ZachTheZip

Looks like we are beginning to take advantage of the coaching changes happening around the country. Rodnell Pierce, who originally went to Ball State in 2010 as a greyshirt, is coming to Akron. He played safety for Glenville in high school. I believe that as a greyshirt he will have four years to play and the opportunity to gain a fifth year if his academics are good enough. He is a 3* safety according to ESPN recruiting.

We play at least three games in southern california next season. If he were to go, one of those would be most likely. UCSB would be a good one for him to go to to add hype upon an already hyped game.

He played one year in JC, and redshirted at Ole Miss. I believe we get him for three years.

Goal.com's mock draft.

From a certain point of view, you could call Clayton Moore a transfer to Akron from Ole Miss. He simply spent his transfer year sharpening his skills at a junior college instead of sitting out at Akron.

Article on Mattocks returning for another year. Imagine if he was called up to the senior Reggae Boyz team.

Effing ridiculous. Something needs to be done to change the attitude of the "fans" in the JAR. One thing I've been advocating for a while is consolidating a student section. No students allowed to disperse through the GA seats. Mix them in with the Rowdies and hopefully they join in instead of sitting with their thumbs up their asses and mouths glued shut. If they don't, well, they won't have a place to sit and so we won't have to deal with the atmosphere of silence they create and try to enforce. If you're not there to cheer and have fun, then don't go to the games.

Would be interesting to see the +/- numbers for this game.

Who's absurd now?

But why would we hire a coach that we knew was going to go through learning pains? It makes no sense to do that if we really do want to be competitive. Why watch a new coach struggle through this process, only to have him hired away once things click? Why not simply cut out the learning stage and save ourselves a few years of embarrassment? If a coach was successful immediately instead of using us as a learning experience, he'll get hired away anyway, but at least we would be successful while he was here. Hiring guys like Brookhart and Ianello and letting them stumble through a learning process seems like a waste of valuable time. In other news, Paul Winters continues to rack up awards.

Use this game as an "audition" for the right to play against Can't. If you can't bring the intensity required to beat the flushes against ORU, we'll play someone who can.

Things are so bad at Pitt right now that a lot of their fans on message boards are calling for them to hire JD Brookhart as the new HC.

Considering that we're going to at least double the number of Zips playing professionally in a short while, this seems like a good time to begin a thread to follow the successes of those who made it to the next level. Let's start off with some good news: Teal Bunbury named MLS breakout player of 2011

It will continue to not work out well. The Charlie Weis tree is not successful. In fact, basing who you hire on which "coaching tree" they come from is asking for disaster. Just because you learned from a master does not make you a master as well. Weis was hired to be the OC at Florida next season. That train wreck should be interesting to watch.

That would be hilarious, but it will NEVER happen. I wouldn't mind Akron hiring Tressel when he eventually leaves OSU, though. Even if he struggles against the top-10 teams, no MAC coach has ever beaten him and his name alone would allow us to keep all the top local recruits that currently ignore us.

Here's a joke we can all appreciate: What's the difference between Terrel Pryor and Tate Forcier? One couldn't afford a tattoo and the other couldn't spell it.

So much for that. Haywood held in jail without bond. Those former Notre Dame guys sure hold some dark secrets. Oh wait...

Humpy was the only one on the team who had much knowledge of what playing at Can't is all about. He knew the physicality, the poor officiating, the things the student sections resort to, the strange orange tint that permeates the arena... I'm sure he was instrumental in getting his team prepared for that environment.

Optimistically 1 or 2 million. That's spread over all the things you can name like the entire stadium, the press box, each entrance, the concession stand, etc. and assuming everything sells. I don't think we would lose any tradition by allowing it to be named. "Lee Jackson field" is used to refer to so many of our athletic facilities (baseball, softball, outdoor track) that more diversity would be welcome.

From what I understand, Murrow has graduated early and will be on campus starting next week.

Why so much love for the Buckeyes? Is it because they are from Ohio? So is Akron, so is Toledo, so is Miami, so are plenty of other D-I schools, but it is OSU who people cheer for when they meet on the field. Why doesn't Ohio U have the same following when they are also an "Ohio" school and claim the state's name as the name of their university? Is it because OSU is in that terribly generic midwestern city we call our capitol while other schools are less centralized? Why should location have anything to do with it? Why is Cleveland, specifically, so obsessed with this particular BCS school when there is a geographically closer one to them in Pitt and tons of closer D-I schools who aren't fortunate enough to belong to the old-boys network? Is it because people "grew up watching and cheering for them"? I grew up believing in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. But I grew out of it because I realized that they made no sense.

There are certainly some fast food places that I would go to before Chipotle. But that doesn't mean they aren't a step up from most of the dining options near campus. This is more important as a symbol of downtown Akron turning into a place where people actually go. I think every business that opens downtown provides mroe people an incentive to go downtown, and thus a reason for more stores and restaraunts to open. It's a cycle and we're turning in the right direction.

I want one of our guys on every team. Fans of BCS schools don't have a favorite NFL team based on how many of their college players are on it. Only teams that produce a small amount of professional players have fans who do that.

The MLS Superdraft will be held on Thursday, January 13th in Baltimore. It will be broadcast on ESPN. Last year it was on ESPN2. There are four rounds, and 18 teams. Next draft there will likely be 20 teams as the MLS is expanding rapidly; Montreal is joining in 2012 as is an unannounced team.

Nobody leaves college soccer early without a GA contract, unless they followed some really bad advice. What's great about that is they can come back to school and get their degrees at a later date. Also, our soccer team has such great academics that I don't think the NCAA would be able to do much. The Zips GPA was one of the highest in the country in their sport. I believe everybody leaving is in good academic standing. It won't hurt us all that much. Besides that, college soccer doesn't have that many scholarships to take away in the first place. Most of our players get by on various types of academic scholarships and parental support, which the NCAA is powerless to take away.