K92

Thanks for pointing out my year slip up, Balsy. I fixed it.

About this whole Bowden Ball thing: I don't know what that is. What I thought it was it obviously is not. What I thought when we were getting when we were sold this Bowden Ball was a wide open offense in the vein of the evolved Hal Mumme/Mike Leach style. I think we had a glimpse of that in '12. It was exciting. It was run with tempo. If DW13 had played the Toledo game he would hold the all time single season passing yardage record. Even with all the limitations that the Zips had in '12, the offense worked. It was proving to me the old adage that I had heard a million times on sports radio. You can scheme on offense to level the field. You have to have the athletes on defense to be good but you can take average talent and score a lot by running the spread. I watched the proof every week. Even in that first season Bowden made some comments about wanting Akron to be known for defense even though he was an offensive guy. I probably should have recognized that as the first Bowden red flag. In '13 the offense seemed to totally change. The Dalton Williams/Marquelo Suel combo was gone but a lot of the offense remained intact. Milwee replaced Bowden as O.C. I figured these changes would certainly impact the offense but I did not expect a philosophy change. Tempo totally went out the window. The spread offense thrives on tempo and many times in '12 the Zips looked like a well-oiled machine. The offense since Milwee has been O.C. reminds me much more of the J.D. offense than anything resembling the Air Raid offense we had in '12. My guess is that the philosophy change came not from Milwee but from Bowden because I think Bowden thought he had a defense good enough to win the game. I think the offense started to play not to lose instead of playing to win because the defense was/is so much better. This is pure folly. This is 2014 not 1974. Defense does not win games all by itself in the MAC. Perhaps you can depend on your defense to win you the game when you can recruit at the very top level. Like maybe the top 5-10 defensive teams in the nation are in this position. If you're playing in the MAC, you better be able to score a lot. Even a defensive guy like Gary Patterson figured this out. Gary Patterson has fielded some pretty damn stout defenses at TCU. When the Horned Frogs joined the Big XII, his good defenses weren't good enough to shut down all the high powered offenses they faced in conference play. After a rocky start, this defensive guru gave up and gave in and realized that even though TCU had a great D they had to score a lot more and installed a wide open offense. TCU is 6-1, ranked 10th in the nation and scored 82 points on Texas Tech yesterday. I don't know if Terry knows Gary, but I think they need to talk. Check that. Gary needs to talk, Terry needs to listen.

There are some tough questions that need to be answered but I don't really see that happening because they would need to be asked.

Speaking of that. . .what's up with Boyett?

You didn't capitalize Dick. I left out a comma.No smiley faces have been employed. It's fun being a P.I.

Did any of you Dick Tracies ever consider that Zips Win! & Zipgrad01 may have spoken to someone in the know on Saturday morning? Not trying to be a Dick, myself. Just wondering.

The QB situation will likely be muddied even further come spring when TraVon Chapman becomes eligible.

JZ84, Zipgrad01, Jimmy the Zip, Zips Win! and I claim the following 10/18/14 beers: 3 Floyds Broo Doo Cameron's RPA Coronado Orange Avenue Wit Dark Horse Smells Like a Safety Meeting Duvel Eel River Porter Flying Dog The Fear Pumpkin Ale Goldstar Dark Lager Great Lakes Silver & Gold IPL Homestead 1805 IPA Humboldt Brown Hemp Ale Jackie O's Chomolunga Honey Nut Brown Jackie O's O'hooley's Irish Stout Jackie O's Oil of Aphrodite Jackie O's Razz Wheat Jackie O's Scottish Ale Morland Old Golden Hen New Belgium Snapshot Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout Sierra Nevada Stout Southern Tier Tier De Garde Stone Smoked Porter with Chipotle Pepper Thirsty Dog 12 Dogs of Christmas Ale Unibroue La Terrible

Yup.

See skip-zip's post #226. He nailed it.

Some came to that conclusion after watching the Spring game. . . Sometimes the people raising red flags early are proven wrong. Sometimes they are proven right. There have been a few bright spots on the offensive side this season to keep hope alive and there is still time left to get it together, but that window of opportunity is closing.

Cheap tickets are not the answer. You need to want to walk across the street to see the event. At NASCAR races, there are literally thousands and thousands of racing fans camping all around the race track. A captive audience for the most part because a lot of these races are out in BFE and there is nowhere else to go and nothing else to see. The races are the only game in town and people are there to have what amounts to a 2 or 3 day tailgate before the Cup race on Sunday. There is always a companion race or two at any venue before the main event on Sunday. Tickets are usually what I would call dirt cheap. NASCAR was in Talladega last week and the Sunday ticket in the grandstand I used to sit in now costs $140. You can get a general admission seat for Saturday's Truck race for $15. Most of the fans camped around that racetrack are unwilling to pay $15 to walk across the street to see what is usually a very entertaining race for the low, low price of only $15. These are people who travelled from all over the country to watch some racing and have put down stakes with a mile of the track for the entire weekend. I know a lot of you will automatically discount this argument because it is NASCAR and NASCAR is a complete joke to many on this forum, but I think it proves my point about ticket price. I don't think there would be many more takers from the camping crowd if the Saturday ticket price was lowered to $10 or to $5 or for free. You have to want to go. At this point, there aren't a lot of people who want to go to a Zips game.

http://thebiglead.com/2013/10/12/tcu-is-playing-kansas-amon-g-carter-stadium-is-empty/ http://www.slate.com/articles/life/inside_higher_ed/2014/09/college_football_isn_t_attracting_the_audience_it_used_to.html http://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2014/10/11/6962393/miami-hurricanes-football-attendance-cincinnati http://m.bleacherreport.com/articles/1814887-where-did-all-the-college-football-fans-go

I would be interested to see a year-by-year breakdown of season ticket holders.

I hope the Hit Man sees this.

Why not? Grant the Zips revenge against the Kitties.

3

Zips-2 Bobtwats-0

The Bobcats scored 13 against the worst defense in the conference last Saturday. If they score 17 against the best defense, I will be very surprised and disappointed.

I know. Just messing with you.

Hilltopper, It's nice that you picture my computer area looking like something from the Hoarders TV show. I hope you also pictured my response:

Perhaps things are different today, but when I was in high school, I didn't know anyone who "dreamt" of attending any school. We were mostly clueless about anything that mattered. Maybe there were a couple of kids who were going to attend an institution with family or church ties, but (as far as I can remember) no one was head over heels that they got accepted at their "dream school". I applied to and was accepted by 3 universities: Ohio State, Cincinnati, and Akron. I chose to come to Akron. While at the U, I never heard another student complain that they wished they had been accepted elsewhere or that they made the wrong decision. Maybe I had a much different experience than most.

Just for giggles: The NFL ranking of every FBS team's QB situation. http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000411397/article/ranking-every-fbs-qb-situation-at-midseason-nos-7180 (Didn't think it needed its own thread.)

I asked the question at the game if the section pictured was our student section. I was told yes. It never crossed my mind that the student section might have moved, SINCE THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO REASON TO DO SO. Jeeeeeeezzzzzzz.