ZachTheZip

The stadium is nowhere near downtown Akron. It is right next to the Akron-Fulton Airport on the outskirts of the city. The entrance is at the corner of US Route 224 and State Route 241. There's a large field there for tailgating, with plenty of space.As for after the game, there are a few bars in downtown like the Barley House, the Ohio Brewing Company, and more. Some of the others here know more about the bar scene than myself.

The only way to beat them is to force them to make mistakes on offense. Confuse some players, and create turnovers.

Don't forget to watch out for MiQuale Lewis, their RB.Ball State has the whole package on offense. The only way to win is to hope for an interception or two, and to make sure the offense keeps scoring touchdowns. We might not be able to afford to settle for a FG.Here's a good write-up about the match-up.

I'm PUMPED for this game. Be noisy on Defense! It's their first time away from the safe confines of their own stadium.

I'll be too busy celebrating a Zips win to care about some teams playing 2000 miles away.

Some extremely sneaky form of product placement?

http://msn.foxsports.com/cfb/teamReport?ca...egyAndPersonnelFoxsports.com says that Lively is OUT for Saturday. Bain's status is unknown.

A few teams from the basketball league will move up. Some teams added mostly for market value (this is our best chance), and Memphis/ECU to add some more competitiveness.

That could very well be the case, BUT if I knew that one of my key players WAS able (not saying Ryan is) to return to action I'm not sure I would let this information out by simply putting him back on a depth chart that is accessible to the public. I have to think that his return this week is highly doubtful, but I'll wait until tomorrow when (I thought anyway) the injury report will come out. On a related note, I found a site that has injury reports for all FBS teams.Injury ReportsI had another thought earlier this week. Does anyone know if Bain has a red-shirt year left? I'd be the 1st to say how disappointing it would be to not have him be able to play at all this year, but if the season moves along and the Zips are at least playing 0.500 ball without him, maybe it'd make sense to hold him back for 2 years in the Info. Just a thought.He used his RS year last year for his transfer year.His injury must be worse that we were led to believe. I remember at one point there was talk of him playing at Wisci.Then I wonder if he'd be able to apply for a "medical hardship" which can effectively get you two red-shirt years. Maybe if the injury is well documented, he may have a good case for a 6th year of eligibility?We're jumping to conclusions. The injury report isn't listed until Thursday. Since Bain was listed as doubtful for Syracuse, he won't appear on the depth chart until his condition is upgraded on the injury report. We'll know for sure tomorrow.

Rasor's Blog has the latest changes to the depth chart up. There are a couple of interesting moves happening before the Ball State game.http://www.ohiomm.com/blogs/zips/2008/09/a...g-running-back/AA being named the starting RB is surprising. He has been solid, but I thought Dennis Kennedy played better overall the past two games. I don't think this will change our game much, and DK and Andrew Johnson will still take plenty handoffs.Our DL just keeps getting thinner and thinner. Andrew Johnson is replacing Andre Jones as the secondary Kick Returner, since Jones is so busy doing everything else.

Last week there weren't any MAC teams on there at all. Of course, when the inevitable happened and the MAC returned to the list, it's not surprising which team ended up on it.

Alright! Now the Zips just have to take care of business this weekend. It's going to be impossible to swap places with Wake Forest unless we remain undefeated and they lose a game.

That's just awesome.

Akron won because they were the better team. It's pretty simple.The NY media isn't willing to wrap their heads around that, the the only way we will be able to get them to do so is to keep winning. Beat Ball State, don't screw up against Army, and then take your momentum back home and take out another Big East school in Cinci. Beating Cinci is our last real chance at a major win in the regular season, and the last chance at gaining media exposure beyond a few blogs and angry columnists.Winning against Ball State is crucial. It starts us off with a win in the MAC, it builds momentum after beating Syracuse, it opens the home games with a win, and it shows that we are a real contender.

This "new low" buzzword is taking over the entire Fingers Lakes region. If you do a Google Search with +Akron +Syracuse +"new low" you will get an estimated FOUR THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY HITS!!! I sure hope the Zips' performances the rest of the year make all of these jokers eat their words Just wait until they lose to Northeastern. This will be looked upon as a high point pretty soon.Anyways, a lot of 'Cuse fans keep pointing to our pre-season rankings in their embarrassment, which we all know are complete bull.

Gozips.com has our game against FAU listed as a conference game. A quick check on the MAC website confirms it: FAU is now a MAC member in men's soccer.Why? Why pay the travel expenses for a non-revenue sport? Why send your team north to play teams like Buffalo and Akron in the snow? Why even have the sport if it creates problems for Title IX and you can't find a closer conference to play in?

Yeah, I know. The Zips just finished stunning Syracuse and I'm already talking about Ball State? Well, yes. There's not much time to celebrate a win if you want to be prepared for the next game.It's time to open the final season at the Rubber Bowl, and also the MAC season. We couldn't have received a tougher MAC opponent than this one, the way their playing right now. Ball State has an extra day to rest and they seem to be unstoppable on offense. We do have a few advantages, though.We are starting out as 7-point underdogs, but I don't buy it. This is BSU's first road game of the year, and there should be a decent crowd on hand after our televised and publicized win. Not to mention the "last chance to see a game at the RB" factor that should help us draw a few extra fans throughout the season. I really think we have the offense to keep up with them, especially if the kick-returning is as good as last week. The defense, which has looked pretty bad, should have a better day, thanks to us finally facing an offense that the 3-3-5 was designed to handle. Nate Davis likes to throw. A lot. We have 5 DBs who have played decent when they got the chance. Having an injured lineman back would help greatly, as well.If the crowd is into it, I think we can pull it out.This is the first real chance to prove the pre-season picks wrong. We were expected to beat Syracuse, but not win any MAC games. I know they're wrong, but now we can show them.

It's just about the only thing they actually are good at. This defense is very young: the DL was made up of freshmen and Mondo the past two weeks, the entire secondary is new from last year, and the linebackers are having trouble picking up the slack. Every game they should improve somewhat. I'm hoping that having the secondary play two games without getting really tested will allow them to work out the bugs before we face Nate Davis and his impossibly good passing game.

A question for anyone who was there: What's your guess for attendance? SU says it was officially 31,000. What I saw on TV looked more like 3,100.

Analysis, jubilation, and random thoughts can go here.First off, I'm glad we won. We need a strong showing in the non-conference schedule because the MAC is apparently much tougher than last year.Our offense is now our strength. if there was anything I could find wrong about it, it would be the O-line not opening holes.Defense, well, lets just say that we're lucky that Ball State doesn't run the ball too much.http://www.ohio.com/news/break_news/27957159.htmlStory link. A good thing has happened at ohio.com! unregistered trolls can no longer post comments!

Everybody lost. Hopefully we can break that trend. CMU sure won't.

It should only get better as the day goes on. Lots of close games, but grabbing a win here or there would be nice.

I'm not going to be able to make it, but if I could, I would head up there early just to see the looks on the faces of all the Buckeye fans.

Yes! There are people on here who don't want to root for the Bobcats because they fear what benefits a win over OSU would have for them, but I will tell you right now that OSU losing a game to a MAC school will have more immediate and long-term benefits for us than if OU loses. We are more than 100 miles from OSU, and so their hold on the market is a bit weaker than it is in Athens. Anything to shake up the fan base around here, who live on the geographical fringe, is of benefit to us.

The MAC is looking strong so far. Ball State started it with a solid win over Navy last night, and now the rest of the MAC also looks like they're stepping up.We really need a win today to keep pace. Right now I would say that the MAC, as a whole, is a better conference than the ACC or Big East.