ctmjbowes@sbcglobal.net

A REAL punter: CHECK

Zach D'Orazio: check

Non-horrible defense: check defensive backs who aren't 5'1": check

I'm certainly not. Defensive line that gets pressure: check Return game: check Offense that moves the ball: check Quarterback who can throw: check Name one of those things we had in the last several years. I'll take it, considering they're only going to get better from here. Hopefully this is the floor, with lots of ceiling above.

To be up 20-14 at the half against any FBS team is a great thing for the Zips. That was actually fun to watch. I cannot remember the last Zips football half that I actually enjoyed. It's certainly something to build on.

Interested.

There would have to be something compelling about a new format and teams involved to bring eyeballs. Let's say that the MAC and the Sunbelt decided that their football seasons would start in the Spring and end middle of Summer. How many fans are going to turn the channel to Western Michigan versus Akron on any night of the week this time of year? I think not many. There would have to be something more compelling about the TV product than that "it's football in Spring". The teams/conferences involved would have to include some ratings-gatherers, would have to introduce something new in the game play (more dynamic offense or rule changes that make it somehow interesting to potential viewers), bring an emphasis on safety and/or weight limits for players to differentiate itself from Fall football, or bring traditional powerhouse personalities to amp up entertainment value. By May, traditional football fans are turning their attention to baseball, vacation, yard work, etc. Spring football that consists of crappy leagues/teams like those that the MAC offers would fail in the Spring just like they currently fail in the Fall. So, for GP1, how do you differentiate the game? How do you revolutionize it so that people wonder enough about it to tune in instead of tuning into the Yankees on the radio while they work in the yard?

Dave In Green, can you confirm that there is something of a buzz amongst insiders that either the Big East is considering UA for membership or that there is a move afoot by UA to gain admission? I'm very surprised that your post a few up didn't garner more attention in this thread, assuming I read it correctly. I would be ecstatic if UA were to move to the Big East and fervently hope that efforts are underway to make it happen.

While I would love to see a new paradigm for schools and conferences that have been unable to penetrate to the genuine BCS/D-1 level, I don't see it happening any time soon and agree with Zach that any conference other than the MAC would appeal as a new, maybe even temporary, home for the Zips. Big East if possible (very likely not) but if C-USA would take us I'm all over it. You guys who think the MAC is as good as the C-USA are WAY deep in the weeds, or perhaps delusional. The MAC is absolutely the worst. If UA harbors no aspiration to flee the crappy MAC, why the beautiful new stadium, why the major financial emphasis on athletic facilities, why all the chatter of a new BB arena, why hire a guy like JT? The MAC wears a grey MAO suit. A school that's happy in the middling grey craptacular MAC, that most Soviet of conferences, wouldn't do those things. At least not if rational, responsible and reasonable people are making the decisions. It could certainly be the case that the people making the decisions at UA aren't, but I hope otherwise. If UA is happy to stay in the MAC long term then someone should be prosecuted for the wasted investment made in athletic facilities using taxpayer dollars. Such facilities are wasted on a long term MAC athletic program. The blue and gold of UA will look SO much brighter in the sunlight, out of the grey that is the MAC.

I am one who hated it that I couldn't buy a beer inside the stadium during games. I am an adult with a plethora of entertainment options. I also enjoy getting my buzz on as a part of enjoying many of those recreational activities, especially when driving, riding a motorcycle on one wheel and performing microsurgery on peoples' brains. Actually, I kid about the driving, wheelying and brain surgery things. Anyway, telling people like me that we can't grab a beer or two during the games just simply provides a chilling effect to the proceedings for me, whether or not I choose to have those beers. There is the implication that attendees cannot be adult enough to behave while having a drink, and/or that this is a university event that must stay somehow "cleaner" than other entertainment venues for the good of the students, or that there is just some Bull--it moralistic reason why I shouldn't drink a beer at a football game. In any event, for many many people, the chilling effect is real and it's a downer. College football games are adult entertainment environments, hence the tailgating and outside revelry. You chop off a certain number of potential attendees by clamping down on beer sales. I'm very happy to see that UA has changed this one and would bet that the game day experience will be better and that more adult ticket buyers will now go to games at the Info.

Great ideas, and I love the idea of presenting a truly more progressive game for the players and to the public. A more fun flavor of the game, heavy on offense, with limits on player weight by position to reduce impact forces, equipment differences and especially notable differences in the way that players are treated that change their essential relationship with the institution, man those are REAL differentiating factors that could really work. Man, if schools like UA are about to find themselves in the trash heap of D-1 college football, I would LOVE to see such a response.

Debase is the perfect word. I listened to Bill Romanowksi chatter with Colin Cowherd yesterday and he was such an idiot, spouting off about how the suicide was a wake up call for the NFL about head injury while simultaneously ranting about how terrible it was that coaches and players had been suspended by the NFL for bounties. These guys are idiots and the inmates can never run the asylum. Guys like Romanowski and Harrison are absolutely terrible for the league and for the sport. And remember, there are many, many coaches that teach and train players to get gigantic, fast and dangerous. The coaching culture needs to be changed as well.

It is discouraging, to say the least, that options for UA appear to be so few. I am one of those that truly does not appreciate the MAC. In my view it's a far-lesser conference and is dull grey in a world of color. So many similar schools from essentially the "same place". It's a broken-down legacy from a different era. I don't see it happening, but man it would be cool if UA were in a conference with some interesting, colorful schools and programs, places to see games that aren't the same as NE Ohio, at least one or two powerhouse programs to aspire to. There is nothing to aspire to while being a member of the MAC. There is nothing that the MAC offers that makes me want better for UA, other than to get out of the MAC. Now, as we see this other-conference realignment, C-USA looks like an ugly hodge podge. It's still far better than anything the MAC can offer, but is going to be weird and unwieldy. It's painful that schools like Akron weren't apparently even considered, when they added universities that seem to be lesser than UA. That tells me that those "out there" either have zero interest in the midwest region in general, or that UA and other MAC schools are just utterly unattractive to other conferences. If you're a chick and cannot even draw the attention of the "new look" C-USA you are truly ugly. Is UA really that unappealing to other conferences?

Size/weight limits, equipment changes, something has to change. I've said this in other posts, but I am increasingly uneasy about my own participation, just as a fan, in a sport that leaves behind a trail of carnage the way that football clearly does. Seeing heavy hits doesn't get me going anymore, they just make me cringe and feel a little guilty for essentially cheering the gladiators on toward their hobblings/deaths. If the college game and NFL instituted weight limits you'd see these players size down practically overnight. The power in the hits is the speed AND mass of these players. Reducing the mass would go a long way to reducing the forces involved. Equipment changes are also in order. When you spear someone the way these players do every single week, YOU should be injured. I've never seen old football video from the days of leather helmets and no face guards where the players were launching head-first in horizontal fashion at one another. A dude who is 6'4", weighs 275 pounds, runs a 4.5 and has been training since he was a kid to spear other human beings is not what we should consider a football player. He's nothing more than the embodiment of potential human suffering. Why do we cheer that? It reflects poorly on all of us.

With no offense intended toward Wagner, here's hoping that UA gets the better of this swap!

OMG, in retrospect is there anything UA could have done worse going into the opening of the stadium? I am cheering the program on from afar now, but it's so frustrating that they are only now turning the ship into the correct tack. The problem is that regarding the Info, the bloom is now off of the rose, so to speak. The stadium is no longer "shiny and new". Damn, such missed opportunities to boost the program at the right moment when they had that ONE shot to do so. I remember attending opening day at Jacob's Field in 1994. It was shiny and new and beautiful right exactly when that team was becoming exciting after decades of sucking. The energy at that park was palpable and intense and remained so right up until the craptacular Dolan family bought the club and ruined it. If only UA could have done it right...

Well it depends GP1. The French cut an awful lot of heads off during their revolution and they've done OK since. I've strayed pretty far from the MAC in making that statement so I'll leave it at that. Now where were we? BAIN feels PAIN from his back STRAIN in the RAIN. It's like he was run over by a TRAIN. BAIN. Sorry. Had to.

Can I sue the NFL and/or the Browns for injuring my brain after having watched them play for the last decade plus since "the return"?

BAM! +1.

Horses are liquidated when they are no longer money makers or show potential as breeding stock. For many, liquidation means euthanasia. College athletes are adults. They need to fully internalize the truth that if they play a contact sport like football at the college level, there is a substantial likelihood that injuries, acute and chronic, may very well affect their quality of life until the day they die. That's the reality. I would bet that most don't stop for a second to think about the negative consequences, and I'm not aware of any processes in place that force them to face that reality.

These situations/stories bring to mind several thoughts, some contradictory. 1. Football is very entertaining but it's beyond me how anyone can be surprised that some players will suffer debilitating injuries that will afflict them the rest of their lives, whether high school, college or professional. Shame on all of us collectively for not fully embracing that reality. At least the Roman spectators were clear about the fates of the losers. What does it say about football fans that they are generally unprepared to fully understand that their entertainment causes pain and agony that will last for many years for the entertainers? 2. People who are "addictive" in their personalities and in their genetics are at high risk whether they happen to play football or not. If one could press a button and engage numerous parallel realities with people like CJ, in how many of those parallel lives would he become addicted? 3. When an adult becomes addicted to narcotics, whose fault is it? Should doctors allow patients to suffer in agony or should they treat pain in the most efficient manner possible? 4. I get uncomfortable when it's suggested that because an adult has chosen to become akin to a modern-day gladiator, that there should be a special system to support them. The kid who is a student and falls on the ice on the way to class and is then prescribed pain killers doesn't have a "support system" beyond himself and his family to ensure that he doesn't become a junkie. Why is a coach somehow responsible for a player in this way? Ianello is a nasty unlikable human being, but why is it his responsibility to ensure that another adult doesn't become a drug addict? For those of you who have family members with such an affliction, is it your fault? I would say that addiction is such an intense drive for those so predisposed that to blame anyone for the addictions of others is to misplace that blame. 3. I worry when people believe that certain painkillers should perhaps not be offered to those in pain. There is weird moral and religious judgement that tends to leak into conversations about pain management. My very limited understanding is that if anything, modern medicine is still very much lacking in effective tools for pain management and their application. Addiction issues are agonizing to be sure, but when human suffering is acute, pain management becomes critical. I don't ever want to suffer extreme pain because a bureaucrat or a doctor is worried that I may develop substance abuse issues or that some amount of suffering on my part is OK in their mind. I could go on and on but the bottom line, getting back to football, is that we're actively incentivizing young adults to batter and brutalize each other for our entertainment, right within the context of our educational system. Think about it in those concrete terms and it's pretty dirty and unappealing. The next time you are tempted to go nuts cheering that big lick on the field, remember all of this. Pretty nasty, pretty unappealing stuff all of it.

How to work in a Bain rhyme here?

Whoa, whoa, what was that about Broderick Alexander's foreskin? Oh wait...

Why then don't colleges and the NFL start looking at maximum weights for players? Say, how many concussions do professional rugby players suffer and how big are the players today? I ask because professional rugby players absolutely do not hit the same as football players do, and I believe that it's obviously because they aren't layered up with "cladding" the way football players are. Self preservation dictates that they wrap up more and they deliver more glancing blows. You also never see rugby players leading with the head blindly. The problem with American football is one of too-large steroid freaks who are protected from many injuries they would otherwise incur when they spear other players with their heads and shoulder pads. The game has gotten to the point of actually requiring smaller players wearing much less equipment. Guys like Ray Lewis would be out of the game immediately without the multiple ridiculous layers of gear. The more I think about this issue and the more I see players layered in about 100 layers of under armor and Nike plastic crap, the less respect I have for our American game. It's become a freak show.

Big East=Pipe Dream, but would love to see it. MWC/C-USA=Less of a Pipe Dream, would love to see it. Any conference other than the MAC would be a wonderful thing.