wadszip

Did anybody listen to Kendall Lewis on 92.3 The Fan yesterday afternoon? I heard the intro to the show and said he was having George Thomas on to talk about Akron football. He went on to talk for a couple of minutes how big of a hire Bowden and Amato were from the program. Unfortunately, I was heading out for the evening and missed the actual interview. I went to the archived interview section on the website and see it wasn't listed there. Was wondering if anybody heard it? FYI, I went back through the archived interviews through the past two months. From my count, there was two University of Akron interviews: Keith Dambrot and former University of Akron LB Chase Blackburn. The only Cleveland State interview was one with ex-coach Kevin Mackey. The only Can't State interview was with Darrell Hazell.

That's a good point. Since, it's basketball season, the majority of the stories I counted were basketball-related (with stories on Jim Tressel and Terry Bowden hires thrown in). Since the Zips are winning, they are getting a fair amount of coverage ... just as much as Cleveland State (which up until the last couple of weeks was also winning) and more than Can't (who is also winning). Since all three teams are at 19 and 20 wins, the stations have to (and are) trying to spread that coverage around. However, I'm sure if you go back to football season, Akron got little to no coverage. Can anybody really argue the team deserved any? They were god awful, and frankly unwatchable. When TB turns this thing around, the football coverage should come ... though the football coverage will always be OSU dominated. Not much Akron can do about that, only try to make a dent in the disparity.

To add to today's bad news. Mississippi State also lost their third straight game. The Zips now have no top 50 wins. In fact, going by RPI, Marshall (55) is now the Zips' best win. Mississippi State is ranked 56. Between the Zips' loss, the MAC's poor showing and losing that lone top 50 win, not a good day for Akron. There was one good thing, though. ESPN had a "Back to School" segment with Bobby Knight on SportsCenter. The University of Akron Wayne Campus sign inside Orrville's gym was clearly visible. Hey, got to find some bright spot. Well, Can't did lose too (even though it doesn't help Akron, still not something I'll get too worked up over.) Also, the Akron-ORU game made the highlights, though it consisted of two plays ... the ORU big man's behind the back pass that resulted in a dunk, and his reverse layup. But I guess that also could've been worse. They could've shown Quincy's missed dunk and Brett's quick-trigger three that came up a couple feet short.

Thanks for the kudos. I admit, I went into that expecting there to be a bigger discrepancy, but not nearly as large as Blue and Gold assumed there would be. I was actually pleasantly surprised at the outcome. I didn't add it up in my original post, but the number of stories from the TV sites were: Cleveland State - 18 Akron - 17 Can't - 6 P.S. those links should refresh so people can feel free to continue to check to see if it was an aberration. But I suspect if the Zips keep winning, the coverage will continue to come.

I decided to take you up on looking up the local media coverage. I don't watch all the actual news telecasts so I can't comment on that, other than from what I've seen it seems like Akron, Cleveland State and Can't get about the same coverage on game days (which isn't much for any of them). However, I went back and looked at the last five pages of cleveland.com in the college sports section. I didn't count AP reports that the PD posts, only stories that were written by a staff writer (or stringer, which the PD used for today's game against ORU). http://www.cleveland.com/sports/college/ The breakdown: 1. Cleveland State - 10 2. Akron - 4 (five if you count the Jacquemain/Campbell story) 3. Can't - 1 When you consider that the Plain Dealer is the Cleveland paper, it's no surprise that CSU has gotten the most ink. But the Akron coverage has been fair, IMO. Then I looked at the websites of the four TV news channels and added up what I could find. Note: Some of the websites are definitely better (and easier to navigate) than others. 19 Action News http://www.woio.com/category/4398/sports Cleveland State - 1 Akron - 1 Can't State - 0 WKYC http://www.wkyc.com/sports/college/default.aspx None. What a horrible sports section. Fox 8 http://fox8.com/category/sports/ Akron - 3 Cleveland State - 2 Can't State - 0 Newsnet 5 (front college page) http://www.newsnet5.com/subindex/sports/college_sports Akron - 4 Cleveland State - 4 Can't State - 2 Newsnet 5 (going back through the last five pages) http://www.newsnet5.com/generic/sports/col...Sports-Coverage Cleveland State - 11 Akron - 9 Can't State - 6 I'm not seeing any anti-Akron bias from the Cleveland TV media when comparing the three local teams.

Looking at the bright side of today. At least we can let this thread die. Gotta win the MAC.

Looking at the bright side of today. At least we can let this thread die. Gotta win the MAC.

What a horrible decision by McClanahan. Absolutely horrible shot.

This one may get ugly.

To your first point, I hope it's true. Those stations, like the University of Akron, would be jumping on a bigger money train. As for the links, very interesting reads. However, if Akron can somehow get into the Big East, the university should be thankful the Cleveland stations won out in those battles. If Akron-Canton broke off, it would still be a large market (but more along the lines of Buffalo, which is ranked No. 51), while Cleveland alone would be somewhere in the 30s. It's actually good, for the university's sake, that instead of trying to sell a No. 50 market, along with the potential to add in a No. 35 market, it can now just sell the No. 17 market. That doesn't change the deeper question of how does the University of Akron sell itself to the northern half of the market (60 percent total). But it at least makes the battle easier since it is in one market, considering those Cleveland stations that won out initially still have to cover the southern half (40 percent), because covering that area is what they fought for in the first place.

I think you are way off base for your hatred of Cleveland. As somebody who was born in the city of Cleveland and grew up my entire life in Cuyahoga County, I never heard anything negative toward the University of Akron, or Akron in general. If anything, people in Cleveland (Cuyahoga County) think of Akron the same way they do Lorain/Elyria (on the west side) or Lake County (east side), in that it's still "Cleveland" just a far away part of "Cleveland." It wasn't until I went to the University of Akron before I even realized that Akron had a separate identity from Cleveland. That was an eye-opener to me because I (probably like a lot of Clevelanders) automatically assumed that Akron, for lack of a better term, was just a large suburb of Cleveland. That wasn't due to any "let's hold Akron back mentality," but rather out of pure naivety. Being somebody who is from Cleveland, but went to the University of Akron and now associates more toward Akron because of where I live (though I live in Wadsworth, which is technically in the Cleveland MSA despite only being 13 miles from Akron and 40 miles from Cleveland), it seems the only people who draw some sort of invisible dividing line between Cleveland and Akron are Akronites (cough, cough, LeBron James). Since it seems that since Clevelanders, for the most part, don't look at Akron as some foreign place is actually a good thing when it comes to trying to gain a share of that portion of the market. Will Akron ever do that, who knows. People on here have speculated for days and nobody can say yes or no. But the overriding good thing is that Akron is in the middle of the No. 17 TV market. That is not debatable. It's fact. Going back to Blue & Gold's disdain for anything Cleveland, comparing the building of Cleveland Browns Stadium to InfoCision is hardly a great example of an anti-Akron biased. The NFL is by far the most popular league in America, and even more popular than the national average in Northeast Ohio (not just Cleveland). Then when you consider the whole Art Modell moving one of the most popular and historic franchises in the NFL, and its rebirth, of course it is going to draw more attention than InfoCision Stadium. I'm sure the ABJ (can't accuse them of being the Cleveland media) covered the building CBS more than the building of InfoCision as well. As for the 2020 vision, post a link to a Cleveland-based media source that is against those plans. If one exists, I haven't seen it. As for the BracketBuster game, I read an article today from Elton Alexander from the (Cleveland) Plain Dealer. It mentioned all three of the local teams' games, but the story's primary focus was on Akron and how it has the best chance of the three at gaining an auto-berth. So much so, that when I read the article, the only comment on cleveland.com (at the time) was from somebody accusing Elton of being biased toward Akron. That damn anti-Akron Cleveland media at work. Overall, I've been trying to follow the media attention of Akron, Can't and Cleveland State from the Cleveland media sources (PD, TV news stations, 850 and 92.3), and I think Akron (especially recently) has gotten the most coverage out of all the the Cleveland-Akron schools.

I was talking to a friend who's from Kansas City about Oral Roberts ... they have five K.C. kids on the roster, including Morrison and Rian Pearson's brother (Rodrick Pearson). I asked specifically about Morrison and what kept him off the radar of major schools. He said that the Missouri staff was pushing for then head coach Mike Anderson to offer Morrison, but Anderson ignored those suggestions and went another direction. The Raytown area Morrison is from seems to be a hotbed for talent. In recent years, it has produced Morrison, Alec Burks (2011 NBA first-round pick), Rian Pearson (Toledo's stud sophomore) and has a 2013 kid Ish Wainwright who is a top 25 national recruit. Just an interesting tidbit I thought I'd pass on.

That was the first thought that came to my mind when reading that. But a good read, overall.

I imagine that is correct. Notre Dame has a huge following in every market with a large Catholic population. With that being said, Ohio State fans in this area hate Notre Dame, and Notre Dame fans hate Ohio State. I've encountered very few people who root for both schools. However, most Ohio State fans don't seem to hate Akron (they just follow OSU more religiously .. same for Notre Dame). Maybe that would change if Akron becomes a direct competitor. Overall, while Akron may be No. 3 in popularity, it's probably No. 1 in terms of the most likable school. There really doesn't seem to be much anti-UA venom in this area outside of the Can't supporters. And, you can really argue that we don't know how Northeast Ohio will react to the InfoCision MAC version of the Zips because of how badly the school bombed with the hiring of Ianello.

Thanks for the correction on ECU. I never looked up which Greenville it was located in, always assumed it was Greenville, S.C. That changes my stance on ECU being a major competitor to Akron for a potential spot in the Big East, though I should've realized the school is named "East" Carolina, and Greenville, S.C. is in western South Carolina. We'll agree to disagree on Cleveland being a leap of faith. I think 5-10 percent would be the number right off the bat just from people being interested in "big-time" college football coming to the region. But moving that number further will be an interesting challenge.

I agree with that 100 percent, whether it's Akron or Can't. Luckily, we are so much further along than our enemy to the east in terms of being attractive to a bigger conference.

I respectfully disagree. I was born and raised in Cuyahoga County, and now spend a lot of time in Stark County. The difference is night-and-day. Canton definitely is a pro-Akron area (a ton of alumni living there). That's not saying that Akron couldn't draw as many overall viewers in Cleveland than it could in Canton (just because of the size differential). But percentage-wise, Canton will likely always be more pro-Akron than Cleveland. However, UA has really racketed up its student recruiting efforts in Cleveland (the Lakewood branch is only going to help that further). So, while gaining the Cleveland share of the market is always going to be Akron's biggest challenge, it's not an impossible feat. Like I said in the previous post, if UA can garner support from 20 percent of people in that area, you're still talking about close to 200,000 potential viewers.

No doubt, and that's the challenge Akron will have to face (along with upgrading the basketball facility). I would counter, though, that while it may take some time for Clevelanders to begin following the Zips, the proximity from Cleveland to Akron (34 miles) is within a 45 minute drive for a large percentage of the population. For example, East Carolina (in Greenville, S.C.) is part of the No. 39 Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson-Asheville TV market. Asheville is more than 60 miles away from Greenville, while Spartanburg and Anderson are both 30 miles away (roughly the same distace as Akron and Cleveland). I use East Carolina as an example because it is also a school that has legit arguments to joining the Big East. But point is, whatever school you look at is going to have some challenges uniting the entire market behind one team (that's not even to mention that Greenville is only 40 miles from Clemson). If Akron can make a move up (and marginalizing Can't in the process), and the Zips grab control of the No. 2 spot in Akron-Canton, then if it say can only capture 20 percent of the market in Cleveland, you're still looking at huge number of fans.

I agree 100 percent with everything you've posted. Well stated. I'll add that even if Akron would never be fully accepted by the Cleveland area as No. 2 behind Ohio State (which we'll never know unless Akron does join the Big East), it still has a rather large population within the bigger Cleveland-Akron market. The Akron MSA (Summit and Portage counties) has 700,000 people, while the Canton-Massillon MSA has 400,000. Combined, that's 1.1 million people (almost exactly the same population of the No. 51 market Buffalo.) Really, even without Cleveland, Akron-Canton would still be a borderline top 50 market. Of course the university will sell the Big East on the Cleveland-Akron market as a whole, but Akron is lucky in a sense that it A. Sits in the geographical mid-point of the market. B. Nearly 40 percent of the 2.8 million people in the market live in Akron-Canton (where the Zips can easily claim No. 2 status behind OSU). Edit: BTW, just another thing for everybody to realize. There is technically no such thing as the "Cleveland" market. The correct name is the "Cleveland-Akron" TV market. http://www.stationindex.com/tv/tv-markets

Seriously, I can't tell if you are agreeing, or just being a douche. But from looking at your post history, I'm leaning toward you just being a flat-out douchebag. P.S. I actually disagree with his much of his post, too.

The thing that hurts the MAC is all three games are on the road. 3-0, or even 2-1, would be a huge accomplishment. But I'll take 1-2 as long as it's Akron over ORU.

That thread was so full of fail, but it seems like 90 percent of the anti-Akron sentiment was from one obvious Ohio supporter and then a couple of Marshall fans. I actually tried to sign up and post, but it kept saying that the email address I've entered "is currently disallowed." I tried a yahoo and gmail account. Damn, if only I had I had a CompuServe account, I'd be golden. The funniest part to me though was the Ohio fan (Louis Kitton) make the argument that Akron can't be counted in the Cleveland market because "Akron is 50 miles away." Then a couple of post later, he says Ohio is in the Columbus market because "OU is 45 minutes away." Really? I mean all one has to do is bust out mapquest and see that Akron is 34 miles from Cleveland and Ohio is 75 miles from Columbus (and a good hour and a half away). Plus, thinking that any considerable amount of people in Central Ohio care about Ohio University is laughable, considering that is Ground Zero Ohio State country. And while the entire state (outside of maybe Cincinnati) is Ohio State country, at least Akron actually is located right in the middle of the No. 17 market. Since TV markets are going to be a driving force in realignment, and all these leagues know that whatever Ohio school they take is going to be No. 2 behind OSU. Akron is still way more viable than any other school (outside Can't since we share the Cleveland market) in that regard. Ohio University can pull together all the southeast Ohio counties together and it still doesn't have the population Summit County, alone, has. The actual CUSA people seem to like Toledo, and I don't blame them. Toledo has had a consistently good football program for the past 30-40 years, and the school has nice facilities. The No. 73 market isn't great (and will keep the Rockets from ever having a chance at anything higher than CUSA), but is livable for that league's purposes. I can actually see CUSA/Mountain West trying to go after Toledo and Akron (or Can't, but Can't's facilities put it at a big disadvantage compared to Akron). One last thing, I also found it hilarious the Louis Kitton guy acts like Ohio is now some sort of MAC power that no other MAC school (especially not Akron) will be able to catch, while saying Akron is the worst program in all of football, and the MAC would be better off with James Madison. Does he realize that, for apples to apples purposes, from 1992 (the year Akron joined the MAC in football) until 2005 (the year OU hired Solich), the Bobcats had exactly 2 winning seasons (both under Jim Grobe) and 5 seasons with 0-2 wins. In that same time span, Akron had 5 winning seasons and 3 seasons of two or less wins. Looking at that, is there any reason to think that if Akron, instead of Ohio, hired Frank Solich in 2005, the Zips wouldn't have had the same amount of success Ohio is having? If so, it defies logic. The only explanation as to why Ohio has built its way to being a solid program, while Akron has fallen back, was because Ohio hired the right coach and Akron hired the wrong one. Guess what? Akron now has its Frank Solich ... and Terry Bowden's credentials are arguably better than Solich's because while their W/L percentages are similar at the BCS conference level, Bowden did it in the SEC. Oh well, let the average message board fans keep thinking that Akron is a perpetual 1-win team ... something that pre-Ianello had only happened one other time in the Zips D1 history (and coincidentally the one win that year, 1994, came against Ohio). The people that matter know what Akron can bring to the table, especially now that not only do they have the right coach, but also a facility to match. Like I said before, Central Florida was 3-20 its final two years in the MAC in 2003 and 2004. With George O'Leary, they have won 3 CUSA Eastern Division titles and two outright CUSA titles since 2005. And I'd put Solich and Bowden ahead of O'Leary when it comes to coaching greatness. That's not to mention that we have Jim Tressel lurking behind the scenes.

I don't see that as "Medium Everywhere" especially considering the MAC is "Bottom everywhere," despite what some computer calculations that have been thrown out here say. I do agree with your proposed Big East divisions. But at 14, I don't think Akron's included, even with a new arena. The Eastern or "Legends" division (like the crack on the Big Ten, btw) is either Temple or Villanova. No matter what Akron does, the BE doesn't pass on the No. 4 Philadelphia market. At 14 schools, the league would have to take another Western school, even if there are better eastern options, just to maintain geographic balance. But if it goes to 16, which is probably most realistic anyway, because when it becomes a non automatic-qualifying conference (as will the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and ACC), it will need to go after big markets to remain relevant (the No. 17 Cleveland market is the biggest one left without a direct school located in it). Even being a non AQ league, there is enough support for college football where, despite the overwhelming majority of "playoff" spots going to the leagues I put in parenthesis, if a league outside that can capture enough audience, and one of their teams is good enough, it can get in based off potential TV ratings. The only league that can do that is one that has inroads in the largest markets in America, which the Big East is setting itself up to do. Eliminating the non-AQ status actually hurts leagues like the MAC more than any other. Without any AQ standards, there is no way a regionalized MAC school is ever invited to the big party because the TV audience won't be there. And if you think TV is not going to play a big part in the future of college football, you're naive. Leagues like the MAC, Sun Belt and an even a more watered-down CUSA/Mountain West are better served dropping down to current FCS levels (though a watered-down CUSA/Mountain West is still a better option due to basketball). When AQ status is revoked, it gives the holdouts in the Big East even more incentive to stay at that top-tier, even if it means their champ only makes the final cut every three or so years, because not having having leagues with no shot at all like the MAC to compete with, gives the BE a bigger share of the college football market (even if it always remains a step behind the five big boys). Really, the way the landscape is changing, outside of complacency, there is no incentive for Akron to even think about remaining in the MAC. Plus, what rivalries does Akron truly have in the MAC? The school has been in the league for only 25 years, and even to this day, Akron is viewed as a red-headed stepchild in the league. The good-old boys don't respect Akron, even if the Zips were/are winning. Ok, we lose the Can't rivalry. Texas A&M gave up an even bigger rivalry to Texas; Missouri gave up an even bigger rival in Kansas; and Pitt and West Virginia both gave up a bigger rivalries, to improve the futures of their athletics programs. I think Akron would be able to do the same with Can't if it meant enhancing every other program the school offers. I'm not saying Akron to the Big East is a shoe-in, because it isn't. But a new arena puts us in the ballpark (for reasons I already posted). If it's even a possibility, the university has to whatever it can to make it happen, regardless of the future of the Big East. Somebody said the MAC is a cockroach, which is partially true, but the Big East is a NYC-sized cockroach, it isn't going away either.

Count me in as somebody who wants the university to do this on its own. And I really don't care whether it's on campus or downtown (the two now are more than ever the same). However, I don't think the university can wait 10 years to make this happen. The future of big-time college athletics is taking a quick and major turn. If the university sits back and waits, it could miss out on it and be stuck in the MAC forever ... or best-case an even more watered down version of CUSA/Mountain West (after the Big East takes even more of that league's better programs). I think 2015 is a critical year. It's the first year Navy is joining the Big East and by that time the league will decide what direction it wants to go. If it chooses to expand further, which appears likely (no way does it pass on adding one of the Philadelphia schools, which both want in for football), Akron has to have its have its case made by then, and it doesn't have a case for inclusion without an arena. So if the fundraising efforts aren't going as well as hoped the in the next two years, and teaming with the city is the last resort to make breaking ground on a new arena by 2015 possible, the university may have to bite the bullet and give up some of its muscle. Even under that scenario, hopefully the university is able to secure enough funding where it can maintain the most control over the facility. Unfortunately, unless Jim Tressel works some serious magic on the fundraising trail (which isn't out of the question), a university/city partnership may be what's needed to elevate Akron's athletic programs beyond the MAC.

I think you're selling the University of Florida way short. 25-years-ago, Florida was joining the prestigious Association of American Universities (AAU). If Akron hypothetically applied right now (which technically isn't possible being that the AAU is invite-only), the application would be thrown in the trash without opening it. That's not a slam on the University of Akron, only 34 public universities are in that organization. Athletics isn't even a debate, either, Florida has been a member of the SEC since 1932. The school's done a great job of enhancing its programs from meddling SEC-level to national power, but it's always had a chair at the big-boy table. And Ohio is more than Ohio State. University of Cincinnati is in the Big East, while there are the six Ohio MAC schools. Realistically, Ohio could support three BCS-level teams. Ohio State, Cincinnati (Southwest Ohio) and Akron (Northeast Ohio), compared to Florida's 5. And support five MAC-level schools, compared to Florida's two. So, we're definitely in agreement about Akron becoming a bigger player in college athletics.