Balsy

It's a little discouraging to see those numbers...however I'm not sure that the improvement can really been improved upon. Many of the students who were part of those attendance highs and got to experience the National Runner-up and National Title years, have graduated. Those who were freshman that year just graduated, just think about that. The Rowdies also seem to have gone through a bit of a lull in leadership, making the game day experience less energetic for the new students.

As far as other expectations: I want to see a healthy KP16 and a more dynamic offense. The playbook had been "dumbed down" last year...I want to see the full playbook this year, better execution from the running game as well. Anything less than a 7-5 season I'd consider a bad season. I would also like to see a MAC record of 5-3 or greater. UMASS, MIAMI, EMU get's us over half way to that goal, so we should be good.

This is all true and I completely agree Buck, I'm just saying out of the last four year's "Big Opponent", Penn State seems the best opportunity to get that marquee win over a Big-10 team, because of everything...a "perfect storm" situation if you will. We of course are still the underdog, but this is a good opportunity. Lance I agree with you...I can see 3-1 myself too. That's more of a miracle situation but I do see it as possible. More possible than last year at least. Now last year I don't think the quit, more ran out of gas. But I want to paint this for everyone: We could have been 3-1 in OOC last year. ULL should have been a win and Michigan also, frankly, should have been. We could have been 3-1 last year, there is absolutely no reason why we can't be this year.

GO ZIPS GO ZIPS GO ZIPS!!! #ZipsGoodKarma!!!

I don't like the assumption that the Zips are going to be our "regular 1-3" in the OOC portion of the schedule...or that we're going to be scraping out wins in the conference slate. I think we've got a very favorable schedule for this point in our program; Bowden's got to know/see that as well. We cannot forget the power and momentum of winning. For OCC we've got Howard (to start off the season with W), than we've got Penn State who's previous week will have been in London, England playing UCF under heavy national attention...who's got new head coach James Franklin...which is a program that feeling the effects of a bowl-ban...Penn State is more of a ripe target than our previous two-seasons with Bowden at the helm against "top-notch national" programs, we should expect a masterful down to the wire performance. Marshall and Pitt finish up the OCC. These two teams I would put as competition that is < UCF and ULL from last season. Marshall should be very tough, while Pitt will be breaking in a new QB. 1-3 in OCC is frankly unacceptable to me at this point. There's most definitely 2 if not 3 wins (if we can pull an upset) in this OCC schedule. If this coaching staff is as good as everyone seems to think it is...that is good enough for the head coach to be sniped by another team, 2 wins or bust in the OCC. Everytime this conversation comes up I always think back to one of the first speeches I remember Bowden giving on how to build a winning program: You start by losing big (2012). Then you start losing by a little (2012/2013) than you move to winning by a little(2013/2014?); and then at that point you're winning by a lot.

Yet people buy this crap-o-la

It will pass. We will have a new arena within the next few years. #ZipsGoodKarma (lets get it trending).

Why is there a news story that says Zips drop against C. Michigan...and yet you say we win? I'm confused...did we win or lose the game? EDIT: NVM, it says "Akron Drops C. Michigan...not Drops to..." Side note; headlines are the most important thing in a story...they should be written carefully.

It doesn't matter...Akron...whoops I mean Cleveland will find a way to mess it up some how.

Don't get me wrong: my expectation is 6-7 games...however, I can see a perfect storm situation where 8 games is not out of the realm of possibility. More than any year in the past decade anyways. Every single game on our schedule is winnable. Enjoy the ride.

Akron will win 8 games this season and get a bowl game.

(I know I'm just spit-balling this) but I'd imagine a new arena would help in the Recruiting process.

Couldn't be happier with the Steelers draft. I've been saying for 3-years now. Mike Tomlin and co. are not that good, they are not superb football minds, they are not worthy of all the press. Tomlin has lived off of the successful building of previous teams, and the problems of poor management have been slowly rearing its heads over the past couple of years.

Time will tell of course, however I believe he's here to stay. Everytime coach speaks remotely close to the topic, it seems that this is it for him. Besides: I'm sorry...what's more impressive: jumping ship to different teams every couple of years (his entire career) or taking the worst program in D-I football and making it a perennial power-house?

I've said it before...I'll say it again. Terry Bowden will retire as Akron head-coach.

I'm surprised that the Browns didn't take a flyer on Freeman or McCray. Though they did pick up Snead

I didn't receive mine. But since I'm a recent graduate, I'd assume I'm probably 9679th

Exactly. And I wouldn't say its a fake social movement...it is a social movement, however it's not one the NFL started. I see it with my students all the time, they're simply more accepting and don't find an issue with homosexuality, because they don't see it at something that defines them or their peers. In fact, they usually don't understand why it's an issue at all. So I wouldn't go as far Asa saying its a fake social movement, because it's quite the opposite. Trust me: if any other player picked in the 7th round was as notable...teams would be just as willing to sell those jerseys. If Johnny Mansfield lasted to the second, would it have drastically effected the sales of his jersey? No. Would dropping to the7th round had effected his jersey sales? No. People buy jerseys for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the round they were drafted.

@DiG We need to be carefull with what we "hear" from other people, without supporting evidence. Anecdotes and here-say are not evidence. There were a lot of moves when Tressel came on board at Akron too; many of those in the student union. Several Student groups and the Buchtelite had to fight to maintain their places within the student union, and were only allowed to when Proenza stepped in. As far as I know, with the exception of academic offices, Athletic Director, and the Dean of Students, most administrators are in Buchtel Hall. Now there is by no means any "rules" against students being in Buchtel Hall, however...there's almost no reason students would ever go into Buchtel Hall either. I will say with personal experience that there is a fair amount of openness and transparency between students and administrators, however "openness" is a relative term. The openness is rather controlled (as you would expect of any organization). Administration is rather open if you go through the proper channels.

Yes it is. But I would offer another question: So What? A lot of people (not saying you) have felt that Michael Sam exploited "coming-out" as a way to springboard his personal NFL stock. EVERY player tries to boost their individual stock. We've become accustomed to many of these "story-lines" already, so when to spring up, we tend to ignore them. But examples of exploits include: Coming from nothing, homeless to stardom, overcoming personal tragedy (death of parent etc...), overcoming addiction, religion (lets be real here...Christianity specifically)...the list goes on and on and on. Story-lines sell, and this is a perfect example of a story-line...especially one that has never been covered before, so of course it's going to be exploited.

And frankly that sounds like a major farce; or rather an excuse to give a $100,000+ salary to another administrator. Granted each individual university's duties for that position are going to be slightly different, I don't buy that it's necessary. Reading "other major universities" doesn't mean anything to me. There are a lot of senseless, grossly over-paid positions at those universities. If universities really cared about "Student Success" they should consider paying their professors more, and focus on building a sense of community among faculty, students and staff that in turn fosters student success. When your employees are paid dirt-nothing, you can expect to breed an atmosphere of not-caring...because you're going to have a hard time attracting those hard-working people who do care.

Because universities already have someone "devoted to student interests"...it's called the "Dean of Students". UA's Dean of Students is Denine Rocco. And her office is in the Student Union, not Buchtel Hall.

At this point it's irrelavent of me to go over the specific reasons why I wanted Scarborough over Tressel, however I'll give you some context. The reasons go back to when the Resumes/letters of all candidates. Me and several other of my UA associates printed them off, read them, and ranked the candidates we thought were the best (top 5) and why we thought that. Among us there were common candidates, but we all had Scarborough listed as our top candidate. For some reason I can't get a link to that info anymore from UA's website; but from what I remember we all selected him because his experience with STEM based programs seemed far above those of the rest. Of course we were relying on what could be research in our limited capacity, but the vast majority of his experience was in operating university functions much like what the "vision" here at UA supposedly is. Comparing the two candidates, Tressel wasn't (in our opinion) in the same division, league, or (frankly) universe. Experience spoke loader to us then titles, and Tressel's "experience" was laughable. You cannot compare being the Vice-president of blah (I forget the made up title) to Executive Director of The University of Toledo Medical Center, and the respective duties that that entails. Not even in the same universe. With the personal interaction I had with Jim Tressel, I was not impressed, in fact I was insulted. I conducted an interview with the CFO, Tressel was brought in...basically asked to show off for me and my colleague, where he talked about how "bright and great" students we were...which ate up the rest of the time we had for the interview. He also contributed nothing of substance to the discussion of how UA could get to a $14-million deficit.

Because we both know that is a hyperpole/not going to happen. But any more nationally irrelevant than we already are? At least know we don't have to be "that school who hired the hired the disgraced lying football coach as president". We'll be just fine, in fact, we'll be great.

This is the best news I've heard in a long time in regards to decision making at UA. Now we don't have to deal with the national embarrassment.