVerse? Last December when I signed up for it, I was getting BTN plus 4 BTN alternates. After FB season. Now it looks like we're getting just BTN and only 1 alt. channel. And they have the suckeyes scheduled on main and nothing on the alt.

It's listed on the BTN schedule for noon. BTN has several alternate channels that basically show their whole schedule of games. I'm sure it will be on at the Fairlawn Lizard. That's where we watched the Indiana game last year. This year I get all the BTN channels so I can watch at home. Not the same as the lizard, though.

Hey, my daughter follows BC, so we'll be there . Me in my ZIps gear and her in her BC stuff. I just want to see the Flushes get stomped. Considering we're playing at Wisconsin at noon, (correct?) there'll be plenty of time to get there and see a butt-whooping.

from what i heard they thought there were more....a Chris a Christian a Brad and a Brett, I wonder if they are all brothers?and also i laughed whenever he pronounced Nate's name "Line-Ert"Don't forget about Curtis!

For the record, I don’t think that we lost the game because of the officiating. Officiating in the MAC is just bad and I believe partially responsible for the MAC conferences overall home team winning percentage being ridiculously high. I do think that we lost because we started off by shooting 1-21 from the 3 and missed at least 10-12 lay-ups early. But.......that being said......Did anyone else notice that the tall, skinny, balding referee called a disproportionate game? I don’t know if this is true but a friend in our reserved section swears he counted that particular referee calling 13 straight fouls against Akron. My friend was counting, I don’t know if he is accurate or not but even if he is close -- I think that is pretty unlikely that this refs positioning on the court would lead to such a lopsided foul count for one team or the other. Anyone else notice this sort of bias by that ref?If the refs let them play, Can't is tough to beat - It's just their style of defense- a lot of grabbing, holding, hand checking and pushing goes on. They crash (and I actually mean crash) the boards very well going thru people to get the ball. If you get into that sort of basketball game with them - they are extremely good and tough to beat.Yes, that particular ref was extremely bad. And it did seem like a bias. My friends in our section were constantly on him. But, on the other hand, I saw a few times when Wood had a hold of Q from behind and nothing was called. Which in my opinion is good, let them play the game. But if the shoe was on the other foot, we'd all be screaming, me included. As i was just saying to a friend, when Akron gets to the point where they are the cream of the crop in the MAC, maybe the refs begin to look the other way with them as well as Cant. No, we didn't lose the game because of the refs, but it does make for interesting bitching.

Can anyone spot the problem in these 2 pictures?

No doors. Won't be at the final game so I can't take a pic for you. But if it's like last night, someone should have no problem getting a pick with no one in there. I went in a couple of times and was the only one in there. Hot as hell in there, too. Kind of like a sauna.With that small of a crowd, the bowl REALLY shows its age.

But can he catch? We all know he has a bit of trouble holding on to the ball.

Maybe 3-4,000 to start. Maybe. About 300 at the final whistle. Too bad no one could clear the stadium of the leaves for a nationally televised game. I thought it was kind of embarrassing for Akron. On the plus side, we had plenty of room to stretch out.

As a native of central PA I'm doing my best to help PSU while, of course, voting for ZIppy daily.

That crap's on Rick Chryst. He has been plunging the MAC ever lower down the conference food chain ever since he arrived in Cleveland. He controls the conference schedules. If he doesn't want a team to win their division, he'll make up a ridiculous schedule that kills their chances. He actively encourages teams to play lots of money games because the MAC can't afford to help out it's schools athletic budjets at all, and those money games destroy teams chances at bowl eligibility. Bowl games are the only real way to get the conference any recognition. The more the merrier. The MAC consistantly has bowl-eligible teams that are left sitting at home, while no other conference has that happen to them because the fans of not only the school but the entire conference would be up in arms. We don't have that. And don't get me started on his taking focus off of basketball so that we can "improve" our football programs. What a joke.Is it then Rick Chryst's fault that we only have 4 home games this year. And of those, only 2 Saturday games. Or does that fall on Mack? I want to know who to bitch to. I understand playing at least one "money" game, but 2 or 3 is ridiculous! I suppose one could excuse the UConn game because how many of us, along with the entire nation as a whole, thought UConn would be having as good a year as they are. I don't really have any figures on any of the other MAC schools, but I'm almost sure everyone has more home games than we do. I can't really count the Army game as a home game. This pattern seems to be our lot in life as ZIps fans.