yazan07

Scroll down on this page for a picture of Speas wearing the weirdest jersey in MLS, complete with it's new sponsor http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread....06&page=133

Happy birthday to Steve! How do I know it's his birthday off the top of my head? Oh, I don't know, just cause I remembered that he and I have the same birthday.

Here is Part II, in case any of the people who read the first part are interested.

Here is the official announcement, and I can't study right now, I'm in class

From Paul Warner, assistant AD: "All NLI's are in! UA Soccer signees: F Alfred Koroma, D Andrew Souders, GK Fernando Pina, MF Dillon Serna, F Omari Morris, MF Matt Foldesy."

Some background on the home grown player rule. I know there have been a few discussions and some confusion about how the rule works, looks like we're not the only ones that don't completely understand it. Part II dealing with GA comes on Thursday.

My feed never went down but it was choppy the whole time. It was awful.

Actually not going to make it tonight, I came home to visit my parents cause I hadn't seen them in a while. As always, I will be there in spirit though.

Shoot, I'd be disappointed if they don't take that trip to the Michigan Bucks College Cup in Pontiac. I've taken that trip the past two years and me and the people I've gone with have had a blast both times. I even won an official world cup match ball two years ago that has since been signed by the 2010 championship team. Also, that tournament is in a really nice facility that has an arcade with Crazy Taxi which is the best game ever. Anyway, I look forward to that trip, but if we have a really thin roster I guess it would be difficult to take the team to a tournament that consists of two back-to-back games. The Spring games are interesting because of the state of the roster at the time. Last year at this point we had just lost most of our starting 11 to the MLS but hadn't brought in all of our recruiting class, allowing us as well as the coaches to see who was really worthy of starting for this team. Although we didn't lose as many players this year (thank God) if there really are that many injuries to our first team, it looks like it could again be an opportunity to see the reserve players in action. Looking at the players we have coming in and the players we are losing, it looks like LB could again be the weakest spot on the field. Last year I think Mayer, Stevenson, Gallego, Brenes, Portillos, and finally Balogun all played that spot on the field. I, like may others, was really hoping David Mayer would pan out, but since that didn't work I guess Porter will have to go to one of these other guys, unless maybe he could find an international LB!? I'd like to see Brenes get a shot there just because I'd really like to see him on the field. It was mentioned above that he could challenge for time at holding mid, but I think at the end of season Porter really settled on a midfield of Gallego-Trapp-Caldwell and I would expect him to continue with that, unless early next year shows that Gallego is needed more in central defense or on the left flank than as a defensive midfielder. I know that I expect a back line of Someone-Barson-Souders-Yedlin next year, and that unless Gallego was better than Souders or Someone, than he would be in the midfield. Now my other question (I have just come to the realization that I am hi-jacking this thread [please, no Arab jokes] and using it to discuss our line-up next year) is who plays up top? Assuming we continue with the 4-3-3, and I have already listed my projections for defense and midfield above, I have determined what I expect to see. We land the greatly heralded Alfred Koroma and he obviously replaces Mattocks as our striker. The way I see it, players to chose from for wing spots are Aodhan Quinn, Tommy Schmidt, Zach Portillos, Eric Stevenson, and new recruit Dillon Serna. I think the only lock-starter out of this group is Quinn. I expect to see all the other guys get minutes though. Tommy will be a senior next year and has showed that he definitely earns his playing time, maybe even a starting spot. I do, however, really like him coming off the bench. He is like a ball of energy and when he comes in he changes the pace of the game. While I obviously haven't seen Dillon Serna play, TDS has him listed as a winger/forward and had him at #11 in their last class of 2012 rankings. He is a player who played for the Colorado Rapids academy, came from U-17 residency and is obviously a big time player. I think he and Quinn are both left footed players though. My theory on this though is if you want to play both of them, one plays on the left as an actual left winger and the other plays on the right and cuts in more to make space for Yedlin who pushes up into the attack a lot. I guess we'll have to wait to see if Porter agrees with me. By the way, does anyone know if he will be around for Spring season at all? I'd have to imagine Jared and the others will be running the show since Porter will be with the U-23s most of the time. Hopefully his schedule allows him to be present for part of Spring season though. Can anyone tell I'm really excited about this Spring/next Fall and/or I really don't want to do my homework?

I AM! I'm so pumped. This is going to be another great year. We have a strong core of about seven starters coming back, some real good senior leadership, and we're filling in the holes with some of the best players in the country. We have more returning players than new players, which is something we couldn't say last year.

With the guys we're bringing in, I would have been surprised to be ranked anything less than #1.

Haha yeah and all of the student-employees who have ever played Madden

Another funny way to look at this is that arguably, our football coach isn't the best football coach working at the University of Akron. Not intended to be a slam to Bowden, but you know what I mean.

Let's say this does happen, just for the sake of me asking this question: has there ever been a time where an individual went from being a university's vice president to becoming their head football coach? Maybe this is common practice and I'm not aware, but sounds crazy to me.

Facebook just told me Vice President of Strategic Engagement

Maybe we'll see the new kid too!

I'm sorry. Porter and his wife gave birth to another little Porter yesterday afternoon!

Caleb Porter has bigger things to worry about right now, and I'm not talking about the U-23s either!

Looks like Charlie agrees with everyone here

Already discussed here There are a couple of flaws with this theory though: 1.) This article says that our next big striker is not already here, but how do we know that maybe Akiel Barrett isn't our next big striker? I personally don't think he is, but he could be. He only had 2 goals this year, but Teal and Steve only had 6 their freshmen years. I'll be honest, I didn't follow the team as closely back then, but did everyone know they were going to have huge production their sophomore years before they got there? 2.) Really, if Alfred Koroma (or any other incoming player) is our next big striker, this wouldn't be the first time in four years we had to get a new target man. Next year would really mirror two years ago, when we lost Teal. Darlington isn't the same type of forward as the other three, and losing Teal didn't mean Darlington stepped up to score 20 goals that season, it was Darren who was our leading scorer. So as far as having a star forward waiting on our bench, maybe we do have one, maybe we don't. But even if we don't, it wouldn't be the first time we had to replace our leading scorer with an incoming freshman.

Update: Ok I was just on twitter and saw this from Mayer: "Had a good weekend, an easy decision to make!" Well to me that was curious so I went on a twitter creep-venture to see what was up. I went back a little bit and saw that he retweeted something from Dominic Bonilla: "Excited to see David Mayer come all the way down from Akron to see me in a few days" So I thought "where is 'all the way down?' Bonilla is one of our guys, or did he transfer too?" So I had to go to his twitter and check it out. I saw that he retweeted this: "A big #NinerNation welcome to @DominicBonilla !Very excited to see what you can bring to the team.Keep working hard and push your teammates" So Bonilla is at Charlotte. Very ironic with them being the team to knock us out of the tournament. Well then I go back a few more tweets and see "Another from Akron will be joining me in Charlotte @DJM_8 love you guy." So looks like we lost Dominic Bonilla (probably not a big loss) and David Mayer (a little more disappointed about this one) both to Charlotte. Looks like $10 to TheTank. What are everyone's thoughts about this?

Hmm that is weird. Our other incoming players are listed as coming to Akron, including Fernando Pena whose verbal was announced after Koroma. Hope he didn't change his mind, but the only reason I could see him doing that was for a profession contract, and this list excluded guys who have signed a contract already. In my mind, it wouldn't make sense to rescind your verbal unless you have already signed a contract. This is all just speculation though. Hopefully it was a mistake and he is still coming. If not, I'm sure Porter or one of his staff members will venture into the depths of South America or the Caribbean or somewhere to find another #9

Global terrorism? Who is this? I think I had you in class haha.

Off topic, but I remembered this article existed today and decided to bring it back up. I find it to be really funny and thought others may enjoy it whether or not they have already seen it. How to not Collapse on Court: A Michael Porrini Demonstration

This thread, find me a better one in college sports. LOL.