ctmjbowes@sbcglobal.net

There is an underlying theme to most of GP1's arguments about college football, and it correlates directly to his self-pleasure with having moved to the Carolinas. The Great GP1 moved to the Carolinas and is happy with his move. Ergo, everyone who didn't make the same move is stupid, or at least ignorant. The weather is so much better, the economy so much better, the girls so much hotter, the athletes so much better, that anyone with a brain should be there too. So, only warm weather campuses are appealing to young kids, only warm weather programs prosper, all things in the cold are destined to wither away.It's an incredibly simplistic argument made by a young man who is still enamored with his (likely) first move away from home. It ignores the facts, including that the southeastern states only left essential poverty starting in the 1960s when corporations decided to crush the industrial unions by moving production to the deep south where they could pay lower wages and avoid unionization. Also, starting after WWII, retirees from the industrial north "discovered" places in the southeast where they could retire, pay fewer taxes and avoid harsh winters. The southeast's prospects have improved since then, basically at the expense of the industrial north and midwest. Of course, "prosper" is a relative term. Many areas in the deep south are still crushingly poverty stricken, and in large swaths of the southeast, one may avoid harsh winters but the "heat season" is simply winter in reverse, wherein the heat and humidity are so bad that you basically rush from air-conditioning to air-conditioning to avoid being in the elements.Of course, any region can enjoy temporary success, at the expense of other places, by promising no or low taxes and by giving freebies to corporations to entice them. There is no free lunch however, and between those same corporate entities finding some even cheaper place/way to operate, and the endlessly rising cost of infrastructure maintenance/improvement, the free ride is going to end. In fact, it's already happening. Some of the most current big growth regions are in places like Kansas City, Boise, the state of Wyoming, Lincoln and other decidedly NON warm weather places. So, does The Great GP1 have an explanation for why Des Moines is growing fast, or why Boise has such a fantastic football program? Nope, because they don't fit his myopia. His model is 30 years old and no longer applies the way it once did. He'll catch up. He is The Great GP1.

"Frank The Tank"....what a douche. Included in his windbag analysis were statement after statement to the effect that the Little Eleven is some sort of elite ACADEMIC conference. What a laugh.

To take it one step further, consider that athletics as a spectator endeavour, at any level, is nothing more than entertainment. We don't pay ticket prices for the goodness of it. We pay to be entertained. The exploitative aspects (naming rights, PSLs, outrageous ticket prices while also being forced to witness product placement and advertisements, logos all over uniforms, etc., etc.) will escalate until people stop paying attention. How long do you suppose it will be before 'mericans stop paying rabid attention to football?

Ride 'em hard and put 'em away tired Rob! A new era of WINNING is about to be set in motion at UA. Very exciting as we move into this next decade...

...and may 2010 be Year One in the new era of D-1 Zips football! GO ZIPPERS!

Equins, why don't you just "adopt" the Zips as your team? We can fill the "1A" spot in your collegiate fan life, after your beloved Penguins. It's clear that you spend much time with us here on these boards. Why not just become one of us? Change your avatar/nick to something like Zipquins or such. Pull up a chair, get comfortable. Then you won't have to say so much of "you guys" and can say "we" and "us" instead.

I don't suppose it would be possible to wish the best for Chuckie without the complusion to dump on the Brownies too, would it? The same Brownies who just won two in a row, including one over the newly pathetic Yinzers.I for one wish Chuckie well, although he's earned more as a pine-rider than most of us here in the last several years, so I don't suppose I need to pity the poor fellow. Anyway, I hope he has a good career and plays well this week, but I also hope that the Raiders are crushed by my (hopefully) resurgent Brownies. It's just NOT right to be a sports fan in NE Ohio and spread vile hatred for the forlorn Browns. It's easy with their recent past, but it's not right.

Isn't it awesome owning your own business? I had always worked for large companies and did very well. The Koch Industries purchase of Georgia Pacific alone made the time at Georgia Pacific worth it because of not only my stock options, but more importantly the business philosophy at Koch. Charles Koch is brilliant and everyone should read his book The Science of Success. Later I went to work for a Berkshire Hathaway company and I knew it was time to leave when I would sit in my home office with the phone on mute and laugh out loud at the people in the corporate HQ durning conference calls. The people at the corporate HQ were hiding behind the company logo and disguising their incompetence behind a Six Sigma certification. They were absolute fools. They would spend six months putting cause & effect tables together about decisions a sane person could make in five minutes.If anyone out there wants to start their own business, grab your balls and do it!!! I've worked harder than I ever have before and I don't feel like it is work. I can't wait for tomorrow. I even know I'm going to wake up with a hangover, and I can't wait until tomorrow. It's nothing that a little Advil can't take care of and honestly, I'm done for 2009.In a year when most people are worrying about losing their job, I don't worry for a second about paying the bills or what would happen if I lost my job. Tough economic times are when you can break the bank if you are smart about it. Go out and break the bank! History is on your side. A lot of you have received a great education from a great school. Go out there and do something with it. Be different and do something different.Go The University of Akron!Is that The Great GP1 talking or some prozac-crazed maniac? Remember that depression always follows the mania...

Both teams bunkered for the second half of the games because they knew they were toast if they didn't out number the Zips in the box.This with the Zips 2 best playmakers (Ampi & Nanchoff) not playing or not at full strength.2 ACC programs played the Zips and didn't score a regulation goal. And the Zips didn't come close to bunkering in either game.I'd take my chances with the Zips playing an ACC schedule. They clearly outplayed both UVA and UNC in regulation & overtime. Do they run the table? Who knows .. but they'd have a better chance of running the table in the ACC than anyone currently in the ACC or in the NCAA for that matter.Go Zips!! B) MODERATOR FIGHT! MODERATOR FIGHT! Can you guys bust out special emoticons and online super powers when you go to war with each other?

Awesome. These kids coming into the program this year are going to be the leaders who will play a critical role in the essential rebirth of UA football as a winner.

Well I am just tickled pink, and guess what Tom W? I just decided to buy season tix for the UA futbol season in 2010. I've never been a big soccer guy but damn it I'm in now. Caleb is a winner and just a solid coach. This team REPRESENTED at the tournament baby. Tom W, You came here to build and so far you're making moves that I'm very happy with. Revenue streams are going to GROW! Go Zips. Go Caleb.

I hope we move toward more home games, more of them on Saturdays in the couple of months before the weather turns to poo (although this year we were particularly lucky with weather), a mix of cupcakes and low-end brand-name teams. I will happily pay to watch Indiana, Army, Navy, any of the MWC or WAC teams play some mix of home and away. I'm also intrigued by the higher-end FCS schools, although I'm very aware that the better ones would have beaten us handily this year, so there is always the "Michigan-App State" risk inherent to playing such teams. I'm NOT particularly in favor of continuing to be crushed a couple times every year by PSU, OSU, VaTech, etc. Those games just suck. We should never, ever play the top-echelon teams until we can compete. The day we become Utah or Boise State we can jump in the mix with the biggies. Until then schools like Indiana should be the upper end of the teams we play. BUT, they should still be schools Joe Average recognizes.

Nobody can know how he'll be when it comes to the on field strategic and tactical decisions to be made. I'll take a wait and see approach there. When it comes to recruiting I'm looking forward to seeing how he calibrates the message(s) he uses. It's clear that, based on interviews he did while still at ND, much of the spiel had to do with the honor, history, prestige factors that were part and parcel of the "ND theme." He will have NONE of those factors working for him at UA. UA has no football prestige, it has no positive football history that a high school kid is likely to be impressed with. UA is a wonderful university but has none of the panache of a ND. So what can he sell? For some players, the chance to see the field and develop their skills right away. He'll also be able to push the facilities, the new stadium, the board's commitment to growing the program (which should especially help with the high school coaches in the region), and what else? How about offensive and defensive systems that are most likely to develop and prepare players for the pro game? How about pushing the administration hard for maximum academic support (mentorship, tutoring, etc) to support the players. If he can build a program that wins and graduates kids he'll have another selling point. What else? How would you recruit? How would you sell this program?

WOWOW. GO ZIPPERS!!!

ahhh...thanks.

Turned on the U (Akron Time Warner) and the guide lists the game but there is some lame-o college recap thing on. Anyone else seeing same?

JD's recruits didn't win, so I've come to the point where I'm not that concerned about the pending recruits. Hoobler already decided (apparently) that without the magical presence of JD Brookhart the Zips weren't attractive to him. So the facilities, the stadium, the clear intention to turn this program into a winner were less important to him than playing for a head coach who couldn't coach his way out of a paper bag. OK. Bye. I'm being facetious of course, but for a JD recruit to not at least wait to interact with the new head coach and staff and make a reasonable decision about their likely place in the program signals to me their heart wasn't in the right place to begin with. This team is better off without that kind of player. If we start with the assumption that Ianello is a very good recruiter with very good contacts and a solid reputation with high school coaches, we must then believe that he will recruit better players than JD ever did. My fervent hope is that very, very soon it won't be about whether these JD recruits want to remain committed to UA, but whether they are good enough to play for UA.

Are monster hands soft?Awesome!

When Ianello was given responsibility for football operations at Notre Dame after Weis was fired, he said the following:He stressed that Notre Dame is “about all the right things in college athletics, and that is why you should come to school here.”He talked about Weis meeting with two recruits after the home loss to UConn and how Weis stressed the same message to those recruits – that Notre Dame is a place you go to because of the school and what it stands for, not just the coaching staff.In talking about why recruits choose Notre Dame, Ianello said that recruits come to Notre Dame because: “You come to school here because everybody that comes here is going to get a degree. We graduate everyone that stays here."uhnd.com linkI like that.Me too, but remember that his schtick is going to have to be different here. Every place, every university, every program has something to sell. Rob is going to have to work aggressively to hone a theme to be used in recruiting for UA. Ideas about what "pitch" might work the best with the kids UA wants in the program?

I'm disappointed in that salary. If he shows success in the first year I would hope that his contract is reworked. The MAC salary crapper is simply embarassing and goes a long way toward explaining why (1) the teams generally stink and (2) reasonably successful coaches vamoosh the first second they can.

There is no way to know how he'll do, but I'm optimistic. I was one of those fans bitching my head off as the year progressed. I was happy as hell to see JD and his entire crew be shown the door. Now I'm excited to see how Rob does and it feels GREAT to be excited about UA football again.

I doubt that any players that verballed to ND will now come to Akron. If they had offers from ND, they had offers from a lot of big programs.We can all hope though. Not so fast Buckzip. Don't forget that players came from Pitt to UA with JD. On a slightly related note, I still assert what I said on a thread in the recruiting forum. Unless you are a sure-fire star at the major D-1 level, with a spot essentially carved out for you in the starting lineup or in rotation, you are a fool to not consider STRONGLY the smaller programs. There is very little difference between the football factories and the smaller programs in 2009/2010 when it comes to potential exposure to NFL scouts and television audiences. If you can play, you WILL be scouted and assessed. Knowing that, why don't kids give themselves their very best opportunities to see the playing field, develop their skill sets and showcase themselves for the next level? I just can't believe that great athletes screw themselves by going to a ND only to be buried on the depth charts, severely limiting their chances to develop and to gain critical exposure, instead of attending a "lesser" program and playing their asses off. I digress, but who knows, maybe he'll bring a few winning kids along for the ride.

Yeah, but we need to wait to see what The Big Lebowski and Overtaxed Voter, not to mention Old Man Grump, have to say about it before we chime in right?

One has to hope that whoever comes to UA next brings players with him in kind. Win some, lose some, hope to finally start to win some games, whoever is playing.

I have a problem with Hoobler's head coach. I couldn't believe my eyes when I read his quote in the local newspaper noting that some car-salesman/recruiter from Indiana looked at Hoobler walking down the hallway in school and said that they were looking at an All Big Ten linebacker. On a side note, did the coach see stars when he heard that?Now everybody with a brain knows that recruiter would promise Hoobler (or any other recruit) his own daughter if it would help him land the kid, and yet the coach, instead of looking at ALL recruiters with a jaundiced and skeptical eye, seemed wowed by the statement. What a hayseed.On a related note, if I'm a high school football coach in 2009 and beyond, I'm encouraging my kids to go wherever they are most likely to SEE THE FIELD EARLY. In this age of media saturation, it really doesn't matter a whole lot whether you attend Delaware State, UA or OSU. Think about it. If you can play and GAIN EXPOSURE, the NFL will find you and assess you. The scouts will assess you projected to the NFL level. Good players at every level get drafted every year, so why risk being a bench warmer or practice player at a factory when you can actually give yourself a shot at lots of playing time and development? What is attractive to so many recruits, who attend gigantic football programs, about sitting on the sidelines for 2 or 3 or 4 years? The smart ones would go to smaller-time programs and play their asses off. I guess to be fair I actually mean that about every school and player, even the sideliners at Akron. Why not find a level where you can actually get on the field and play?I believe that many many high school coaches and kids' parents are screwing them in that regard because of their own egos and agendas. That means you, Mr. Orrville Head Coach.