K92

YSU has a Sagarin rank of 60. Akron has a Sagarin rank of 139.

Akron would not be favored against YSU this year.

Big tackles are at a premium. Personally, I am a big fan of converting big RB's into DT's. I have said before that I think Newman Williams should be looked at for DT but as CK pointed out he is awfully injury prone to play the position. Nico Caponi was a good DT for us because he was a physical specimen and was tough as nails. Cody Grice was very athletic for a big man and also was a tough guy. In recent history, other than these two guys, we have leaned heavily on transfers to come in and shore up the defensive line. When you are so dependent on transfers, they have to come in and produce at a high level. We can't have guys like Jelani Hamilton come in and be a total bust. Perhaps we just got spoiled by the likes of J.D. Griggs, Keontae Hollis, C.J. James, Moses McCray, Albert Presley, Nordly Capi, Rodney Coe and Jamal Marcus. All these guys came in and contributed to the success of the defense. I guess we were due for a letdown.

Said every program in America.

Taking a look at this list makes me feel better about our recruiting. Wow.

Looks like UVa wanted Nick to switch positions to RB or LB.

This is very true. Western just capped off the greatest regular season a MAC team has ever had. 13-0. The prize for this is to go to the Cotton Bowl and play Wisconsin. 10 times a mid-major has gotten to a "major" bowl game and the results are overwhelmingly in favor of the mid major. '04 Utah over Pitt 35-7. '06 Boise beats Oklahoma in OT 43-42. Classic game. '07 Georgia smokes Hawaii 41-10. '08 Utah beats Alabama 31-17. '09 Boise over TCU 17-10. The only time 2 mid majors made it to a major bowl and they played each other. '10 TCU surprises Wisconsin 21-19. '12 FSU trounces NIU 31-10. '13 UCF beats Baylor 52-42 in a shootout. '14 Boise over Arizona 38-30. '15 Houston humbles FSU 38-24. Mid majors are 8-2 in this big game (7-2 would probably be a little more honest because '09 was a mid major win no matter what happened in the game). Utah was able to turn their success into a P5 membership. The 2 times that mids lost, they got manhandled. Hopefully, Western can pick up the W. If the playoffs were expanded to 8 teams, this should be ample evidence for the highest ranked G5 school to be included. Unfortunately, more years than not that would probably mean playing the number 1 seed. Fun to talk about.

Do you think that would be satisfying? Do you think fans of the top FCS schools are satisfied with their playoffs or do you think they would rather go FBS and go to a bowl instead? Just curious. I have mixed emotions about it and sometimes wonder if Akron would be better off if we stayed D-1AA. Moot point, for sure, but I still wonder.

The "let's drop down" discussion is played out, no doubt, but I think we can safely say that it is more fun to be a YSU fan than an Akron fan right about now.

That being said, he still played 13 circles around Jelani Hamilton. No wonder the defense blew.

Anybody watching the NM bowl? When they showed the Brian Urlacher highlights it made me long for the way football jerseys used to fit.

The last qb from TX was pretty good. Alex Ramart, come on down! I mean up!

Zach, Ramart is a hs kid, not juco, right?

I never said that Kato should have played because he was poised to "shoot out the lights". I simply said if a freshman qb has the ability and the team has the need, he should play. Burn the redshirt. The Zips definitely had the need. The other half of the equation is in question. You are the one who made the ridiculous comment about a 1000:1 ratio. I came up with 20 success stories. Give me the 20,000 Hindenburgs. You can't. You can't even come up with a list of 200 Hindenburgs. It was a dumb statement and you were called on it. Your rebuttal was laughable, comparing successful freshmen to the entire sample size. How many freshmen failures were there? That is what we are debating. The freshman success rate. We aren't debating how few successful freshmen there are. A 5th grader knows that. Bottom line is this. You are a Bowden supporter and you are content with the current situation. I am not. Bowden has another year (at least) to prove his worth. Time will tell. We are never going to agree on much of anything, I'm afraid. That's ok by me. I respect your opinion and like Coach Holtz says, I could agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong. The only thing we probably have in common is that we both said we were leaving the forum, but yet here we are. Obviously neither one of us can leave it behind. That's love for the Zips and that's a good thing. Merry Christmas, Balsy.

You couldn't be more wrong. This article mentions 20 true freshman quarterbacks that had great seasons I will be waiting for your list of 20,000 that failed miserably.

I love how you put so much stock in Miami being a bowl team. They are 6-6. They are a bowl team because any program with a pulse gets to go to a bowl. I will give them credit, though. They have things going in the right direction when it looked pretty dismal for their current staff. I am not complaining for the sake of complaining. I am complaining while playing armchair quarterback because the Zips competed in the absolutely putrid MAC East and are sitting home instead of going to a bowl. That means that the Zips do not have a pulse. If you are not upset about that and make excuses for the program, great. Enjoy your outstanding participation trophy. If Kato is the real deal, and many think he is, he should play. If you're "high on" the kid, get him in there. Football can be highly unpredictable. Woodson may never see the field again for any number of reasons. Kato may be forced into being the man next year with absolutely no experience, then people will be moaning about what a shame it was that he didn't get some game time experience in '16. This whole concept of bringing quarterbacks along slowly is complete bunk. Redshirt freshmen quarterbacks win Heisman Trophies. I have no dislike of Tra'von Chapman whatsoever. After being much maligned, I was happy for the kid when he redeemed himself in the 2nd half of the Kent game. I hope that he has a wonderful and productive life. I also have two eyes and they told me that a 3rd team WR who sat the bench for pretty much the whole of 2016 was a better option at QB.

I think the redshirt should have been burned at Kent.

Kent won 3 games. The Miami we beat was not a "bowl team" when we beat them. We put them at 0-6 then they went on a 6 win streak. They too, beat a terrible Kent team and they were also able to beat horrible Buffalo and miserable BG which the Zips could not muster. Chapman's record is nothing to crow about.

I think if Kato is skilled, he should have played when Woodson got hurt.

Since Clark started the approximate spelling, I have to post up a pic of everyone's favorite dictator.

I'm not a fan of redshirting for the sake of redshirting. It makes sense to redshirt linemen, if you can, to get them a year of a real weightlifting program before they play, but skill players that have the ability and if the team has the need, they should play. Period.

Until we see someone play I am done with this "high on" nonsense. This staff was "high on" Chapman and Kincade. I certainly hope that Kato pans out but so far high expectations have meant doodly squat.

Get him in here. He'll like blocking for these running backs we have coming in.

No love for Marshall Faulk?

Cain't be wrong. . .