ZachTheZip

Ives called akron's quarter of the bracket "tougher and deeper than the entire opposite bracket (Louisville and Maryland combined).

3rd seed? Meh. We'll just blast our way through anyone they put in front of us.

Whoever we draw would be the winner of a first-round game.

CMU Athletics notices a Zips fan at the Rainbow Classic and feels it important enough to mention in today's pre-game notebook.

Is it because AC/DC is from Australia, like Zippy?

Hopefully they'll be good ones...and if you know the people that make them and/or arena people, please tell them Thunderstruck is not a basketball song lol They should play the original intro music from NBA JAM. That always gets me pumped up for basketball!

That'll teach me not to trust ESPN's mobile site. It showed Dayton as 1-0 with their last game being against UNC as a home game. Still, Dayton is extremely tough at home. Aaaaanyway, here is the Flyers' message board.

The Zips get their first true test on tuesday. Dayton is tough at home. To give you an idea just how tough, they just beat UNC there by double digits. That might set them up for a letdown after being so hyped up for their opener. Or it might mean we're in for a tougher time than anyone thought.

The athletic Depatment. They are in panic mode down there right now. There have been numerous meetings with other department heads in the last 2 weeks trying to come up with some way to get the students to come to another home game. The students are putting their college education to good use and seeing that this team isn't worth watching even if it's free. There's nothing the Athletic Department can do to change that.

He looked great. Another player we should look into for the future is that LB from Buchtel. I think his name is Odin. Marlon Oden. Ricky Powers (Buchtel's HC) is very high on him. iCoach should be trying to become best friends with Ricky Powers. Anyway, I tried to look Marlon up on Rivals.com but the Football Recruiting page wasn't loading for me. Oden got an article in the ABJ today. Their coach is really trying to sell the kid for recruiting. http://www.ohio.com/sports/107412163.html He doesn't understand why Oden isn't well known. I can answer that for him. It's normally the high school coaches who talk to their contacts to get kids listed on recruiting pages, unless the kid is such a standout that they find him anyway. Powers never did that with Oden, so he doesn't show up anywhere and therefor doesn't have the hype that causes schools to come looking for him. I wonder if we were trying to recruit him but Powers pushed us away because we're not "anybody" and he only considers the Big Ten as worthy of recruiting. I know certain City Series coaches have done that to their students in the past. I don't know if Powers is one of them, though. I find it hard to imagine that we're not interested in a kid right on our doorstep who plays in our own stadium where the coaches can watch from their luxury suite if he's really that good.

Begins today with the Zips facing buffalo. There was a veritable army of groundskeepers on the field today equipped with everything from leaf blowers to those broom-and-pale things janitors use. They seemes to be primarily focused on drying out the field, which is strange because it hasn't really rained recently.

Is this like The Price is Right? Predict the Zips score without going over? I call 118. Millikin scores 38, most of that in the late second half after we send out the freshmen and walk-ons.

Deji's signing is confirmed via gozios.com press release. That should complete the 2011 class barring something unforeseen happening, but given recent history that's certainly a possibility.

Most likely it's Deji Ibitayo. Our two other 2011 recruits are already on campus as greyshirts.

I'll reveal what I know. I know that we're winless with only two games to go. I know that we have a coach who the players hate and who resents his players. I know that our coordinators don't know how to call plays. I know that our position coaches have made the players at their positions worse than they were last year. I know that the athletic director doesn't care about the few hardcore fans that remain. I know that Akron will not be able to sell any football tickets next year. And I know that absolutely none of this bothers the AD or head coach.

Cool. I guess the fax came in late. A lot of schools had their signees announced before 3:00 PM.

Why would he take the pay cut? Last I checked, $350k is more than $0. But if we really wanted to be actually competitive in attracting a coach compared to better than the bottom half of the MAC and Sunbelt, we would need to pay a new head coach $500k at the bare minimum.

Out of the three, Leach would be my choice. His transgression seems like the least serious and it seems like his firing was more the result of a vendetta against him. His team are fun to watch, no matter the score. But if we had to start over, I would want Rob Ryan from the Browns as the coach.

Doesn't look like we're getting any early signees.

That drop is a result of playing Hartwick. They were rated so low that our SOS plummeted.

While eating a Stromboli in the Student Union this afternoon, I turned around and saw Zippy standing right behind me. She was handing out flyers for the Milikin game, mentioning this promotion. So yes, they are marketing it. To students, even! I love seeing Zippy out and about among the students.

Dambrot has said that the veteran players are much further ahead than the newcomers. If that's the case, he might rest the upperclassmen to get ready for Dayton while using this game to develop the newcomers. An extra game of film helps tremendously for getting them ready while also not spoiling anything to the opponent when Dayton prepares for us.

I think it's in preparation for going all-out next year. Next year is supposed to be the year. Not that this year won't be a great year; I think we go dancing this year. But next year Zeke reaches his potential according to Dambrot's plan and our two transfers and two greyshirts all become eligible to contribute and some of them are supposed to have "high-major" talent. I don't think a redshirt would benefit Egner. He seems to be the kind of guy who needs to actually play to develop. Same with Green. Euton and Abreu are ready to go immediately so why sit them? And even if they only contribute a few minutes a game in the regular season, they become invaluable during the tournament where depth is crucial. These guys would start immediately as true freshmen for at least half the MAC teams. - Edit: It might also be a plan in the event of an outgoing transfer resulting from the logjam of forwards we have. If one of the players transfers but didn't redshirt then they don't lose a year of eligibility when they sit out because they can call that year their redshirt year. It's a way of being respectful of the player if they leave by not having just wasted a year and helps them leave on more amicable terms.

We have 10 verbals thus far for the 2011 class.

I was curious who was asked to leave or who left on their own from the football team. Looking at the roster comparing this year and last year, here is who is no longer listed. As far as freshmen go, I don't know if some of them never became eligible or if they were here and then quit. If anyone knows where these players went, feel free to fill in the blanks. Freshmen: WR Mike Bizzarro - Quit before season RB Giorgio Bowers - Quit mid-season WR El'Rico Jones RB Tamir Turpin Sophomores: DE Ben Bertsch WR Nadir Brown RB Nate Cope DE Abdullah Homayed DL Derek Johnston DB Thomas Miller TE Joe Petrides LB Nate Schuler RB Norman Shuford - Transferred RB DeVoe Torrence - Quit before season OL Joe Vidovic QB Jared Wackerly LB DeAngelo Williams Juniors: P Eric Lee LB DaVon Moore DL Joe Rash WR Shawn Roberts LB Aaron Williams Seniors: DB Tyler Campbell RB LeVon Morefield - Quit mid-season TE Mike Polinski LB Viktor Rajek WR Richard Sandilands OL Jason Sekinger