ctmjbowes@sbcglobal.net

Don't feel bad eguins. We'll be right there with you in some sort of FCS alternate universe before you know it. If you aren't one of the college football powerhouses, your days of dreaming of better football are over. We were a big boy in the 90s when we were denied into the MAC by two programs, which will remain nameless.

Those four schools have released press statements, all basically saying that their fate is in others' hands but that they remain committed to the Big 12. If they're the only ones left, they have to immediately add at least 5 teams who have played together in the same conference for the past several years to meet the NCAA definitions of a conference. Otherwise they lose auto-bids to any NCAA tournaments in any sport, like what happened to the MAC in soccer last year. My thoughts 1) Kansas - will be fine.... NIx Baylor and they go to the Pac16.... they could also fit in the Bigger10, SEC... and the new MWC which is set to replace the defunct Big12! 2) Given that i see an interesting game of dominoes lining up! Starting in the East the Bigger10 gets the ball rolling and teams/conferences begin to fall.... it quickly heads west where the Pac16 makes its' move!... Heading back the MWC does it's thing, filling the vaccum leaving a few disjointed teams from the Big12 and WAC waving in the breeze. Limitations force them to make thier move along with the Big East who in addition to the b10 will probably get raided by the SEC and/or ACC (this is if things progress neatly and they won't, but everyone will pretend to be happy, just as they say they feel secure now) Result, C-USA is tore apart much like the Big 12 (mainly western teams) and the Eastern remnants move quickly to form a new conference. At this point what the Bigger10 does now filters down to the MAC..... The Zips could win in this game or lose big! With recent investments and improvements i think we are as prepared as possible! But know this the MAC will be affected IMHO! Akron will lose big in this bargain. Akron is one of the sorta kinda haves/nots and is about to become one of the major HAVE-NOTS in college football. Teams like most in the MAC are about to become way, way outside the mega conferences that will start to form in the coming weeks and months. There is already marginal interest paid to mid-major sports, but imagine how yawn-worthy the MAC will be once the B10, PAC-10 and others go mega. I just cannot see any way that any of this nonsense will be good in any way for this program. Years from now we'll be lamenting the fact that UA built the Info and had no idea what a gigantic waste of time and money it will have been. Please, please let me be WAY off base, but MAC (and UA) football is about to become puny and irrelevant. Get ready to vomit very soon when our OSWho buddies are chattering about the awesome teams that their most awesome conference added to become one of the megas.

MAC schools are going to come out of the entire "Super Conference" mash up weaker and more irrelevant than they already were. The whole process at this point appears to be a race to consolidate mega-conference power. It sure seems logical that the entire concept of "mid major", in football certainly, is about to be washed away. You'll be one of the majors in the consolidated mega conferences or you will be nobody. If the consolidations go the way the sports chatterers are predicting on radio then the MACs of the world are screwed. FCS here we come!

Kind of makes one wonder how much revenue generation isn't happening week after week at the empty team store. UA sports programs are small time, poorly executed and poorly received because the people running them are small time. Just lame. Infocision is tantamount to capping a large steaming pile with a diamond. Yes, it's a diamond but it's pretty hard to enjoy all the same.

It's a little hard to understand why anyone would take issue with BronBron accepting the MVP at the JAR. I suppose that it's become so rare for any piece of decent news to be heard in Akron that when something un-bad happens here some become skeptical. Can't you just enjoy that he won MVP #2 and has not utterly abandoned this place?

This is quite a quote from the linked article: "Tressel has been on me to come," he said. Have the little sweater-vested dork and Howard been knocking boots? Is that the kind of recruiting that little hobbit engages in at the Most Bland Gigantic University In The Land?

When the talent goes 3-9 and looks worse than 3-9, NOBODY cares (nor should they) what the talent thinks, nor whether the talent wants to stay or not.

I see no reason to worry at all about the new staff until we see how the team looks this Fall. No matter who's the coach, the players' role is to entertain me by getting with the coach's program and winning games. I couldn't care less about anything going on inside the mind of a 20-year-old meat head jock. Get with the program or just go the hell away. And for those who think that Ianello is some kind of fool for sending the text, apparently in error (or maybe not), if you have a cell that you use for texting and assert that you have never sent an SMS/IM in error, or one that you wish that you could have reeled back, well, you're lying. See ya later Liz Lemon. Who else would like to quit the team, adding by subtraction?

I voted 5 seasons. Long enough to build a program we can get behind, long enough to show consistency in the moribund and craptacular MAC, long enough to get a great job as a HC at a BCS school. I'm as down as anybody on this program (HELLO TOM, WHEN IS THAT G-D TEAM STORE GOING TO OPEN?????) but I need to feel positive about the program or I'll simply stop paying attention to it. Here's hoping that the text that Ianello sent to Wistrcill immediately after the text about Liz Lemon that inadvertently went to Liz Lemon was one asking about WHEN THE HELL THE TEAM SHOP IS GOING TO BE OPEN. STZ

I'm much happier to see him go than to sit and grumble all year. I love the implication that the coach wouldn't plan to play his best players. I would assume (and yes, I'll be happy to make an ass of you and me) that Lemon was not envisioned as a starter in the new defensive scheme or some such, and decided to go away. Or perhaps he felt entitled, or was lazy in practice and the coach told him it wouldn't fly and would impact his time on the field. We won't miss players who aren't willing to compete for their playing time and refuse to get with the program. Hey Mr. Lemon, nobody gets automatic field time coming from that 3-9 disaster last year big fella. I want to wish him well but I really hate players who approach the game this way. This is a guy many of us had high hopes for, and here he is playing the role of team cancer, team quitter and small-time player all at the same time. Where are the players who are going to step up to the challenge, embrace the discipline, work their asses off for playing time and be integral parts of an Akron team on the move? Good luck LIZ Lemon. STZ

How old and tired are the predictable "dead horse" comments in many of the threads on ZN? I don't suppose that the same posters who feel compelled to invoke that term, usually including the inane emoticon, ever consider that they are insulting not only the OP but those who respond to the OP? How many original topics can possibly exist in the universe regarding Zips football? Now, onto the OP's poll. As much as I wish this were a credible D-1 football program, there is no way in hell that UA gets invited to join any other conference. C-USA is too good for the program at this point in time. Every D-1 conference that we would want to have us should have no interest in having us. This is a program that in year two of the new stadium hasn't gotten its poop together enough to open up the team shop that is right out on the street corner. The stadium itself is another boarded up store front? How about this program win some games, fail to be included often in the ESPN bottom ten and generally start moving in a credible direction, and then maybe we can be considered worthy of a second thought in the football world. It's just laughable that even the most hard core UA fan, one rooted in reality, would consider that this program is credible as a desirable D-1 program in the eyes of other conferences. /Extreme pessimism on/ As college football gets more involved with big money interests and billion dollar broadcasting I really wonder if the deck is not completely stacked against schools that arrived late to the game. How in the hell is UA ever going to compete for quality prospects without playing dirty and/or cheating, how will they attract fans in such an apathetic sports community, how will they get this thing turned around? Have the obviously gorgeous facilities brought in heralded recruits? What to do with a 64 million dollar stadium that attracts 12K per game? Has the new AD opened up the team shop? I just don't see how this program moves up the three (or ten) notches it will need to succeed here. The train already came through. It's the OSU express and UA missed the train. I hate it too, but it's a fact. Maybe UA should consider stepping back down to FCS, where the program could be absolutely top notch. Why is UA, which was never ever a football power at the college level, beating its head against the wall twenty years in, trying to force something that may never happen?

Great. I guess I am Joe Akron when it comes to Akron BB. That changes the points I made exactly how? Until there is a more compelling product for Joe Akron to pay to see, I guess it'll be you three and a few hundred others, wondering why nobody comes out to watch the Zips play.

A couple points which may be relevant to the discussion. I am a completely half-assed college BB fan, and I enjoy the pro game WAY more than college BB. I watch even the premier college BB teams on the tube and have a hard time getting past their lack of skill, their lack of size, the silly length of the clock shot, just the whole package doesn't grab me. I went to all of one game at the JAR this year. It was the Can't game, and once I got past my general lack of interest in college BB, I couldn't believe how unathletic and just boring the Zips were. Is this a team close to anything other than mediocrity? Here are the things I think of when it comes to Zips BB: 1) Guys, it's dead nuts winter. Cold, and the thought of walking from the car to the JAR in the winter to watch the Zips is like 60 to zero, right now baby. 2) The teams on the home schedule are generally, well, crap. Very, very uninteresting schedule. Pay me to attend and I might consider some of those games. 3) Who am I going to watch once I get there? McNeese and his funky shot that is streaky as hell? His mediocre ball handling? Humpty and his frenetic but pointless motion? Zeke, who doesn't yet have the strength to hold onto the ball in the post? The McKnights, who appear to fade into the background when the pressure is on? Honestly, I had much more fun at dinner and in conversation with the people we went to the game with than I did watching KD and the gang. If the basic question is whether the Zips are anywhere close to putting a compelling product on the floor, my answer would be hell no.

With all the talk of Huggins and his success, I'd like to know if anyone cares that he is and was a truly onerous human being as far as I've ever been able to tell. I ran track at UA when Huggins coached here and remember numerous training sessions running on that horrible so-called indoor track above the BB floor, you know, the one with 4 90-degree sharp turns. I have strong memories of running up there, a fabric curtain shielding the BB floor while the team would be down below practicing. Huggins was unbelievably venomous toward the players, just ugly, and ran his practices through pure intimidation and fear. I also had the unhappy "luck" to be in the training room down below several times, or in hallways at the JAR, when Huggins was skulking around. The guy appeared to know nothing other than intimidation and aggression and it just hung around him like an aura whenever I was around him. He won games and in college sports nobody seems to care that such people are in charge when they win games. I'd also like to point out that his teams, especially at Cinci, were extremely thuggish and he at one point led teams that graduated next to nobody. Are these good things? If Huggins is any sort of model for quality college basketball then count me out. I've felt for many years that men like Huggins should coach in the NBA where it is truly ONLY about winning, but then again his M.O. of using fear and aggression would surely backfire and he'd fail when the superstars would refuse to take his sh_t. It was awesome to see his team destroyed yesterday.

After seeing him run last year against MAC players I will be very surprised if Devoe is brought into a bigger program and actually contributes in any meaningful way. He was smooth and had a good frame but frankly I never thought he ran very hard when the chips were down. After wishing that he would be the man at RB I was less than amazed when he carried the ball. To me he was just another in a long line of supposed-to-be very good players brought in by JD who didn't work. That reminds me of Ryan Bain, the goliath next-best-thing on the D-line. By the time he actually made the field for a handful of plays last year (can't remember who the opponent was) he was clearly in so much pain and hobbled to the point that it was difficult to watch him out there. JD just didn't bring in impact players to this program, players who actually worked out other than on paper. Here's another one. D Bowser. He looked really very good at times, although he dropped a few balls at key times too. I will never forget that after his season-ending injury last year that kid spent the rest of the season yucking it up on the sideline with key offensive players between series when those players were supposed to be focusing on the next series. Did anyone else here notice how many times LaFrance (sp) and Bowser were prancing and playing around on the sideline after a series of offensive downs while the rest of the O was on the bench with the coaches? That garbage told me a lot about Bowser and his interest in the team winning once he was injured. I hate to say it told me a little about the maturity of LaFrance too. I also still cannot believe that one of the coaching staff didn't put a stop to that kind of crap. Undisciplined coaching, undisciplined players, clear lack of focus on the sideline and a 3-9 season. None of those kids deserve anything other than a hard core wake up call by this new coaching staff.

Well that's your view on how you feel about the situation, but I'm sorry to break it to you these are adults for the most part 20-22 year old sophmores and Juniors. They should be treated that way and for you to say that it doesn't matter what these young mean think or feel because they are young is unreal and not fair, young men or not they are still young adults if society and the university views them as adults and expects them to make adult choices then what they have to say is relevant to the situation. Torrence,Wackerly,Williams,Bice,Houser, Shuford and 2 other walkons I can't think of their names right now but all gone within a few weeks with more players contemplating, and talking to some of the upperclassmen they state there is no respect from the coaches on a personal level granted not many of the players have earned respect when it comes to the field but respect in general man to man is needed especially in college. You have to respect your players and they have to respect their coaches if coaches don't give respect they won't get it therefore the players won't play hard and from what I'm hearing from different people is there isn't any respect yet. Wackerly was basically told he had no chance to play and that his only duty at Akron would be scout team QB to tell any hard working player that is just asking for them to leave. And from what Scout.com is reporting Devoe torrence has been in contacted by Michigan State and Illinois as soon as they were informed of him asking for his athletic release, he's a great player things just didn't work out at akron he was IMO the best Tailback we had but just like many other players he wasn't put into a position to succeed coaches couldn't set in stone who the starter was. I'm not bad talking these coaches I support them 100% but I will stand up for the players also Go Zips Let's be clear here. What you and I define as being "disrespected" may be an entirely different thing than what is happening in the gym and the fieldhouse right now with these players. Let's also be clear about the fact that this was a terrible team last year, and these players did not earn any collective respect. If they want respect, and that includes from the fans, how about winning some games? You mentioned Wackerly. He was a walk-on for crying out loud and I like it that he was not considered other than a scout team player by this staff. They can do better. We can do better. Let's see where Wackerly ends up. I'll bet a paycheck that it is a much smaller program where he might actually be able to play. How is that bad for him, or bad for the team? Again I say to any pampered UA college athlete (and yes they are still kids, whether you like to think of them that way or not) get with the new program or get out. You want respect from this staff? Earn it by working your ass off.

More small time-ness in the program. Gotta love a system that builds a beautiful 60+ million dollar stadium and fills it with a 3-9 football team and no team shop a year later... And people wonder why OSU gobbles up all of the positive attention of the locals. I just fired off my second "Ask the AD" email to AS Wistrcill about my opinion that the Team Shop sitting empty sends a terrible message to the local community. It signals that the overall program is still unable to get its s**t together, regardless of the reason it sits empty. It signals a small-time, apathetic approach to the program. It says, in effect "We don't think that there is any substantial revenue to be gained by putting energy into developing product lines for sale in a team shop."

You must all be joking, especially cornbread. There are no players who are more important than the team. I saw Devoe play too and was not particularly impressed. If he has decided that he doesn't want to be a part of the team going forward, good for him and good for the team. JD had a great knack at bringing in players who simply did not pan out and there is no reason to take the side of any of them over the new coaching staff. People who try to undermine new staff, as they are just beginning to build their program, are simply cancers. For cornbread, are you, presumably as a grown man, going to take the side of a few young kids over the grown men of good reputation who were hired to mold this team? These players are essentially still kids and need to get with the program or go away. Devoe will move along to another school. Good for him, good for us and good for the program. Until I see how this team performs on the field I will support Ianello and his staff 1000 times over any individual player or small group of players. I simply don't care what a young 18 or 19 year old kid thinks about the coaches. To each of these pampered athletes I say take your scholarship and work your ass off. Play the way you're expected to play and work within the system, or get the hell out. When you become a star and help to define a winning , entertaining program, we'll talk. Until then you simply aren't important individually.

When the Zips can meet expectations by beating the better teams on their schedule every year it'll be time to step the schedule up. When they sniffed better competition this year they got spanked.

Really now, instead of the College Insider's Tournament, I'm really hoping that the Zips can earn an invitation to the College Layman's Insider Tournament. I'm convinced that they would provide a pounding presence, especially inside the lane, in that tourney.Go Zippers go.

THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID.

It's practically professional misconduct and malfeasance for a university President, administrators and head coach to send kids onto the field without every benefit they can get their hands on. Sending 65 or 70 scholarship kids onto the field is basically telling every one of those same kids that you don't care enough about their welfare (not to mention winning) to have recruited and trained those other 15 or 20 talented players they need to bolster the teams' chances. "Hey sorry kid. Maybe you wouldn't have been injured had I recruited and trained a better player to block the opponent who just destroyed your knees with that open lane shot." Unbelievable.

40-50 year old meat head jocks who argue about the glory (or lack thereof) of their teams 20 and 30 years ago must not have spent much time watching the television show "Married...With Children" in the 1990s. If they did they would remember that the show was largely based on the pathetic nature of Al Bundy, the faded former football star who had done nothing since those days except become a shoe salesman.

I'd feel better about kids like Howard if he were "at risk" but appreciative and motivated to ball at UA. He clearly doesn't get it that he's a marginal overall package and that UA offered him a fabulous opportunity. Kids like this have been stroked and coddled by idiot coaches to the point that their egos will not allow them to see the forest for the trees. Playing D-1 football at a MAC program, potentially starring and getting on the field from day one, would provide marvelous opportunities for a kid like this, but of course being the typical meat head, entitled, stroked football star that he is, he can't imagine playing for other than Ohio State. Young man, get your head out of your ass. Get decent grades, work hard, stop listening to your adult fanboys and get your entitled ass on the UA practice field.

As the college recruiting game continues to become more accessible to Joe Average Fan, the less interested I am in the whole affair. Obnoxious and entitled jock meat heads, college coaching staffs that must ride a very fine line separating the marginally corrupt behavior from the truly corrosive, huge amounts of money and energy spent worshiping the whole thing. Remember too that most of these entitled jocks are never going to play pro football, but they are going to be living and working with the rest of us, lugging around that sense of entitlement and corruption for the rest of us to deal with. Very little good can come from grown adults telling a 16 year old kid that he is the greatest thing ever. Ridiculous. The more I see of college football the more I'm convinced that the whole thing is a disgusting racket and that schools like Akron who arrive late to the party are never, never, never going to compete at a high level. The entire system is completely stacked against programs like UA's. There is no way to compete at a high level today without already possessing the prestige of the larger programs, and/or running a corrupt program. Would universities like UA really be better off not chasing the ugly dream at all?