ZachTheZip

Wow. That's a lot of money. What to do with half a billion dollars? We could start by getting professors that speak english. If we still have money left over, we should invest in more graduate-level programs. If UA is northern Ohio's main research campus, shouldn't we have a doctorate program of some kind?

I just finished putting in 300 votes this evening, but I can't oppose the combined voting of 11 (or 12 if you include those idiot Can't fans). It's just too much. We can bounce back, but it will take a massive combined effort. I'll keep voting after I ice my knuckles and fingertips.

Still down by 613. I've done all I can for tonight with myself and my "friends" voting 300 times. I'm done. It's up to you guys now. I'm lucky I have tonight off from work. Normally I would never get the chance to do so much.

Zippy's fighting back. Down by 615.

Down by 704. I'm battling and I'm about to run out of votes. Time to whip up some more names. I know we're all bummed out about saturday's loss, but we'll be even more bummed out if Zippy loses. The difference is that we have to power to make sure that doesn't happen.

Down by 752. This could get ugly.

Just put in another batch of votes. Zippy is DOWN by 550! Vote now while you wait for the Indians game to start, and vote inbetween each inning. We could end up in a hole that's too deep to get out of if we slack off.By the end of the day, I plan to vote at least 226 times (me and my friends Uakronkid1, Uakronkid2, Uakronkid3, ect. but the list grows daily) but that isn't enough to overcome this hole. Come on! This is OUR chance to make ourselves heard. We constantly complain about the lack of attention that UA gets, well now we have a chance to do something about it and we are just sitting back and watching as our favorite mascot is slipping and our greatest chance to prove to the community who doesn't care, the university who has no faith in us, and the world that has no idea we exist that we care.

I never said that I was afraid that we would go back to 1-AA. I don't want to be put on suspension by the NCAA. It's extremley bad press and it's embarassing. It will give the stadium naysayers more ammo.The only thing good that might come of it would be that it would force the athletic department to realise that they have to do something NOW, not just go "wait until the stadium is done" and then just assume that will fix all our problems. We need to revive the ACME-Zip games or do something along those lines, like sell tickets at every grocery and department store in Akron for the minimum price (I think it's 2/3 of face value to be counted by NCAA rules).

JD says that he has fixed (for the most part; There will always be athletes not willing to do their schoolwork) the recruiting problem and his latest class reflects that. JD can't move ahead until he maked Akron better than he left it. So far, all of the improvements have relied heavily on sheer luck. And we have been very lucky, but luck can fail. It failed on Saturday, and it will fail again because it is unreliable. Hopefully JD has recognised that. The one thing that can almost completely remove luck from the equation is hard work and never giving up. We gave up against Temple when we had the lead. Akron is not OSU. We have to run the score up on lesser opponents, not sit on our leads. Score 100 points if it is possible. Just don't sit there and say "well, that's good enough. We don't need to work anymore." Competitors know that no matter what you do, it is never good enough and you should never be satisfies until it's all completely over. Joe Moorhead is not a competitor. He runs the offense just good enough to maybe get a win, but never puts it out of reach or attempts to make sure that no matter what the defense does that we will win this. Each part of the game should play their absolute best regardless of what the other units do. If the D is getting a shutout, the offense should not coast because the other team can't score. If the O is getting 50+ points a game, the D shouldn't relax. The Special teams should always try to pin the opponent deep regardless of the score, and should always try to return it for a TD. That is what competitors do. They have the will to always play to win. Never let up. I just don't see that from our offense, which is causing our D (which has a lot more competitive spirit than the O) to wear down to the point that they just can't play anymore. I'm not even going to touch our punting problem, but the resto of the special teams is really coming along. JD needs to focus much more on the offense next. Put Moorhead in charge of Special teams and let JD do what he was brought in to do: be an offensive guru.

http://www.ohio.com/news/top_stories/10543197.htmlApparently, they have not yet completed the architectural designs yet. Ground-breaking will be in January (good luck breaking through the Ohio permafrost )There are mostly residences that still need to be purchased, no mention of any businesses. They are already constructing the parts of the stadium that they know are in the plans, so it should go up un sections and be pre-built. It just needs to be shipped here and put together, kind of like a puzzle.

JD isn't going anywhere until his contract runs out. UA can't afford to buy him out and find a replacement.That said, Morehead has to go. I don't necessicarily mean to fire him, but he can't stay in his current position. JD has fixed our special teams, except for punting. He should at least partly focus on the offense next. He was an offensive coordinator, after all. Our offense, coupled with our punting has caused our opponents to start out with excellent field position constantly. It is wearing out our defense.

We were incredibly lucky to have two high-profile "home" events this year in the Patriot Bowl and the Can't State game. Hopefully they should inflate our average a bit to keep us above that 15,000 mark.

Let's fire this thing up. OK. First up is Jacquemain. He looked lost all game. He did have less mistakes than last game, but he was still holding on to the ball too long and still tried to run it way too much. (A hint: You're no CJ, Chris).Next is the defensive scheme in the 4th quarter. They were in "prevent" for the whole time. That's right, prevent. Whoever made that decision needs to be fired.Also, QUIT THROWING SCREEN PASSES!!! They don't work with our players and our offense. Running out the clock and then giving the ball back to your opponent is stupid in a one score game. If they score, you have no time to come back. Kind of like what WMU did last week. Can't you learn from your opponents and not repeat their mistakes?

Make it 35-0 at halftime. We held them to just a field goal during the same time. Just more proof that

Games like this are a joke anyways. There's no reason to treat it any differently than what it really is, or to obscure the truth. It's being played for money, not for the competition. At least Doug understands that.JD played his starters because we had a real shot to win with the way our defense played. Can't has no shot whatsoever and gets the money regardless of whether its a blowout, so why even bother?

I suggest that you e-mail this to Fingerhut, Strickland, and everyone in between. At least change their minds or get them thinking. Unless, of course, their goal is to screw every other state university and run them in to the ground so that the only good one left is OSU so that they can get even more money than they get now...

Right now the East is a toss up between Akron, Buffalo, Miami, and BGSU. We'll see how everything works out over this week and next week. My guess is that a lot of things will fall our favor. I have the feeling that this team has something special that we have never had before, they are able to will themselves to victory.

You know, as much as I hate to say it, merging with Can't would be a better idea. It would create a super school that we could call NEOU-East and NEOU-West. East would be a liberal arts school and West would be the engineering/law/business ect. school. We could pull in mega bucks for research and finally compete with OSU for state funds on an even ground. Plus it's less of a drive.

Why doesn't somebody put up a compilation of all the times we have been screwed by MAC refs? It would put their whining to shame. Maybe the ABJ or something, since our athletic department has more class than that.Every team gets screwed pretty much equally. The MAC doesn't hold its refs accountable for anything until the school complains about it. If I were Mack, I would have requested that the idiot who ran the time clock during the basketball tournament be banned from ever managing the clock at another MAC game. I'm sure that I would be called a whiner from Miami fans and the rest of the MAC as well. But that was a worse debacle than anything that the Broncos are whining about.

Yeah I suspect they plan to make CSU a regional UA campus like Wayne (although much, much larger), but every time I hear about it, I just think "why?"Some people have talked about putting all of the public universities under one entity, I suspect they're trying to get the ball rolling.Do you really think that they will allow Cleveland to lose it's university? The people up there won't allow it, and would consider it an insult to be made a branch campus of such an "inferior" school. You know as well as I do that they believe that CSU is twice as large as our little commuter school / communitty college. It's funny, because the Cleveland press is really pushing this idea along, but you kno that they will be the first to complain when they realise that UA is going to be the one to benefit, and CSU may be eliminated or absorbed.

You should read their message boards. They're almost as whiny as Can't fans.So... Where are all of our apologies we are owed from last basketball season?

This is the game for the offense to finally wake up. They've been tested by more than their fair share of good teams leading up to now. Here's hoping that one of our other WRs gets a chance to show us what he is made of.The defense needs to last just one more game before the bye week. I know they're tired, but the offense should make sure that they have plenty of rest this time.Put Temple away and then rest up for a much improved Buffalo team in two weeks.

Wow. Just wow.You know that the conference won't do anything about it until the teams and coaches start complaining more.

Just voted again. Zippy down by 98. Our race is the only one that is even remotely close. This really is the toughest test we will face. Everybody, and I mean everybody, is trying to knock us off. It's a testament to Zippy's fans that she's the only winning mascot that's not getting completely blown out.

The International Bowl is the only bowl I am opposed to the Zips playing in. How many people are willing to get passports to watch the Zips play a game in Canada in the winter?