72 Roo

Like many of you who attended the Akron-Cal soccer match, I couldn't understand why the AR (Assistant Referee) was escorted out of the game. I checked with a few people and here's what I got. After Akron scored to knot the game at 1-1 the AR called the referee over and said Caleb had been riding him constantly after Cal scored its first goal, which Caleb contended the Cal player was offsides. The AT said either He (Caleb) goes or I go. The referee said he was not going to throw out a head caoch in the quarterfinals of the NCAA championships. The AR then said "I quit". The fourth official took his place and Akron found a sufficiently certified referee in the stands to be the fourth ref. I've never seen this in decades of watching soccer. Caleb was asked about the incident in his press conference and he wisely pleaded ignorance. My bet is this AR will spend years getting back to having any highly respected game assignments. Other thoughts: 1) Meves was below par during the game and way above in the shootout. He came up big when needed. 2) The Cal goalie was the best to play on L.J. Field in years. He will be in MLS or Europe. 3) Cal was the best team to visit us in the last two years. They were flat out good and better that Michigan. They were very well coached. 4) Cal was a class act. After the game their captain came back out onto the field to congratulate Akron and wish them well. 5) 6 scouts were there from MLS. I saw Jeff Agoos, former USMNT captain scouting again. The first time I saw him was at the OSU game but he may have been to many more games. 6) Ampai was ineffective this game. He played predictably and never was a threat. He never penetrated and Cal was content to let him play laterally. They funneled him into the central D where he lost space and opportunity to shoot. 7) the weather slowed Akron's possession game and gave Cal's bigger and more physical forwards a chance to bang around in the box. 8) In my opinion the crowd was a disappointment. I know the weather was bad but how often do you have a chance to see the last game before the final four on our campus. Thank God the Rowdies didn't fail us. They have been loyal and steady all year. They are worth a goal a game. The rest of the Akron following let us down. We should have set a record for attendence. 9) We present matchup problems for Michigan that haven't been solved since we last played (7-1) despite their vast improvement. We also are in their heads and Caleb will masterfully exploit that. We will go on to the finals. 10) A final between us and Louisville is a toss-up. They are that good. But I believe we will find a way to win. Go Zips!

Well done Zip Watcher! Thanks.

Z.I.P. I won't be going out. My wife is very sick and this is not the time to leave. Wish I could join you and I'm holding you responsible for bringing home the Cup to Akron. You can do it pal! Put a Hawaian war chant on our opponents and the Zips will take care of the rest.

I would court UMass as hard and strong as possible, but only with the stipulation that they join in all sports. Bringing UCF in for Football only was a mistake. Bringing Temple in for football only was a mistake. Umass in for football only is also a mistake. The football only schools are basically saying wei'll play until we can go somewhere else. I can't believe some of the comments on this thread that rip K.e.n.t. and other schools while seemingly believing we bring so much more to the Mid "Atlantic" Conference. Geez folks, get real. we are 1-11. We suck and outside of Summit county the rest of Ohio thinks we are a joke. Let's actually accomplish something on a sustained basis before we go placing ourselves above the rest of the conference. Unfortunately, that includes K.e.n.t.

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I apologize for assuming the university chose the questions you ask. Maybe it's just my cynicism showing through. You do a good job most of the time. I don't think Coach I comes through as being as... animated as most of our other coaches. It's just frustrating for us to watch this team struggle like this, while the one guy with the ability to come out and soothe our rage with something as simple as an honest heart-felt statement does his best to avoid contact with fans. Maybe he is as frustrated as us or even more, but how can it show through when nobody ever sees the guy? That creates the appearance of him not caring, and I feel it's part of his duties as the head coach to come out in front of the fans and work to build up the image of the team. Being head coach is more than recruiting and coaching; it's about being the most visible promoter and being the face of the team, especially at a school that can't afford to spend tens of millions on marketing like certain other schools. Well said Zach. The destruction of the program this year on top of its decline in the three previous years is heartbreaking. Fans want someone who understand how they feel and gives them credible hope through performance, not unfulfilled promises.

Bill, Welcome to the board. I appreciate your first post and the class way you made your points. Your work requires you to be optimistic and to project that to your listeners. We do have tremendous things going on in our athletic programs at UA. Unfortunately football will never be part of that until we hire a coach. A recruiter can't do it. That is being proven on the field every week. Please post some more.

Will he stay beyond two years? Under what circumstances will he stay for more than two? Is he getting any pressure from Thomas Rongen, the USMNT U20 coach, to leave and play with a pro organization, whether in MLS or Europe? Hope he stays and leads us to several

First , that's money well spent. Second, it appears the only way Ianello can win a game. He sure as hell has proven he can't coach 'em to a win.

Thanks Zach. Do you think he's still coming?

In the media conference held today Keith mentions he expected to announce the signing of two recruits. Blake Justice was one. Does anyone know who else Keith expected to ink?

This season will be a disappointment w/o a true PG. We will be hamstrung with McClanahan at the 3. We can do better with what we have. Bardo is Bardo. Under the stress of competition he will not be much better than last year. For his inate ability he is under-achieving. If this starting five stays the same, we are in for a very long, tough season.

You can never have too many people thanking you for what you have created. Add my thanks to the others who have applauded the efforts of all who created and manage ZNO. With all due sincerity, this is my favorite place to be.

I'm sure he loves his mother. She probably loves him too .... until she finds out what his record is.

name someone who has all of those? The point is Ianello doesn't have one. How can any program be this bad? Please act Dr. P!

I can't get excited by the Stroth Center. It will be nice, but it will seat a maximum of 5,000, doesn't matter if it is men or women. BG built it with the idea that they would rather play to a small packed house than have capacity to grow. That to me is a prescription for mediocrity. What a great recruiting line "Son, come to BG and play to a crowd a little bigger than your high school." Their aspirations are low and their hope for the future even lower. We need to hold ourselves to a higher standard and find a way to achieve it. Not set the bar low and then proclaim success because we are at low standards. I can't imagine one Zip fan who buys into this philosophy. It's harder to shoot for higher levels of achievement, but it is well worth it.

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.