Balsy

Lol I know...but god is it boring just talking about nothing until the season starts.

Stats from Preseason Games so far: Deshaune Watson - Texans- 15/25 175 yrds, 0 TD 0 INT 81.9 Rating Mitch Trubisky - Bears - 15/18 166 yrds, 1 TD 0 INT 103.1 Rating DeShone Kizer - Browns - 11/18 184 yrds, 1 TD 0 INT, 114.1 Rating Patrick Mahommes - yet to play

I see what you're saying. IMHO, the name should only be changed if there is a drastic rehaul of the JAR...or if someone says "hey I'll give the University $$$$$$ for naming rights...*cough* LeBron James *cough" or something of that nature. Stadiums change names all the time, why not the JAR.

Indeed thanks! I was just wondering about this myself. That means most of us should be getting these tomorrow more than likely.

Here comes the "It's Tradition" argument. Let's for a second replace "James A. Rhodes" with "Donald J. Trump" or "Barack H. Obama". Each of these people carry baggage with them. People will see whatever they want to see, when attributing that arena with those people. Yes, we humans are infinitely complex and shouldn't be boiled down to one particular thing in our lives. But people do it regardless of us all knowing that we shouldn't do it. The question is; should a discussion about the complexity of humanity and particular events in our lives be a focal point of a sports venue... Also this is coming from a young person; hearing the "The JAR" when I was on campus, kinda made it sound like a dump. Not going to lie. And then attending games in that dump...didn't create any lasting positive impressions of the Zips program. So personally nothing against James A. Rhodes, but perhaps a rebranding is in order.

Oh I understand that completely. I guess It's really more an issue for Pro-teams, where the city owns the stadium...yet the owners of the team get the naming rights? (That's the Bizarre one to me TBH). But for Akron, we need to pay the bills I get it.

A 30% graduation rate at Akron, and a 84% graduation rate at OSU (public-public comparison) doesn't actually tell you anything about how good the institutions are, I agree with you. Which is why I made the original comment the way I did. I pretty much responded that it's the way it should be, prompting people to backlash to my comment, which is why I had to go into further explanation. My original point was: You should either sink or float by your own accord, money shouldn't have anything to do with it. Unfortunately, states have started to put $$$ on the line for not retaining students longer. Graduation rates (as you and I both agree) have nothing to do with the goodness of the programs, however the state's incentive structure for dwindling funding, does. But I'm done with this particular point.

Oh sorry I wasn't sure what you were referring to, that's my bad. Of course I was being slightly hyperbolic, but that was because graduation rate has nothing to do with the quality of the education. But when you put a financial incentive for institutions with graduation rate as the benchmark for either sanction or success, do you seriously believe that it's going to improve in quality? Because I'm here to tell you it doesn't It'll become a game of CEOs and whatever other ridiculous title they give themselves at universities, to cut corners wherever possible in order to meet the arbitrary benchmarks/criteria to make themselves look good. I see this game happen all the time, as I work in that field....and none of it improves the integrity or quality of the education system. That's the point I'm trying to drive. If you like I can PM you all the firsthand accounts where I've seen this.

Actually Star Trek; where hard work determined your success...not your access to $$$$. I don't necessarily agree with Bernie Sanders that college should be completely free, but the cost is out of control. What are you talking about? When did I say it had to be either or?

I will, I don't care about $20-million. That's what Akron has to worry about. Not me as a fan. I'll take Cleveland Browns Stadium, Pittsburgh Three-Rivers Stadium, Rubber Bowl etc... Over whatever random corporation name that will be replaced in 6 years, any day of the week. But its a moot point. If I ever win the over $500-million mega-millions, in addition to pledging for a new basketball arena I'll buy the naming rights and give it to the Alumni to name. ZipsNation arena has a ring to it

Akron should strive to be the best place to get an education. The best, most rigorous, and relevant curriculum taught by people who know what their doing/talking about (not part-time-contingent faculty). Not an arbitrary number that has nothing to do with the strength of your program. 90% graduation rate doesn't mean good program to me. To me it looks like a program that cuts corners to artificially inflate it's own success rate it uses to sell to people. 59% is the national average today. Graduation rates have been steadily rising over the last 30 years. So...either 1) The quality of education at universities has increased so much that more people are graduating! or 2) Universities have found a way to cut corners where ever they can in order to inflate their own numbers. Which one is more likely? My freshman classes should have been a 100x more difficult than they were. My first real college class I took my sophomore year; genetics.

That's the way it SHOULD be IMO. College should be accessible not because of your ability to pay $$$ but your ability to work and achieve at what you're studying. Too many college policies these days give second, third, forth chances because Universities need the $$$$.

people just stop. It's literally concept art drawn up. Probably by a company asked to do it by Athletics. And to be honest, I'll take AKRON Arena over Infocision Stadium any day of the week.

Agreed. Hyperthermia is rare, dying of hyperthermia is even that much more rare. Of course this is preliminary, because the official CoD has not been released.

One of my best friends and I were going to go to this...unfortunately I will not be able to attend...I'm doing things with my Old Man for his birthday. Get a good count of people there!

Dear god, hyperthermia as the preliminary cause of death? Wow. Not good.

Yes I saw that. I've also talked to them on several occasions before about writing for them. Though it always seemed to fall through everytime I contacted them. Funny you should post this...I was about to follow up on that again.

No problem, sorry I missed some of your comments, so I may have not addressed some of them. While I was on campus I was desperate to find access to more Zips anything...and was very upset that there was so little out there. That drive eventually brought me to this forum, and started me with getting heavily involved on campus and ultimately with the Buchtelite. I graduated in 2013, so I've been gone for some time now, but there's a lot of contracts the University has with companies that basically prohibits outside groups like The Buchtelite and ZTV from doing certain things, and it limits the creativity. We wanted to handout copies of The Buchtelite at a game once, and wanted to focus on Football for that issue (we thought it would be great advertising for us) and were promptly shot down because it would be a violation of some contract, with some company, because all handed out stuff needed to be from their advertisers who pay them...or something. Infuriating really, because we were a STUDENT organization. Athletics had a, somewhat strained, relationship while I was there. They didn't treat my photographers very nicely, and often refused to grant us field access or press passes...which limited what we could do. What ZNO does amazes me, and the people here are wonderful, which is why I continue to come. I've been feeling a little inspired lately. In the offseason next year, I may dust off my pen again, and see if I can get access and start writing interviews and such here. If you didn't know there is a MAC Blog called HustleBelt, which has put out some phenomenal content over the years. They're amateurs, sometimes current students and recent former students. Might be worth checking it out. We're not a large family, but we're a bullish one that's for sure.

I'm reading a little between the lines there. Welcome Back Issue, Spring Housing Issue, so on and so forth will likely be their published issues (we always had big issues we planned months in advance, so we could line up advertisers). The first issue and house issue brought in, alone, 12-25 k, with all the full page ads and so on. I'll be paying attention for sure.

Of course I graduated 5 years ago at this point...so the big debate back then was how to do the switch. It appears that they are now going full electronic. But all I'll add to that point is our online revenue was 100x less than the paper print. Not sure what their current model is.

We have several former student reporters on this site who have written and managed minor publications before, as well as a member or two have done it professionally. I wrote, edited, and helped managed production of the Buchtelite for nearly 3 years. Believe it or not, it took about $100,000 to operate per year (two semesters, twice-a-week); each issue would generate anywhere from $500-$1200 in revenue, a big chunk of the cost being printing/distribution. Needless to say, we had been losing money for years when I was there, well managed years before left us with a savings account with which to cover the gab. Advertising in publications just isn't what it used to be, and readership just isn't what it used to be. I remember floating the idea (because I was desperate to come up with SOMETHING sports related that could generate revenue), and suggested summer issue or sports specific preview issue and stuff like that where we focus on selling to alumni/season ticket holders. We were met with resistance because of whatever company Athletics works with, because it would interfere with whatever they do (which is BS...we were a STUDENT publication). But secondarily no-one believed that there was enough buyers to cover the expense of publishing it in the first place. To answer your last question, yes. Almost all of the major D-1 programs I've worked have a student newspaper/publication that produces their own magazine that they then sell to alumni subscribers, people on the street, etc, with season previews, team-by-team break downs etc. I know they exist, because I've worked with them before...Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State and Tennessee...providing them info on the Zips as well as photos (and credits) from my photographers. They sent us free copies in return...and they were marvelous, I was very jealous we didn't have something similar to it. You have to ignore the "student" newspaper part...because people want to assume it's somehow not serious...they are. They're businesses, it's just the business is run exclusively by students of said university, as part of their bylaws. I'll pardon you guys the rant. Some are independent (like the Buchtelite Was). Hope that was a little insightful?

I'm talking about the ones that Zips Football put out themselves...didn't they have like 30second-2min ones each day of camp? I may be insane...

It is surprising that they are no longer doing those camp coach interviews that we used to get.

ABJ has a new look to it's website. Click on sports the navigation tabs at the top of the page....what's missing? What losers. ABJ you're a bunch of losers.

Browns waived Marcus today. Per Pat McManaman at ESPN: "The Browns signed WR Rasheed Bailey and TE Nate Iese. Bailey is in his first season out of Delaware Valley. Iese is a rookie from UCLA. The team waived DL Jamal Marcus (ankle) and WR James Wright (bruised lung) with an injury designation." As I understand it, if Marcus clears 24hr waiver period he will then be placed on the Browns Injured Reserve.