ctmjbowes@sbcglobal.net

So, by extension, if Boise, TCU, NIU, (insert name of giant killer here), were re-positioned in one of the power conferences, based on their positive performance in one bowl game, would they become winners in those conferences? The big boys scream bloody murder when one of the little guys makes it into one of these big games, and I can see both sides of those arguments. I love the underdog and have especially loved it when Boise made noise, but I also appreciate that the big boys beat the crap out of each other, and recruit against each other, and pay their coaches NFL salaries, and yada yada yada, to compete as, well, big boys, and if I were one of those big boys I would be pissed if an "interloper" scraped their way into the big game. Having said all of that, and loving Boise and TCU making noise the last few years, I thought it was truly ridiculous that NIU was in the Orange Bowl. I still have no idea how that happened, especially with one loss, and they proved they didn't belong. When the little guy makes the big game, it hurts the cause of all little guys if said little guy doesn't perform.

Yeah, but that same Jedi apprentice was the one who saved the entire rebel alliance, so in the case you cite, not only was Yoda flat wrong, but Luke's aggressiveness and recklessness caused the destruction of the Death Star. So....

Thanks for being too bored to read and consider my posts DIG! That 2005 team was barely above .500 and only through a miracle or two did it make it to the MACC. That was a 7 win team, with 6 losses. That's the absolute pinnacle for UA, 7 wins, so you and I define competing in the MAC very differently DIG. I define competing in the MAC as, at least occasionally, dominating the conference the way every other program occasionally has. In its very best years, UA scrapes by at barely above .500, and that has happened only a few times in 25+ years. So, no, I do not consider UA to be a competitive program in the MAC. Yes, any MAC school CAN compete in the MAC, but Akron hasn't. I believe that Akron should take control of its own destiny and become an FCS Independent, for now. As I explained in the post that was apparently too well considered and cogent for you to fully read, Akron has already positioned itself in an essential Tier that includes the lowest-level Sunbelt, WAC and highest-level FCS teams. Akron should be seeking a spot somewhere in a universe that would include those teams. As the large conferences are consolidating and growing, or imploding, there is no reason to think that the same won't happen to the lower-level conferences. So, to use GP1's point, do you want to be WVU, or do you want to be Cincinnati, left holding the bag when it blows up? There are certainly FCS programs that would love to seek a level slightly higher, and programs like UA's that should recognize the futility of chasing the big boys, or even the MAC. So, you're telling me we must wait for the goliaths to position and re-position themselves to crush the rest of the universities out there in the world of collegiate football, but the small players shouldn't be making considered, prudent moves to find their optimal spot as well? As the shuffle has moved forward, the aggressive programs are the ones controlling their destinies. Where do you think Akron, with Tom Wistrcill as the AD, will be if they sit and wait to see where the football gods think Akron fits? Hell, clearly the football gods hate Akron football, and left to their own devices they'll kill the program entirely.

Lynch just made a great throw for a long pass play to dig out of a hole. The problem is that he is a run-first QB tonight, and he is not nearly big nor fast enough to make that work against this FSU team. One of these plays, the FSU linebackers are going to break him in half as he stretches out at the end of a run. If he throws it more they stand a better chance. By the way, one of the commentators just said "there's some Maction" after a Lynch run.

My bad, and fixed, although in many years FSU has "SEC type speed" on that roster. Lynch looks pretty ordinary tonight. NIU isn't playing a MAC team tonight.

Lynch looked like a giant freight train in the MAC. Tonight the FSU linebackers are matching his speed and then some, and throwing him around like a rag doll when they get a hold of him. That ACC speed and power are damned impressive.

First, I'm answering while I watch NIU in the Orange Bowl, which I fully understand can happen once each century. Putting aside this year, during which the MAC has greatly overachieved and only through a fluke did NIU make it into this bowl, the MAC does not belong in that second tier, if we're talking about football. Look at resources committed by universities, look at historical results, look at television markets, look at coaching salaries, look at attendance, look at record against the other conferences, look at recruits, I could go on and on. The MAC is much more of a super FCS conference than it is a second tier FBS conference. Beyond discussions of the MAC though, Akron has never shown that it can compete in the MAC, so it deserves "special recognition" even beyond our discussion of the MAC. Ask yourself this question: if you took any MAC program and placed it into the Big East, MVC, Sunbelt, or C-USA, would you have a consistent winner in that conference? The answer, as we all know, is no you wouldn't. The Thundering Herd found out the hard way that domination of the MAC means little when moving to pretty much any other conference. Ditto Temple. MAC programs are hugely under-resourced compared to almost any other FBS programs, and as a result they aren't as good. Their attendance is terrible compared to most other FBS programs. IMO, the entire MAC belongs at the top of the heap in FCS, and in fact the MAC is an odd tweener, essentially alone in the football universe. They're slightly better funded and resourced than FCS programs at large, but far below other FBS conferences. If they compete in what is going to be the second tier of FBS, the MAC will perform poorly. If the MAC dropped, lock, stock and barrel to FCS, they would dominate FCS. Let's get back to NIU. NIU has been a very good MAC program at least since I've paid attention to the MAC. Dave Doeren made 420K as the HC at NIU. His starting contract base at NC State, hardly the greatest program ever, will be 1.8 million dollars. You pay head coaches four times less than an NC State and you intend to compete with FBS? No damn way, no damn how. DIG, I assume that you're good at what you do. If I tell you that a competing firm pays their employees 25% of what your firm pays, tell me, what does that make you think of that other firm? The MAC is a joke at the FBS level. Look at the data and you'll see that if anything, the MAC should be in a third tier with the Sunbelt and the WAC, along with premier FCS programs. You build THAT and bing, bing, bing, we have a winner. Lastly, looking only at the available data, if you were really looking to stratify the programs, here's how they stack up: 1) MEGA LEGACY PREMIER MAJOR BIG BOY NFL FEEDER LEAGUE 1A) The rest of the historically very good and well-resourced programs from the conferences that produced the MEGA conference above 3) Second Tier = Big East, C-USA, MVC, and equivalents 4) Third Tier = Sunbelt, WAC, MAC <<<Akron is at the bottom of this pile, or... 5) Top level FCS <<<Akron is at the top of this pile At the very end, as I've learned more and more through this argument/discussion, it has become glaringly obvious that when you come right down to it, as they say, money talks and bullshit walks. The MAC isn't a player because the MAC is small money, tiny money, compared to the major conferences. Based on commitment of resources alone, the MAC absolutely doesn't belong in the discussion with the power conferences.

I'll buy all of that. As I noted in a couple other posts though, the MAC falls far short when it comes to resourcing. Pay the coach, pay the staff, coach recruits players, players perform. I know there isn't direct connectivity between coaches' salary and quality of recruits and thus quality of play, but it sure appears to fall in line that way overall. The bottom line is likely that for the MAC to compete with the conferences you list above, the highest-ranking team of which gets the future "access" bowl invitations, pay for coaching staffs will have to increase by more than double the current MAC rate. I didn't run the numbers but it appears the average FBS coach makes about 1 million clams and the MAC is paying in the 300s, except for Solich at 500K. In reality the MAC HC pay is a lot more similar to pay at the FCS level than it is to average FBS level. ND State just extended their HC and he's going to make 220K plus incentives on a 10 year deal. Terry, at 375K, is a lot closer to that than to the 1,000,000 average FBS coaching pay.

So back to substance, you find it perfectly OK that the MAC is so highly respected that, when push comes to shove, the BIG EAST would lure teams on the WEST COAST to join for football, while apparently giving zero consideration to any MAC programs, which are all located in Big East territory?

How appropriate that you bring everybody's favorite little Giant Killer into the discussion. You also mentioned resourcing. Both great topics for discussion. First, Boise State just re-joined the MWC as the Big East implodes. Two things about this are interesting. First, with all of the success of the Boise program in recent years, plus all of the investment made by that school in their program, they STILL are a little team looking in at the big boys at the end of the day. They struggle to get home and home, struggle to get the big boys to play them at all, and their placing in the polls is consistently skewed by their perceived "place" in the college football universe. They pay Petersen 2,000,000 bucks each year to coach that team, and I assume their other programmatic investments are similar in scale, which means they likely spend 5X as much on that program as MAC programs do. And yet, they are still left on the outside looking in when it comes to elite-level football. (An aside about the Big East, which is becoming the Big Least, or possibly soon to become defunct. As they lost Boise State this week, it was reported that the conference had contacted Fresno State and UNLV about joining for football. Now, what does it say about the MAC that we never hear reports of MAC schools, excepting Temple, being considered for invitation to other conferences? The MAC is so strong that UNLV and Freson State are more logical choices for membership in the BIG EAST than any current MAC schools?) Second, resourcing. Look at MAC coaching salaries compared to every other conference in the US. The only conference that pays so meagerly as the MAC is the WAC, which has all of 5 members. UA may have spent money on indoor facilities and the Info, but they sure as hell haven't made a strong commitment to paying their football coaches in any way that lends credence to the notion that UA intends to credibly compete at the FBS level. In fact, it becomes painfully obvious with a quick glance at the USA TODAY coaching salary database that the entire MAC has separated itself, when it comes to putting up or shutting up, from genuine FBS football. More support for the obvious truth that MAC football is in no way, shape or form, genuine FBS football. And by extension, Akron has been unable to compete at a competitive MAC level, and is truly an FCS program in ALL ways that matter.

OK, so this is how it goes with you ZN football dorks then huh? Anyone who would wish for a different path, a path to success, for UA football must be some sort of closet OSU fan? Seriously? I guess you don't read or comprehend well, or you're just dedicated to maintaining the path of a failed program for another quarter century. I don't understand what is wrong with you people. I recently said here that I considered some of the status quo posters here to be the battered, beaten wives of college football. Good gawd what a bunch of dead enders.

Huh? Is that supposed to be a zinger? An LA reference?

The Big East going after UNLV and Fresno State when Akron is sitting right here waiting to be plucked?

Man, I cannot read this post without picturing Lloyd Christmas. Sure, there's a chance that Akron football can magically turn around. There was a chance that Lloyd could end up with Mary Swanson too. So, after year 26 of losing will you be willing to admit that it's not going to happen at the FBS level for the Zips? If not 26, how about 27? Surely you would agree that it hurts the university to sport such a losing program on the corner of Spicer and Exchange, right? Potential students and locals might possibly treat an FCS program with benign neglect, even ignorance to some extent, but they absolutely treat the current failed program with disdain and scorn. Nobody likes a perennial loser, and Akron football is the absolute definition of loser in the modern FBS era. That stench deeply affects the perception, IMO, of the university and cannot be allowed to continue. Some of you football honks need to step back and see the forest for the trees here. Every year that crappy joke of a football program stinks up the downtown it negatively impacts the entire university, and the entire city. Also, you insist, some here angrily, that Akron is about to turn the corner. There is no reason for you to insist with any credibility that is about to happen. Show me the great recruits, the momentum, the talk in coaching and recruiting circles that this program is making progress. You can't. It doesn't exist. You hope, hope, hope for a winning program but ignore decades of futility. As far as potential conference affiliation, I would love to see the MAC dumped by Akron. Fit your conference affiliation to the best the university has to offer. Where can the BB and soccer programs find good homes? That's the place to start, not by forcing them to exist in a conference based on the home you find for your worst program. Show me the data. Show me numbers. You talk of modest improvement. Modest improvement for UA would be what, 4 or 5 wins next year? So, a MAC program with 4 or 5 wins, no bowl game, no better recruiting picture, how is that great shakes? Will anyone really even notice an Akron program with 4 or 5 wins? The answer is no, other than lot 9 devotees, who will be there no matter what anyway. Also, there is absolutely no reason to assume the MAC will have another year like it did this year. The coaching staffs who generated many of those wins are gone, and there is every reason to assume that the MAC will become what the MAC is, a not-really-FBS conference. The MAC has had, what, 50+ years to become a major player and it never has. In the same way that Akron is about to turn the corner, is the MAC about to become a power conference too?

No you wouldn't. I call bullshit. There is no prestige difference between Ball State, EMU, and the other programs in the craptacular MAC and the programs in FCS. Besides, there have been only a couple of "name" programs to visit the Info, and one of them was Indiana. Wahoo. Not. If you really cared about prestige football being played at Akron, you wouldn't be an Akron fan at all. You'd be an OSU honk. FCS is where this program belongs.

Are you and Gerry neighbors, and did he pee on your bushes one Saturday morning? Sleep with your wife? Throw your kid off the team? Why are you so bound and determined to crap on the guy? It is a numbers-based fact that he won more games than the coaches who followed him, even though he basically had high-school-level facilities to do it with. Why the antipathy? When he joins that great mediocre football program in the sky, will you piss on his grave too?

I have absolutely no doubt that UA athletics do not make money for the university. I'm not sure where the money comes from that supports the athletics budget, but the program that is stealing and providing the worst return on "investment" is football, in the last 30 years. Nobody with intelligence confuses UA football with the big time, and I absolutely do not believe that being one of the worst programs in the country at the FBS level helps UA attract students nor does it lend any kind of prestige. Zach, you talk all kinds of garbage about exposure, and you seem utterly sure that making to the Douchbag Bowl presented by Cheerios enhances, well, something, for the universities that make it that far. Bullshit. Besides that, wouldn't UA have to, you know, like, win some games to even be in your Bullshit dream to begin with? They don't win, so they are one of the few teams in FBS who can never actually make it to the Douchebag Bowl. They aren't even in your own arguments. Calls FCS small time. Call it insignificant. I call it fun. I call it properly proportioned with the rest of the real world. Show me a lot 9 tailgate on a Saturday morning, prepping for a game that UA can realistically win, and I'll show you smiles. Show me 12,000 fans at the stadium to play YSU or Illinois State and I'll point to proper positioning for this program. You want big time A-Hole athletics, drive 90 minutes and watch professional football in Columbus. UA is not that, thank goodness, and it never will be. UA is big time soccer, mid-major basketball, and FCS football. It could not be clearer. You may not want to see it, but that's the way it is.

Agreed, but let's remember that given the totality of the circumstances when he arrived, it was practically guaranteed that he would fail. One would think that he would have served as the sacrificial lamb for later, more successful coaches, and that's how it should have gone, right? We should regard him as the great old guy who took one for the team, who took over a program making the jump in almost impossible circumstances, who built the foundation, and should be thankful to him. Is it possible that people think so poorly of him because he now serves as the elderly archetype for modern UA football failure? I would argue that he should be off of the hook, again considering the circumstances when he arrived.

+1. I don't understand the venom for Gerry. Sometimes in life we don't give enough credit to people who are simply decent human beings.

. One thing we can agree on is that Lot 9 rules. It's been more than a year since I was at Lot 9 for a tailgate. Imagine if the lot were full of fans, having a blast and prepping to watch an actual FUN game, maybe a win. What a novel concept!

Here's a question for you then Zips Win: when exactly did you stop beating your wife? That question has nothing to do with the topic at hand, you say? Well then, neither does Toledo's status have anything to do with the path that Akron should take. However, I will add a point or two. First, even the best MAC football is, to my eyes, a substantial cut below large, "prestige" major college football. I don't consider the MAC, even the pinnacle of the conference, to be "major" football. Look at attendance, facilities, staff salaries, television exposure, media coverage, athletic department budgets, players making it to the NFL, in all of these categories the MAC teams are not in the same "league" with the major programs. So, in spite of the fact that many posters here would love it for Akron to become Toledo-like in football, no, I don't consider Toledo, nor any MAC team, to be true FBS. Let's also remember that the MAC had an unprecedentedly good year in football, our of nowhere, and that if past is prologue, the MAC will fall back to its rightful place, probably next season. The MAC is, after all, the conference where big-time coaches get their start, so that guys like Hazell have a good year and bolt. The flip side is that the MAC is the conference from which big-time talent flees when they have their chance. Second, knowing that the MAC is, in fact, FBS Tier II at best, Akron has never been one of the average programs in the MAC. You might have an argument if Akron were able to hold its own in the MAC, but it has never even held up its part of the bargain. No MAC program envies Akron. They surely envy the practice facilities, but not the program. So, even if I were to grant you that I believe that Toledo is a genuine FBS program, you would still be facing the chasm that has always existed between programs like Toledo and Akron's. Most of the other athletic programs have more than done their share. Why the football program has remained sad sack is still something of a mystery to me, but it's been too long.

??? Where/how do you draw Toledo into this, based on what I said in that post? Toledo is one of the vaunted (he said facetiously) MAC powerhouse programs right? Isn't becoming Toledo the goal, almost 30 years later? Do you suppose we'll get there by year 60? Will you or I be alive when we get there? Were the University presidents fools who, for decades, did not try to compete with the likes of Ohio State and even the MAC? IN what ways has it benefited the university to have become D-1A/FBS? Has revenue increased? Has attendance grown? The prestige of the program?

What conclusions can be drawn from the above? How is it that Faust, with the Rubber Bowl, older campus that served primarily commuters, no practice facility and starting from the old OVC, won as many games as the later coaching staffs?

Perhaps it's done for Hilltopper and B&G, which means that when you see the thread header, you do not click on it. See how easy that is?

Better than WHICH Big East? The MAC is absolutely the lowest denomination at the FBS level. There is NO BIg East team (talking about pre-break up here) that would have chosen the MAC over the Big East. None. Fans here have been hoping and praying that somehow, some way, UA would find its way to the Big East. Does the Big East even exist after this year anymore? Akron is on the outside looking in, when it comes to FBS football. You may wish it weren't the case, but that's the way it is. I'll still drink beer with you though LZip. First one's on you.