ZachTheZip

The second deck will be put in after the stuff underneath is finished (consessions, restrooms, etc.). As I understand, it was pre-formed and should simply be set into place when ready.

We were very lucky to have beaten Can't with the way we played. We had every oppurtunity in the world to beat Cinci and BG, but both games were blown due to a combination of stupid mistakes by the coaches, offense, and defense.

What I want to see happen is the Zips break the pattern of L W L W L W L that we currently have. That means winning at EMU and then winning against Toledo.This team is so up and down it's driving me crazy. Winning games we shouldn't have, losing games we could have won, I can't take it.

As I was walking to class today, I noticed something awesome: a huge steel beam sitting in the new Coleman Commons outside of the Student Union and Buchtel Hall. There were signs up next to it, encouraging students to sign the beam with a permanent marker. The beam will apparently be used in the new stadium. Possibly in a visible location (it was painted white, like the visible beams in the renderings of the concession stands and entrance). Bring your own Sharpie and write your name/message on the stadium!This is a great, and highly visible, piece of marketing to get the students involved. We need more stuff like this.I wish I has a camera with me. Maybe some one here has one and would like to put up some pics.

The best way to affect your seed beyond the RPI is to win big to affect your standing in the polls. That means that people need to come out and support the team big time. I'll be at all the remaining home games, plus the one at OSU. I hope to see everybody there.

Let them play football in the same league as YSU. They can't play down a division, so 1-AA would be the best option to start a team.

No way they join the MAC. We have too many teams in Ohio as it is, and the recent trend is for the MAC to expand into major Eastern cities (Buffalo, Philadelphia).If you're talking basketball, the only reason we would expand would be to get Temple to join, and I doubt CSU would cause them to come over.

In an 3-man front, you need BETTER players than in a 4-man front. If the reason we play the 3-3-5 is because we can't get good DL players, then somebody's really got things backwards.

Great discussion! Sure we should be 6-2, but we were not able to make one or two more plays in the UC or BG game that would have made us 6-2. Who is happy with mediocrity? But we are what we are!!! 3-4!How should we demand excellence? Who should do the demanding? What does this mean? In the end, you get what you pay for! UA's football program has been so poorly supported by the community and we have about the worst alumni base in D1 that you cannot really expect much more than what we got. I wish it was different, but until the alumni pony up and support the Z fund, attend games and buy tickets, I'm not sure how we can demand excellence when we don't give it.People support the athletic programs by going to the games and buying overpriced concessions, donating to the Z-fund, and doing the whole grass-roots thing like the Facebook applications. We do all we can to try and make our favorite teams better. We have rich alumni that contribute and buy us field houses and soccer stadiums, and we have the backing of fortune-500 businesses. We have world-famous athletes that go out of their way to give us support. We showed more support than any other fanbase in the country when Zippy became the greatest mascot of all time. Should we be doing more? I don't think we can do any more than what we already have done and continue to do. The only way we can do more is to get more fans. The only way we get more fans is by the athletic programs to respond to what they already have and use that to grow into something more. It's out of our hands.

For the 1,000,000th time, there is not NCAA attendance requirement.The discounted tickets (free) were a problem because they trained the people of Akron to think it should be free to go to a Zips game.There is an attendance requirement imposed on FBS schools. Essentially, the school must have an average attendance of more than 15,000 every other year.But you are entirely correct about training people to think that Zips games should be free. It's absurd for people to complain about having to pay $15 ($12 for the ticket, $3 for parking) to see a division I-A football team.

We don't need a new head coach. JD has accomplished more in his career here than any coach since John Heisman.What we need is a change in the playcalling philosophy. Our coordinators currently call the plays, not JD, ad you can see that they sometimes get it perfect and other times look like they are calling plays designed for the wrong type of talent than what is on the field (don't do trick plays when you have power running package, don't run sideways when none of the receivers are blocking, etc.).It's too late in the season to change our schemes now. What can be done, however, is sticking to what works. Don't do ultra-conservative with a few dumb trick plays the moment we have a lead in order to "protect" it (read: blow the game). Just keep doing what got you the lead in the first place. So what if we blow someone out? This is the highest level of college football, you don't need to keep a score close just to "respect" the other team.We do make in-game adjustments, but they tend to move away from what worked and towards untested-against-the-current-opponent schemes. It rarely works out.

I understand why somebody could object to having that kind of thing during football games (I still think we need to train our fans to be loud on defense and quiet on offense). You can't argue that it would be perfect for basketball games in the JAR, though.

I have noticed a reduction of high snaps over the course of the season, but they still happen occasionally and still lead to mistakes.

I don't even know if Hixon will play after getting hurt last week.I will be rooting for the Giants, for multiple reasons. Former Zips for one reason, and because the Browns need to be embarrassed one last time before the administration grows some balls and puts an end to the power struggle going on between the coaches and management.

I really hate the MAC for doing this to us. All because we might get the game picked up by ESPNU or something. Screw TV for this game. It's the last game EVER at this stadium that has seen so much history, and you need to be there to say farewell, not just see it from your couch.

i love willie, and whenever he gets on the mic i get goosebumps. he's got the right voice for it. the thing is all 4th quarter bgsu fans were way louder than us which may or may not have helped their rally. i also loved how willie called out everybody who was already heading out the door even before the game was over.Will is one of the most passionate Zips fans you will ever see. He can inspire fans like no other.

Just because we were picked to finish last by a bunch of morons who don't follow the team doesn't mean that we should settle for being average just to "prove them wrong". This team had a chance to take control of the East and they let it get away.

The coaching staff has to take most of the blame for this one.We still had a timeout at the end of the game. We desperately needed to use it on that last drive, but for some absurd reason, they let the clock keep running. The offensive playcalling started off great, but as the game wore on it became too conservative and gimmicky. If our ultra-conservative stuff didn't work we resorted to trick plays. The defense never changed schemes to compensate for BG's attack. We went into a sort of prevent D late in the game, while BG does best throwing short passes. They ate us alive on those plays and we never brought the defenders forward.

Akron has the wrong mindset to win games. As soon as they get some kind of lead, they go ultra-conservative until they are forced to act. It almost always lets the other team back into the game and more often than not it backfires and we lose a game we should have won. It's a losing mentality that a lead, no matter how small, is so precious that we shouldn't try anything that might change the score.I don't care if we're up by 1 point or 21 points, you keep extending the lead. It's not bad sportsmanship, it's winning. Until the playcallers figure this out, we'll always see games we should have won slip through our fingers.

What I hate the most is that we still had a timeout at the end of the game. Why didn't we use it?

It's not Jacq, it's our offensive playcalling which is just bizarre. Not to mention the 3-3-5 failing once again.But more than the playcalling, it's entirely mental. We fell into the "OMG we are winning! Don't do anything to screw up!" mindset, which always manages to do exactly what it is supposed to prevent. You NEVER sit on a lead, and you ALWAYS try to extend it, unless it's a blowout. It's a loser's mentality, and it infests our coaching staff's minds, and its symptoms are manifesting in our playcalling and defeatist attitude.

Put some of that stuff on our receivers' hands.

I'm not worried about playing them at all. Both teams tried their hardest to lose that game. Rich Rodriguez simply screwed up more.

Woo! Good to see!

im guessing that you are probably right. Though from what i read it said that "The opening weekend with two first rounds has already showed, that some teams have succeeded signing decent foreigner(American) players, but then there are players who are out of shape or don't belong into top level of Finnish Basketball. Kataja (Joensuu) is one Team,that is satisfied with Jeremiah Wood..."that seems like a shot at Wood. Or is it just their bad english?I think it's a bad translation. It sounds like they are saying that Kataja was one of the teams that signed a decent player, as opposed to other Finnish teams.The way he is putting up numbers, there's no way they could say he is out of shape or doesn't belong at the top level.