72 Roo

What is the fascination (or crap) with some folks on this board who have seemingly bought into the company line that Ianello is a great recruiter so he will someday save us? Someone posts that Ianello has landed a great recruit out of DC, so with our facilities and incoming talent he implies a turnaround is coming. Are you so blind that you can't see he can not coach! 0-8, soon to be 0-9 after Temple, points to his effectiveness. We are not devoid of talent now and the reality of our situation is that Ianello has mis-used and brought it down, not built it up. In no phase of the game are we getting better after 12 weeeks of training under him. Be as optimistic as you can, but base it on reality. Not unsubstantiated hope. As someone wisely said before, "Hope is not a strategy." Our program can't get better until we admit reality. Primarily that rests on the shoulders of TW and Dr. P. They won't act if they think we will accept this humiliation. Akron is currently ranked #120 out of 120 D1 programs.

I heard 6 members of the football team left sometime during last week. The source usually knows what he is talking about. Can anyone confirm it with the names? I'm sure this is the time that rumors run wild, but the iCoach has created this pathetic mess. I don't, for a minute, blame the fans.

Zone, Zip and Timmy...... You guys are right on. In fact, I think you guys love Akron football more than the Ianello apologists who say support the program by blindly following incompetent leadership. They will never make this program better. Your challenges to the direction of the program will. You are pressing for accountability, not false hope. There is no evidence this program will get better. Hello! We are 0-7 with no growth or estblishment of the foundations for winning in the future. That is unacceptable. You are expected to win with other people's talent. It's called coaching. It's want you are paid to do. You are also expected to change the culture of mediocrity. Not make it so pathetic that we are praying to finsih with 2 or 3 wins. Is recruiting really going to save us? Look at who we have verbals from right now. None have had firm offers from Big East schools or lower level Big Ten. We are beating out I-AA's and low level MAC teams. No world beaters here. What about the accepted rule in D-1 football that freshmen need to redshirt to get bigger and develop the maturity needed to handle the grind of D-1 football. That means his recruits are two years away. Is our brilliant staff going to save us? Let's see.... almost everyone that Ianello has hired was fired before coming to Akron. None came from winning programs. They didn't know how to win before and they don't know how to coach to win now. Our athletes have tuned the staff out. Do they play like they respect their position coaches? Hell no. Support Akron athletics? I'm all for it when we have the ability to play well and/or compete with heart (Notice no mention of winning). This program gives us neither and to throw my emotions and money down the drain backing the leadership of the program is a disservice to my alma mater. Show me you can coach, not recruit, and you've got my support. Still and soccer will be

Let's keep the focus where it belongs. Not on Mike who does a good job, but on the guy who is tasked to lead the program and produce the results. Why after 0-7 would anyone feel that next year is going to be better? Top recruits with poor leadership become bad players. That's a fact, Jack. Sorry had to work in some Stripes humor. Anyone waiting for the future is denying the present. The future is best predicted by past results. Ianello can't coach and should be fired now. There is no basis for thinking he can coach. It is just loyal fans hoping he is truly not as bad as he is. Surely it has to get better. But 0-12 is a distinct reality. It is almost impossible to fathom, but he is that bad. He has lost the support of the athletics administration staff that have to work with him due to his arrogance ala I come from ND so you better be impressed. The other coaches in the athletics dept find him intolerable. He regularly disrespects them and especially their assistants. The situation boils down to TW protecting his hire. I like TW but if he insists on supporting Ianello as the present coach, I'd fire both. This situation is intolerable and needs decisive action now. In closing consider this, last year 7,000 season tickets were sold. This year 3,000 were sold. Next year the ticket office expects 1,500. I will not be renewing my two.

People get a little too worked up about the football program here, they put way too much emphasis on it. Yeah, I understand that it supposed to be a money maker for the school and draw attention, especially with the new stadium but a MAC football team is never going to be a winner or do anything significant in the NCAA football world. Who cares if they stink? It's not and never will change, BCS football is not designed for programs like Akron and the MAC. This should be a FCS school. Put our efforts into sports that we actually have a chance in doing something with, i.e. Soccer and Basketball. Those sports can compete on the national level and have a chance at success. Im glad to see soccer get support, but the basketball team needs and deserves it way more than the football program. I know I am not renewing my tickets to the football team, there isnt even any reason to continue to go with that product on the field..pathetic. Big Zip is right and Roo is naive. The demise of our football program has already begun to affect other programs in that resources are removed or denied to them as the athletic dept pays off the debt we incurred to finance $40,000,000 in bonds to build the stadium. If private donations had never come our soccer stadium would never have been built. Basketball, or any other sport will not get anything new until football stops being a drain. Only private donations will build those programs and most donors with that kind of money are disgusted by the performance of our athletics dept, namely football. Our budget needs at least 15,000 in paid attendance to not hurt other programs. Athletic administration was hoping to get 20,000 per game with the excitement and excellent performance of Ianello-led teams. Right! Dream on! Actual fans in the stands for Gardner Webb and NIU were about 3,500. Forget about the announced attendance. Most of them didn't show and that means loss of revenue. Don't believe the situation will get better next year because we lose more seniors than we gain in quality freshman, actual or redshirt. Think about it. If you are good enough to grow this football program do you want to come to Akron and labor in a disaster that has little hope to even be mediocre? Hell no! The sad situation is that TW is committed to Ianello for this year and next. That is just enough time to wreck football and possibly drive off the other successful coaches who know they can not grow their sports with the financial drain that an Ianello-led football program is. TW needs to admit this was a bad hire and get a new coach. We would save money if we ate Ianello's contract, supposedly at $450,000 per year, and get someone in who could put butts in the stands. If not Dr. P has a hell of a problem. He may need to step in and fire both, meaning we are eating two contracts. I doubt Dr. P can afford to eat both and so I am not optimistic we have any hope for the future if we can't fire Ianello. Without change, we are looking at an athletic dept that has no money to grow. And we become more of a joke than we are now.

Thanks for the report on Sam's thoughts. I would bet he has never seen the Zips play or Ianello coach. If he had, he would see the biggest impediment to breaking our culture of losing is at the top of the football program. icoach isn't the solution. He has clearly become the problem.

Sign him up!

Big Zip and Zipseuph .... Didn't mean to come off as preaching to the choir, but I can see how I did. Sorry to put the nation thru that, yet it was very therapeutic and saved me $150 on the shrink's couch. Big, I love your questions and hope someone has the guts to ask them. The point we all have to keep in mind is that if they don't get asked we have become irrelevant as well as pathetic. One final thought, soccer will out-draw football. This idea was floated weeks ago as a tongue-in-cheek comment. Now it is totally realistic.

This thread strikes a hell of a note! Here we are debating if we win a game or not the rest of the season. We have got to change the culture that accepts mediocrity (for the last 15 years) as success and accepts destroying the program as a prerequisite for rebuilding it. This is not meant to ridicule any poster. It is to get everyone associated with the football program, from Dr. P on down, to either make it better or find another job. I refuse to accept that we are doomed to be a .500 or below program for life. Any person or part of our athletic culture that accepts these results has got to go.

I agree with most of the posters here when we say that this team is horrible. With that being said I am still a supporter of iCoach ( I can't believe I said that, but I did). Here's the deal. I believe he, or any other coach hired to turn around a program, deserves enough time to show he can get it headed in the right direction. To me that's two years. If the evidence isn't there after two years Dr. P should fire his ass. He can go to the university foundation and get the money to eat the rest of the contract and cut our loses. This hire is shaping up to be worse than the hiring of coach Faust, who I think was, and is, a great man. Just a poor D1 football coach. With K.E.N.T. on the horizon, I can't remember a time when I was more depressed about our football team. K.E.N.T. will kick our ass with slightly better talent, far more heart, and better coaching. And that is taking into account K.E.N.T. is led by Doug Martin. Talk about setting the bar low.

I've got a couple questions for the folks who went to the game or those fans who are close to the team. Has the team given up? Have the players tuned out the coaching staff? I know for a fact that the staff is not highly respected by the people who work in athletic administration. When I've talked to other coaches about them they dodge any justment by saying the football staff has a long way to go to build the program. Kind of a non-committal response designed not to get them in trouble with anyone. The way I look at it is these guys are coaches first, then recruiters. Their first responsibility is to coach up the talent that they have and make them productive. If they wait until all the new talent is recruited into our system, we will have better talent, but still no one to coach them up and make them better. They will not be productive w/o someone who can coach. Can these guys coach? If you folks in the know feel they can, I am willing to wait and stick with them. But I'm not seeing any evidence that the staff can coach.

Z.I.P. Thanks for the news. This is a guy who will be heir apparent to Ampai. Caleb continues to keep us on top. Look for news of another stadium expansion to come next summer. Supposely private funding to expand the granstand has been pledged. When that happens look for us to draw croeds over 6,000. Take care. Hope the islands are treating you well and you are another year closer to retiring to Portland.

Whoopee! We are now so low that we have the media offering to soothe our wounds with the encouraging words that we may win some games this season. Boy, do I ever feel better! Did anyone notice that at no point in Tom's article was the coaching staff, or the leadership it brings, was cited as something to have confidence in? I have many doubts about this staff but I am not calling for their heads. I'll give them time to prove themselves. BTW, what I can't figure out is if our secondary is constantly being burned why do we continue to let Carter, our unquestioned best DB, play only offense and not start on D? Is it because the staff wants their people in for the experience and they are writing off this year? That's the cynical part of me coming out, but you gotta wonder about this decisions.

THanks for posting the videp clip from MLS. I thought it was well done. John Bluem was reasonable in it to my way of thinking. Sure he mentioned the streak and how he felt in played out in the minds of our players, but that is the gamemanship that goes on at this level. Caleb's comments were all class. Let's not get too deep into this resentment for OSU. They did what they had to do. We didn't! They played phsyical with 10 men behind the ball and they tried to get us more worried about them than playing our style. When Bluem brought on the extra forwards and dropped the defenders we should have picked up the pace. We didn't. In fact the last 3 minutes of the game OSU controlled the tempo. You could see it slide away. For what it's worth in the Soccer America blog today Bluem saluted the great crowd Akron travels with. He knows it wasn't his team that 7,300 came to see. The number one player in the state, Tripp from Gahanna Lincoln who is coming to Akron, was there with his team. In fact, I counted many high school teams that came just to see the Zips. If we learn from this tie, which seems like a loss, this game could be a blessing as we win a national championship. Forget the other BS and whining that is being posted. We are better than that and we have more class than to bitch.

I love the point Anthony is making and you all are supporting. But let me offer this. I recently came to Akron for a College of Business meeting. I was impressed by the significant change I have noticed on campus in the number of students sporting Akron sportswear. Way better than it has ever been. Can it get better? Of course, but you guys and other Zip supporters are making a difference and don't belittle the affect you are having. To put this in perspective, on Monday I took my daughter to The University of Cincinnati for a visit and review of their medical programs. Few of their students sported UC clothing. They did not even come close to what I saw on our campus. Keep driving for more visible support of Akron in what students wear. But we are on the right track and I believe that with guys like you and Anthony the outward support of our school will continue to get better.

Hate to rain on this love-fest regarding the rebirth of Akron football but I do not see one area in which we are better than NIU. I think you loyal fans want us to be competitive more so than we really are. We are a struggling team with questionable leadership. Thank you for trying to see the glass as half full but in reality it is 90% empty. We will get beat by a better NIU team.

a little more than a Can't or YSU football game? If you are being critical of their programs, be careful. This year both will outdraw Akron in football attendance. But since this is a soccer thread I'll offer that I can't wait until the grandstand is expanded and we are accomodating 5500-6000 for every game. This program is hot!

Buy the cheapest ticket you can and move to the better seats once in the stadium. I live in Columbus and go to many games. The ushers rarely ask to see your tickets. The crowd will not be significant and the Crew staff is pretty loose about letting you move around if there is no big demand for seating. The most fun section to sit in is the Nordecke where all the loyal and crazy supporters of the team sit/stand. It is in the Northeast corner of the stadium. Hope you have fun.

Want to drink beer and watch the KY game this week someplace in c-bus this sat? Cornbread, I don't know if this Saturday will work but I'd like to get together with you and any Columbus Zips in the future. How about sending me a PM with your contact info and we can work on it. Just keep in mind the KY game is going to be very ugly. We may not be able to take more than a half.

Captain, Nice post. It has sparked lots of comment and that's good. Here's mine: 1) Ianello is here to stay for at least 3 years. Dr. P won't can him and eat most of his salary 2) Ianello has yet to show he, or his staff, can coach. They've been out-coached by two highly divergent staffs. They have been unable to prepare a team. They do not manage a game well and the players are showing visible signs that they don't believe in the staff. Watch the sidelines to see their lack of engagement. 3) Let's stop the typical Akron crap of saying the future will be so much better with the talent the new coach is bringing in. Mismanaged talent = loses. This line of thinking also assumes we will keep what talent we have. History shows that in a losing culture talent either leaves or crumbles and new talent never lives up to billing. 4) Our O-line, WR's and DB's are worse than we ever thought. Blow them up and start freshmen and sophmores who can use the experience. We will not win this year and we will not be a factor in the MAC. So start over now. 5) Get used to crowds of 3,000 6) At some time Dr. P has to address the culture of losing that is synonymous with Akron football. Hire people who have been successful. The best predictor of future success is past success. Once you hire them get out of their way and let them attack the culture. This is an area where I feel coach I is over his head and lacking the vision and skills to solve. That being said, we will have to live with point #1 so I hope iCoach can grow and surprise me. I, for one, will not be coming to more games. I can't take seeing this type of product on the field. Coming from Columbus I give up a whole day for this heartbreak. I can't take it. I'll have season tickets available for my more courageous local buddies. There's got to be someone out there to turn this around

Zach, I think you hit the nail on the head. I agree with you and you said it well. The players play with no leadership or passsion. Only Wagner does. They need leadership and a vision. It must come from the coaching staff. This was a terribly prepared team and that's on the staff. GW made brilliant adjustments in the second quarter, so why can't we? I have stated I will give coach I time, but please show you can coach.

Attendance was 10,086 of which half were present. Next home game we will get 3,000. These are the lowest of days to be a Zip.

I feel as much pain as anyone having followed UA athletics for nearly 40 years. But Ianello needs time. Our talent is over-rated, but so is his coaching staff so I don't expect them to make what we got any better. I will buy that we will get better talent thru coach I's great recruits, but again I'll only give him two years to show me. I still think TW deserves time to build his dept also. If we had a great tradition of winning I might be more in favor of pulling the plug, but we have nothing to protect because we has been so bad for decades.

Game: Akron 28, GW 10 Attendance: 10,000 (Very Sad)

My two cents: - This team was not prepared. There is no excuse for 10 penalties, 4 of which were for illegal formation. Inexcusable. - The defense is improved. Our LB's are too small except for Wagner. They could not plug holes or drive ballcarriers back. - Our safeties are not up to D1 standards. Province was repeatedly beaten and Richmond had cover issues too. - Our offensive play calling made Cuse look good. Latina and Powlus need to be removed if that is the best they have. There was no imagination, deception or attacking SU where they didn't expect. With the D-line rush coming so hard was there ever a screen, draw or counter? How about an end around? These guys are showing signs of not being able to take what the D gives you and keep them guessing. They let this team down. - For as good as this coaching staff was supposed to be, I saw no element of the team "coached up". No one seemed better because of the staff. If there was improvement I didn't see it over JD's staff. These guys were supposed to make a difference. - Our O line sucks. Don't give me that crap they are veteran because they are still poor. They can't drive block, they aren't mobile, they can't hold their blocks and they can't open holes. - Attendance next week will be little more than 10,000. - The team shop was nice and full when I was there, but the merchandising is weak. There were no imaginative golf shirts, jackets, T's or sweatshirts. The same old stuff. No reason to spend your money, which I wanted to do. - We are 7-10 years away from building a program that will dominate the MAC. Until then the crowds will be like they were today because Joe Public knows good football and we don't play it or have any winning tradition. - I don't want Ianello's head, but I do want him to fix the problem. Right now we are headed to a 4-8 or 5-7 season with Can't being the better program. That should make anyone sick.