ZachTheZip

Recruiting the past two or three years is light-years ahead of what it was before then in terms of talent. Fact is, we're still about two years away development-wise from being where we want to be and we won the MAC East because more than one team choked against us, as MAC East teams tend to do. We're not there yet, but we are headed in the right direction. Anybody that thinks this program has stalled hasn't been paying attention.

They're literally losing coaches in the middle of this bowl game.

Well now we know what he was doing instead of utilizing his extra practices these past few weeks.

There's enough soccer fans on this board and at UA in general that a Rocket League team could do reasonably well. For the old-timers, Rocket League is soccer, but with cars instead of players. Matches are fast-paced and the acrobatics on display can get pretty crazy.

Akron's focus on STEM and the recent accreditation of the Computer Information Systems program really play into this. There's actually been a demand for something like this on campus. And before I hear anybody saying that this isn't sports: If Poker can get primetime spots on ESPN, then eSports like League of Legends or Smash belong there too. They're more fun to watch, at any rate. eSports is far bigger both by audience size and by financial measures than sports like golf or tennis.

Very young. Looks like they're hoping for a PJ Fleck-type hire, but these kinds of gambles end up being a bust more often than not.

http://cbs12.com/sports/content/more-than-a-few-zips-feeling-right-at-home-for-boca-raton-bowl

Before that law was put in place, ISPs were considered Title I under the communications act of 1934. But then they challenged in court that the FCC had no authority over them under that classification, and won. So the NN law was passed to classify ISPs as common carriers of telecommunications under Title II. That is what was repealed. So yes, the internet was fine before it passed, but it wouldn't have remained fine because the ISPs had just established in court that they didn't have to treat their customers communications equally. They essentially were about to become a set of regionally exclusive Ma Bells thanks to regional monopoly rights granted to them by state governments in recent years. The only way it would continue to work as it had in the past is if they were classified as common carriers, or if the federal government were to eliminate the states' (and municipalities in cases where the states haven't yet enacted them) rights to create monopolistic contracts with single corporations. NN was the solution to preserve the internet as it had been before the court cases without trampling state rights. And now it's gone, pending a handful of legal challenges that will be interesting to follow as they dig through the FCC's mandated public comment gathering phase looks to have been rigged and abused from both sides, which could invalidate the entire thing since it was based on false information.

QB Swift Lyle from Mobile, AL is rated four stars on ESPN now. Here is ESPN's list of uncommitted players reporting interest from Akron.

Apparently our program is so well known that we're getting a futbol stadium named after us in Guadalajara.

The Browns are rumored to be in the market for an offensive coordinator...

Man, 247Sports is really behind on keeping up with Zips verbal commitments. They're missing at least half of the ones we know about here on Zipsnation.

If those protections are already in place, I would be in agreement that the NN laws are not necessary. But they are not in place. There is no protection against selective throttling, paywalls for tiered content (think cable TV bundles for different genres of channels), code injection (where an ISP hijacks your web packets to insert or alter the information as they see fit), or back-end peering extortion (see Comcast charging Netflix to be streamed to their customers, even though both the customers and Netflix already pay their own ISPs to connect to the internet and transmit data across the backbone networks). And so what if the public cries out? What are they gonna do? Switch to some other ISP? Even though they only have one in their area? Where will they cry out? Not the internet, because without NN the ISP can inspect their data and filter out anything that criticizes them from reaching its destination. Regulation isn't the answer, eliminating geographic monopolies and allowing new ISPs to come in and compete is the real answer, but without NN, the existing mega-copr ISPs like Comcast and Verizon are now allowed to charge whatever they want if the other startup ISPs want to let their customers access websites that are on the big boys' networks. And so now without NN to enforce all packets as equal regardless of source, destination, or contents, the big ISPs can price out any new competition that tries to enter the market. NN isn't perfect, but it is a solution to allow new competition to enter the market. And now it's going away, without anything to fix the problem it is meant to circumvent. And if you think there are remedies to prevent ISPs from circumventing or throttling traffic, you're wrong. Dead wrong. The big companies have incredible resources at their disposal, and configuring something like packet filtering or DNS redirection on their big routers is trivial. A VPN won't protect you, since they can just gouge prices to connect to all known VPN IP addresses. Perhaps you would be inclined to speak with some of the professors at UA's Computer Information Systems program in the Polsky Building. They're easy to contact and all of them have years of industry experience working in computer networking.

NN didn't have anything to do with ISPs moving into under-served markets. But you're severely missing the point of what I'm saying. The internet is essential for participation in society and the economy. And the fact that there is only one choice for many people to connect to the internet, means that there needs to be some protection for those people to prevent ISPs from arbitrarily blocking certain parts of the internet or from performing certain actions. A choice of another ISP to connect to (you know, competition in a free market) would be that protection, but that choice doesn't exist for much of the American population. And so the NN rules were created so that ISPs could not prohibit internet traffic from any website. That's what was just repealed. If anything NN helps small websites, independent blogs, local businesses, and so forth, because the ISPs were forbidden from signing exclusivity agreements with large corporations to direct web traffic only to those companies that can afford to pay off the ISPs. Your stance is completely backwards. What is it you think NN does, in your own words? Not linking me to some blogger's idea or posting a copies wall of text. What do you think?

What free market, Hilltopper? There is not a free market for ISPs. In a free market this would self-regulate, but for vast swaths of America there is only one ISP for people to choose from. People living outside cities are not at the mercy of their one choice of a company that connects them to the world, that allows them to find work and conduct business with anyone beyond their own town. You can't even get a fast food job without applying online anymore.

How many players on our roster are from the south Florida region, again? I feel like it's a lot. Second only to Akron-area players.

That letter has been making the rounds on the internet with various university letterheads edited onto it since the days of AOL. Some memes never die. Some get so old that a new generation discovers it and finds the joke to be fresh all over again.

http://www.rpiforecast.com/teams/Akron.html "Current SOS: 301"

I don't agree with it being such a huge loss for App State since they were underdogs in the first place, but I do agree that the Zips should not get too full of themselves. Our schedule has been absolutely horrendous. Our current Strength of Schedule is ranked about 300 out of 350. Yes, it's good that we've won more than we've lost, but it's difficult to tell anything since we lost to the only team with a pulse on the schedule so far (Dayton, who is playing at the level of a top-end MAC team so far).

Considering how many transfers are waiting until next year to play for them, it makes sense.

Bottom line: You lose your right to complain about your bowl match-up once you have a loss to Buffalo on your record.

With any luck, Kiffin gets hired to coach Tennessee some time next week.

Yeah the Camellia Bowl is all but confirmed. Bowden's press conference will be starting shortly.

This isn't really the place to discuss basketball, but I don't see Ivey thriving under Groce. I see a player who is being pushed to be the do-it-all star player, and he's trying but isn't comfortable in that role. His numbers are being forced, either by himself or by the design of the coach, and I don't think it's sustainable. I think there's going to be a breakdown somewhere in a month or two.