Dr Z

I bet he gets his 5 eventually.

Bad idea Charlie, stick with the nickel. I wonder how easy a (2) can change to a (9), and a (Couch) to a (Frye). If I can market some kind of conversion package for $9.95.

Would anybody like to guess what Charlie's contract will look like? Years? Total salary? Guanteed money? Bonus? I'll say 4 years, $2.5 mill

Poor Charlie, I'm sick for him. Will he ever play behind a decent line? Can't beat Ben, now he has to face him twice a year.

The player many consider to be the third-best prospect in a not-so-attractive quarterback class is on the Packers' radar -- Akron's Charlie Frye. The Packers and Cleveland are believed to have the most interest in Frye. The Browns have the third pick in the first round, which would be way too early to take Frye if Alex Smith and Aaron Rodgers indeed go off the board right away. Cleveland seems to be eyeing Frye for its second round selection, 34th overall. With the Packers sitting 10 spots higher with their first-round choice, it's possible they would give strong consideration to taking Frye then. -- Green Bay News-Chronicle

Don't forget the fact the Palko was playing with Walt Harris recruits while Charlie was playing with LO recruits. Probalbly a tad difference in talent level. Only thing Palko does better than Charlie is use the "F" word in interviews.

The one Pitt game I did watch was the Nebraska game. I watched it specifically to see how "great" Palko was since Getsy transfered. I had a pretty good feeling from watching that game, if Getsy couldn't beat Palko out, we wern't getting another Charlie Frye. Palko was throwing balls two yards short on easy outs, throwing the ball up for grabs. Terrible decision making. He would have made Akrons defense look great last year had we played them. To compare Frye and Palko is nuts. Oh yeah, one more thing...

(source file) Mid-major QBs making a big impact Clayton By John Clayton ESPN.com Archive Charlie Frye drove from Akron to Pittsburgh to spend a few days with Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger in January as Roethlisberger prepared to play the Jets in the AFC playoffs. Frye didn't doubt Roethlisberger's ability to succeed in this big game. He has admired him for years as a competitor in the underappreciated Mid-American Conference. But others doubted. Mid-major quarterbacks aren't supposed to come right into the NFL and play as rookies. Yet, Roethlisberger, coming off one of the greatest rookie seasons for a quarterback in NFL history, helped the Steelers beat the Jets 20-17 and advance to the AFC Championship Game. "It's not where you start from, it's where you finish," Frye said. "There's a lot of guys like Joe Montana and Tom Brady that weren't selected in the first round, and they've both won three Super Bowls, so it's not where you start from, it's where you end up." Frye is the latest in the MAC attack, a projected late first-round or high second-round prospect from Akron hoping to join the growing list of successful MAC alums – Roethlisberger, Chad Pennington and Byron Leftwich. For years, scouts have doubted how well MAC quarterbacks could adjust to the NFL. Scouts look at the competition with disdain and project a longer transition into the league for quarterbacks like Leftwich and Roethlisberger. The scouts downgrade the MAC quarterbacks for the funky offenses their teams use. Too much shotgun and not enough time behind center, they complain. Yet, the quarterbacks who have made the fastest and most successful conversions into the NFL the past two years have been Roethlisberger from Miami of Ohio and Leftwich from Marshall. Alex Smith's rapid rise to being possibly the first selection, by the San Francisco 49ers, might finally be an indirect endorsement of the MAC. At least, it's a step forward for recognition of the mid-majors. Smith is hot even though he played at Utah. Former NFL offensive coordinator Larry Kennan, who is head of the NFL Coaches Association, spends winters and early springs preparing young quarterbacks for the NFL. He has worked with Leftwich, Pennington, Eli Manning, Smith and others, and he considers Smith one of the best he has worked with. Position-by-position schedule In preparation for the NFL draft (April 23-24, ESPN), Len Pasquarelli and John Clayton will roll out a position-by-position look at draft prospects, along with a breakdown for each position. Click here to see the complete schedule. "He's going to be a really good one," Kennan said. "I always try to evaluate things with 'What's his upside and what's his downside?' I'm having a hard time finding any downside. With Leftwich, it was working with him coming off a broken leg. Pennington doesn't have a great arm. I don't see any downside in Alex. Two years from now, he's going to be a 230-pounder. He's a big, strong guy. He knows a great deal, and he makes every throw." Frye has been working with Rod Dowhower, a longtime NFL offensive coach who marvels at the Akron quarterback's understanding of the game and situations. In many ways, the mid-majors get a quarterback ready for the NFL better than anyone thinks. Though the coaching might be as good at the mid-majors as it is at the majors, the talent isn't as deep. Receivers drop more balls. An injury or two deplete an offensive line, leaving a quarterback forced to scramble more to make plays. That's no different from what a rookie quarterback is going to get when he moves to a 2-14 team. The biggest myth is that mid-major quarterbacks who play primarily out of the shotgun will be slow to adjust to playing on the line with their hands behind center. "Obviously, it is a different style of play," Smith said. "As far as football knowledge and things I was asked to do under that system, I think I can be more prepared than any quarterback. Making checks at the line of scrimmage, reading defenses, what I was asked to know and do was more than anyone else. In that sense, I feel more prepared because I played in a system." Kennan notes that the Utah offense was so sophisticated Smith was calling protection changes and route changes at the line of scrimmage on a regular basis. That's stuff you do in the NFL. "Plus, these guys are gym rats," Kennan said. "Alex loves studying film and knowing what he's doing. It's not as though he's never played with his hands behind center. He did that as a freshman and all through high school. It took a couple of weeks for him to get to the right points on three-, five- and seven-step drops." Plus, the mid-major experience exposes these quarterbacks to more. It's all about passing and overcoming adversity. More rests on the quarterbacks' shoulders, so they have to respond. Frye went to the Senior Bowl and earned MVP honors even though he badly injured his left pinkie on the first snap in practice Monday. In the game, Frye wore a tight glove to cut down the swelling. That's what you do in the MAC. You compete. MAC quarterbacks get hit more, so they are asked to respond to more challenges. The Bills saw those types of qualities in J.P. Losman, who didn't play in the MAC but was a mid-major QB at Tulane, when they traded a 2005 first-round pick to get him in last year's draft. "Some of the blocking around him at Tulane may have been a little below the mid-major level," Bills assistant general manager Tom Modrak said. "A lot of times at that level, you have receivers who might drop the ball a little more than at the major level. It was a situation for him where if J.P. didn't make the play, nobody would. You see a lot from a quarterback in those situations." Go back to the 1999 draft. One longtime NFL quarterback coach with a great eye for talent went to look at the five quarterbacks drafted in the first round and came to quick conclusions. Akili Smith had a gun-slinging style and only one year as a starter that would make for a tough conversion. Cade McNown didn't have a strong arm and wasn't liked by his teammates. Tim Couch had trouble because of his limited exposure throwing the out pass. The coach thought McNabb was a sure bet for success. He thought the same of Daunte Culpepper from Central Florida. Culpepper made all the throws, had pro level coaching and was forced to run around making every play because he wasn't blessed with the deepest talent base around him. Smith, McNown and Couch were busts. McNabb and Culpepper were the keepers and are now NFL stars. The successes of the MAC alum and other mid-major quarterbacks is changing the way teams look at prospects like Frye, Smith and others entering the NFL. "Yeah, I think they erased all of those [doubts]," Frye said. "They set the bar pretty high, too. They went in there and had success and won a lot of games. I'm hoping to go in there and try to do the same thing." John Clayton is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.

I can't take full credit. I was told about it at the game Saturday.

Out of the country. He's back now. Missed you on Saturday. There? Too hard to find people when they were all bunched up.

source (for easy read) Business as usual for Akron's Brookhart Many are buying into what Cherry Creek grad is selling By Clay Latimer, Rocky Mountain News April 15, 2005 AKRON, Ohio - For years, J.D. Brookhart has been different. Instead of listening to Colorado State University football coaches, who told him he was not good enough to play there, he became the Rams' go-to receiver. Instead of going into the family business - coaching - he became a top national salesman for Xerox. Instead of enjoying his six-figure income and easy lifestyle, he became a 30-year-old volunteer assistant - or errand boy - for Denver Broncos coach Mike Shanahan. And instead of settling in as a steady but unspectacular assistant at the University of Pittsburgh, he carved out a reputation as an offensive guru. But Brookhart was just getting started. In his first season as a Division I coach, he led the University of Akron to its best Mid-American Conference record in 13 years, was named the league's 2004 coach of the year and landed a noteworthy recruiting class. But Brookhart raised just as many eyebrows with his coaching style, which is equal parts boardroom and locker room. In fact, he believes business and football are the same bottom-line game. "It always comes down to winning, doesn't it?" said the 40-year-old Cherry Creek High School graduate, whose team will conclude spring drills with Saturday's intrasquad game. "The principles are the same." Applying sales techniques So are his tactics. For example, Brookhart prepares an unusually detailed questionnaire for recruits and their parents. "It's exactly the same as a sales job," he said. "Your job all the time as a salesman - and recruiter - is to differentiate yourself from the competition. We tried to do a better job of narrowing in, so we can do a better job of adjusting to how we can suit their needs." To help his coaching staff understand sales techniques, he brought in software executive John McMahon. "Basically what I tried to do is give those guys a common terminology when they're talking together about recruits," McMahon said. "In sales, we have different names for different people. The 'ultimate decision maker' - that could be a player's mom or dad or an uncle or something. The 'recommender' - maybe his brother is playing college ball and he's recommending what the kid should do. "They were listening . . . well, maybe the older guys were (skeptical)." But Brookhart was all business. Early in his tenure, his staff was watching video of a potential recruit when Brookhart was called away for a phone call. The video image was frozen in place when he returned. "Ownership, not dictatorship," Brookhart said, summarizing his philosophy for managing people. "I needed them to have the 'ownership' that if I walk out of the room, things will go on exactly as they should. I don't want them to come in and do what I know." Staying on task is crucial to Brookhart, which is why he will not put up with idle chatter or misspent time in general. "We had a guy who spent an hour trying to find the right Army (insignia) to put on our scouting report," said Brookhart, whose team will play Army next season. "We don't need a pretty jet or ship. We need to just write Army on there and get to the real meat of the project. An hour spent finding the right pretty picture - I think you can find a better way to spend 59 minutes." Building a stadium But Brookhart's job hardly ends in the locker room. "We're going to build an on-campus stadium and we're at lunch today with our vice president, planning all our trips to go look at stadiums," Akron athletic director Michael Thomas said. "Not only does J.D. want to go, he wants to fly the plane. "He fits in on the coaching side, but J.D. also fits in on the business side. He has a lot to add, there's no doubt about it. He's just wired that way." Sports always have been a daily staple for Jack Brookhart - a former Cherry Creek coach - and his family. Mike Brookhart was a standout athlete at Creek in the 1970s; today, he coaches the Bruins' basketball team. Younger brother J.D. hoped to walk on at CSU after racking up impressive receiving yardage on Creek's first state championship team. After the Rams turned him down, Brookhart attended Brigham Young for a year, then returned to Fort Collins, hoping for another shot with the Rams. "All people have to tell me is 'no' - that's my motivation," he said. A three-year starter, Brookhart finished sixth place on the CSU all-time receptions list (111) and was named an Academic All-American as a senior in 1987. After the Los Angeles Rams cut him in 1988, Brookhart was unsure where to turn; eventually, he contacted Larry Thiel, a family friend and director of the International golf tournament who hired him to sell corporate hospitality events. "It was a great transition for me," he said. "Afterward, Larry gave me great advice, telling me that if I wanted to get into sales, I needed to get some training." A natural salesman Hired by Xerox in 1989, Brookhart was a natural. He won the President Club's Award, which is given to salespersons who rank in the top 15 percent nationally. "I'm starting to make some money and I didn't grow up with a lot of money, so it's pretty cool," he said. Brookhart worked for two other companies after Xerox, but in 1995, while living at Salt Lake City, he realized he was running on fumes. "I'm 30, making good money, single, doing anything I wanted to do and not working very much," he said. "But my dad had always talked to me about having a passion and I didn't have anything that came from the heart. "I looked at my life and said, 'Coaching.' " Brookhart phoned a family friend, who knew Shanahan, to see if he could arrange a 30-minute meeting with the Broncos coach. "I didn't think I could pay my dues at that time. I was going to skip a few rungs," he said. "I didn't care about money." After working hard on his pitch, Brookhart walked into Shanahan's office, determined to prevail. "He kept coming up with objection after objection after objection," Brookhart said. "He told me 'no' in every which way he could. At the end of 30 minutes, he kind of put his hands up and said, 'All right, you can come to training camp.' " Brookhart ran errands - picking up soft drinks, filling up cars with gas - in exchange for a seat in coaches' meetings, where he soaked in all the Xs and Os. "At the end of training camp, Shanahan thanked me and told me to call if he could help in any way," he said. "I told him I wanted to stay, and he said, 'I told you we didn't have anything.' "Then he let me stay." Motivated by fear During the next two years, Brookhart worked in all phases of the game - offense, defense, special teams, always wary of failure. "When I was at Pitt, they brought in a psychologist for our players," he said. "They wanted to find out what motivates you: Was it winning or being a limelighter or what? Mine was fear of failure. A lot of times I worked from 6:30 in the morning until midnight." During seven seasons at Pittsburgh, Brookhart played a major role in the Panthers' revival, first as receivers coach, then as offensive coordinator, developing a long line of marquee wideouts, including All-American Larry Fitzgerald, 2000 Biletnikoff Award winner Antonio Bryant and NFL signees Latef Grim, Darcey Levy and R.J. English. But he was eager for a promotion, and when Akron called, Brookhart was ready for his big chance. "He was a very dedicated, hard-working, detail-oriented guy," Shanahan said. "He did a great job for us and has since then. I'm so happy for him. They called me, of course, when he was a candidate at Akron. And I gave him a real high recommendation." After a 51-0 drubbing at Virginia, though, which dropped the Zips' record to 0-3, Brookhart's first season was in meltdown mode. "It was the worst. It was brutal. I was really questioning myself," he said. "I didn't know if I could coach." But Brookhart rallied his players, an impressive accomplishment because Lee Owens, his predecessor, had recruited many of them. "He knows how to get the team and other people fired up about Akron football," quarterback Charlie Frye said. Down 21 points against Marshall, Frye threw three touchdowns and Jason Swiger kicked a 43-yard field goal on the final play to lift the team to a 31-28 victory. On a roll, the Zips won six of their last eight games and entered the final week of the season with a shot at a bowl berth and conference title. Moreover, they drew 29,261 and 17,410 fans in their final two home games at the Rubber Bowl, where minuscule crowds are the norm. "The community is very excited where we're at right now," Thomas said. Added Shanahan: "You couldn't do a better job than J.D. has done at Akron." But success hasn't spoiled Brookhart. Recruiting, fundraising, marketing, long-range planning - he's still all business. "I like to grow," he said. latimerc@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2596

WANT FRYE WITH THAT? Don't be surprised if Akron's Charlie Frye turns out to be this draft's best QB. He's likely going to be the third quarterback selected after Rodgers and Smith, but many NFL types believe he'll be the one standing tallest a few years down the road. That list includes former Marshall coach Bob Pruett, who coached both Chad Pennington and Byron Leftwich, and also coached against Frye. He was quoted recently stating that Frye's by far the best QB available in the 2005 Draft. Frye has a real good, live arm, and has such good smarts, awareness and accuracy that it wouldn't be surprising if he were taken in the first round. One team rumored to be interested in Frye's services is the Packers, who pick 24th and are obviously in need of a QB of the future to replace Brett Favre. source

good post Zipboy. I agree with all your points. To me Jabari looks like the QB that would give us the best chance to win. But I wish someone would step up and make the decision easy. What is up with the center position? Worst snaps I have seen throughout a game? Kennedy impressed me. OL did not. Do we run a swing pass to the right every third play or what? I don't know about anybody else, but I would rather watch the spring game at the rubber bowl. It was fun to see the new field, but that isn't a great place to watch a game. Why in the world did that bag of (non) information NOT include a ROSTER???

I say good for Romeo. Gets me excited to see what he could do on the football field. I understand the concern the basketball fans have, but I have to agree with Z-P Romeo may have a chance to make a living playing a game. How many of you would like to be doing that? I'm rooting for him all the way. That means LeBron will be at home games again. How can marketing parlay that? I don't mean advertise that he is at the game, but that he is a Zips "fan" Commercial? Billboard with LBJ in Romeo's jersey? Somethin.

Where does our on campus football stadium fit in? housing upgrade from BJ (click here)

Didn't win enough games.

Nice scoop ! I can't wait.

Very true. Seems like Darnell Mayberry is now covering Zips athletics rather than that YSU fan. Good move BJ, might even buy a paper in a year or two if you keep this up. They still owe me years of "real" Akron coverage for all the years they have ignored them.

Not that I agree or disagree with your post, but what would you do different to attract fans ? You are really preaching to the choir here. I know first hand that most of the people on this board were at the end of the Marshall game high fiving players on the field.

"There's a lot of guys like Joe Montana and Tom Brady who weren't picked in the first round and they won Super Bowls," Charlie Frye said. "It's not where you start, it's where you end up. Frye's alma mater, The University of Akron plays on the Division I-A level. But this isn't the I-A of titans like USC and Michigan; this is the I-A where forging a 6-5 record -- the standard for bowl eligibility -- isn't enough to get the school in the preseason. In fact, the Zips were the only bowl-eligible I-A team to be left out of the picture. Frye's only bowl was the Senior Bowl. All he did there was earn Offensive Most Valuable Player honors in the contest. "I just had a great week of practice," Frye recalled. "I thought I got better every day as I understood the offense more. I put everything together and went out and played my game on Saturday." Absorbing an NFL offense that week was no problem for Frye, who soaked up different schemes before. First, he got acclimated to the run-and-shoot offense that Akron utilized through much of his college tenure. Then, as a senior, when former Broncos aide J.D. Brookhart took over as head coach, Frye had to learn a version of the West Coast offense. Months later, Frye was at the Senior Bowl, trying to absorb the Raiders' vertical-passing system in just a week's time. But that proved to be no daunting task for Frye, who did well enough that week to earn Offensive Most Valuable Player honors in the contest. "As long as you're willing to put in the time to understand and know where you're going with your reads, you can learn any system," Frye said.

He wasn't a "cast off" He was SIGNED to the Browns active roster off Balt practice squad. Ticked off a lot of people in Baltimore when it happened per Balt newspaper. Some guy named Savage was instumental in bringing him to Baltimore in the first place. Wonder were he is now??? Wouldn't count him out in Cleveland just yet. If they don't take defense early, it would surprise me. Of course many things the Browns do surprises me.

10 Things I think (from the Gund) I think we should have won. Good showing, but we should have won. I wish McFadden would have hit a few shots yesterday, tough out for him. I think KD confussed me with his subs yesterday. I know he likes to play 11, but stange subs non the less. I don't get why DP does not get more PT ? I didn't feel Can't St was better than us both times they beat us. Good job OU proving me right. I think I'm already excited for BBall next year. It's fun to have 19 wins. Marketing did a nice job at the Hard Rock yesterday. I like the Zips fan that won the gift cerftificate. That shot was drain-o baby ! I wish we had the student fans and enthusiasm that Buffalo has. I love that big Reggie head. I think I'm glad I didn't have to drive back last night.

How the selection committee works

:blink:

Jump on the bandwagon, I mean bus. Student buses traveling to Cleveland for Thursday's 2 p.m. (EST) contest will leave Pint's Restaurant (426 East Exchange Street, Akron) at noon and return immediately following the game. As of Wednesday morning, just 25 seats remain on the charter buses. UA students are encouraged to take advantage of a special $12 package, which includes game ticket, round-trip charter bus travel to the game, a Zips' "6th Man" gold t-shirt" and Pepsi products. Student game tickets are priced at $10 and just 50 of those remain as of Wednesday morning.