ZachTheZip

5'10" 176lb RB David Jones from McDonough HS has committed to the Zips. Scout profile Rivals profile ESPN profile

5'10" 167lb WR Elijah St. Hilaire from Palisades Park HS has committed to the Zips. Rivals profile ESPN profile

6'2" 180lb QB Steven Franco from Tyrone Area high school has committed to the Zips. Scout profile Rivals profile ESPN profile

6'4" 210lb ATH Daryan Martin from Princeton HS has committed to the Zips. Everywhere I look, he's listed as playing a different position. Scout profile Rivals profile ESPN profile

JUCO 6'3" 230lb DE Albert Presley from Dean Junior College has committed to the Zips. He is currently on campus and enrolled in classes. Scout profile

5'10" JUCO DB Malachi Freeman from Nassau Comminuty College has committed to the Zips. He is on campus and taking classes. I can't find any more info on him.

6'1" 206lb QB Tyrell Goodman from Archbishop Stepinac High School will be a Zip. He originally committed for the 2011 recruiting class, but had issues with the NCAA clearinghouse. He is currently enrolled in classes on campus. Scout profile Rivals profile ESPN profile

5'11" 206lb Safety De'Andre Scott from Hargrave Military Academy has committed to the Zips. He is currently on campus and enrolled in classes. Scout profile Rivals profile ESPN profile

6'1" 190lb Safety Ben Cunningham from Medina High School has given a verbal commitment to the Zips. He is the brother of current Zips CB Seth Cunningham. He is currently on campus and enrolled in classes. ESPN profile

OT Rodney Carroll, 6'6", 290 lbs out of Hargrave Military Academy has given a verbal commitment to the Zips. He is currently on campus and enrolled in classes. Scout profile Rivals profile ESPN profile

About to put up individual threads for our verbal commitments in the interest of being able to discuss them without having the conversation get lost in the mess this thing has become. I will continue to update this thread with new Zips offers. I will no longer post when an offer chooses another school, but I will update the main list to reflect the change because I am still curious as to who we have lost recruits to since it gives us an insight to areas we are recruiting, the teams we must compete against to get recruits, and more.

New offer: WR Bruce Natson from Boyd Anderson HS in Lauderdale Lakes, Florida. Currently committed to Utah State, but coach Bowden looks to pull him away.

I caught a few minutes of coach's interview with Munch this morning. Nothing too new for those of us who have been following every little thing he's been doing, but the more he can work with the Cleveland media, the better. His connections from working with ESPN Radio in the past certainly helps with that. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the Cleveland Media controls what the people in Akron see and hear, because Akron/Canton the largest metro area in the US without its own TV media market. The interview itself was pretty good. Talked about recruiting locally and wanting to be the top dog in the local recruiting scene (behind OSU). And he's right. There's enough BCS-level talent that just keeping the second tier players from Akron, Canton, Cleveland, and Youngstown would completely outclass the rest of the MAC. If it comes down to a player deciding between Akron and a BCS bottom-dweller, they should pick Akron. You can get them to do that by creating local pride. The local recruits have so much more to play for than the guys from other states. They play not only in front of their friends and family and city, but also in front of all the people who said they would never make it. Coach said that the area is starved for a winner (I don't think he's correct there, but that's a post for another day and topic). We need to become NE Ohio's college football team. I missed a some of the interview. The signal doesn't really come in well around here. Anybody catch the whole thing?

New offer: JUCO C Xavier Ruben Coach Bowden's priority right now seems to be the offensive line.

That's what they do over on Miami's board. Every offer gets a thread, and the ones that commit get stickied to the top of the forum. Each way of doing it has its own benefits and drawbacks. Maybe I'll create a hybrid. I can't sticky threads, but I can make a thread for each known verbal commitment where we can place all the articles on them and discuss them individually. Maybe later this week.

There's so much stuff going on in the main thread that it's easy to miss stuff like this. It's great that we got a kid from McKinley. Hopefully more will come over the next few years.

Buffalo is several levels above where BG and Miami are, but they aren't as good as Ohio. They are essentially a 3-man team of McCrea, Oldham, and Watt, but you have to watch out for Filzen on the perimeter. They are an excellent rebounding team, and they get a lot of assists. They play very up-tempo. They are a lot like us, probably the most out of any team in the MAC.

He will not have to sit out, as he has graduated.

Show's about to start.

Hudson's OG Quaison Osbourne switches from YSU to Akron. Originally chose YSU when Ianello was still our coach. We now have one verbal commitment each from Summit, Stark, Medina, and Portage counties. Just over a quarter of our recruits live within 30 minutes from UA.

They do.

Curtis Black, from Ken+ Roosevelt HS, has committed to the Zips. He's a really big kid. Recruiting is really picking up as we approach signing day. We're up to 14 recruits.

Some quick grades, before I go out and brave the North East Ohio tundra. Guards: C - Abreu's presence is the difference between competing against top-25 teams and losing to teams on the level of the MAC West. Walsh is becoming a very good shooting guard. Deji's impact has been limited and Nitro has straight up disappeared. Diggs is not a guard. Nik is not a guard, no matter how hard he believes it. Forwards: B - The forwards have carried this team. Harney, Treadwell, Nik (when he plays his position), Diggs (ditto), Chauncey, these guys are playing great and stepping up for each other to cover bad individual outings. Center: B - Zeke is inconsistent, but he is doing better than he's ever done before and has shown a vastly improved understanding of what he needs to do when he's on the court. Egner hasn't played too much, and hasn't had the chance to really show off his hops. Coaching: Incomplete - Dambrot and staff's biggest challenge was developing chemistry among this motley crew of players. You can see that it's still coming along, but significant progress has been made. Baffling substitutions are still being made, but that's just how Dambrot operates. It's hard to judge the coaches right now because they're only half way done putting things together. Will the team come together in a way to win the MAC and go on a tournament run? it remains to be seen. Overall: B - Half way through the season, we have 10 wins. That's on pace to get to 20 before the MAC tournament. We have two good wins over Mississippi State and Marshall, while we usually don't have any wins over teams ranked that high at this point. Overall, the positives outweigh the negatives, and we're having an above average season, but not an excellent season, so I'll give the team a grade of B, but with a note on the report card that they're leaving a lot of potential unfulfilled and I think they can improve.

Anybody catch his interview on the radio today? http://gozips.com/sports/fball/2012-13/rel.../20120112edhc2g

Right now Q is a little bit better.