Balsy

The offense stepping up.

A blow out? It's 17-10. Calm down.

17-10. Not good. Not good. Not good.

Jerome Lane is phoning it in. We're not going to win this if our play makers are refusing to buy in.

Good lord we defense can't tackle.

Everyone keep calm. Zips offense is adapting to what they need to do to win. Expect to see Van Edwards, Traylor-Bennett, wildcat runs with Chapman and selective passing the rest of the game. Side note: Why don't they try a screen pass with Natson?

Lane doesn't look like he's giving it his all. Nice tackle by Natson at least...

Good lord. C'mon Chapman...you can do better than this....we need you to do better than this.

Offense needs to settle down, and fast. Memo to the defense: Kent is going to run the ball.

This is going to be a long game...

I guess that's evidence as to why Star-rankings mean absolutely nothing.

Kent State on their 4th starting QB? three and out for the Flashes.

Quick 3 for the Zips. With chapman in, I'd like to see them try to run the ball more.

Kent State still sucks.

Gameday, let's hope the thunderstorms stay away. Akron 35 Kent 0 Keep the WagonWheel where it belongs! Go Zips!

Agreed. Hell, how can we have a university this big with 6000 or so students graduating every year, and not have more alumni involvement with the university in general? I think it would be interesting (I don't think it's possible) to see what the age distribution for people at the games are. It seems to me that most are older (like you and your wife) middle-to later in life (in your 50s your middle-aged right? We've got 50-years or more left of skip-zip fandom ). Young people are at a premium at Zips games, and god bless those young families who bring their children. What happened culturally to UA over a several decade period that would have eliminated the involvement of a lot of potential fans? That does impact the here and now, because whatever it was that decimated UA culturally is still in play. Is it decades of neglect?

Good points. I'll admit when I'm a little off base.

Ianello years there were 0 of those students. The area is mostly students, which would empty out at halftime 3 years ago. The students by the band, well theres a big standing group (the AK-Rowdies) and then the others who are not part of the AK-Rowdies. Walk around the Stadium, they aren't just sitting in the "student" sections. My friends and I never sat in the student section. You're looking for an increase of like hundreds...I'm not saying hundreds. You're making it look as if they're lying about student attendance not being up, and I'm merely pointing out that it probably is factual beyond just giveaways, and those that do come are staying longer. I will personally take a count next time of how many students are there....give or take because I'll probably be drinking. Why you don't hear it, perhaps your hearing is starting to go? (I'm kidding) But even when student involvement is higher at basketball games you really don't hear it (with the exception of the additional 20 or so AK-Rowdies). So to bring this back to the larger topic of culture and increasing student attendance, what are WE going to do to change the culture? We can bitch and complain about students not attending, but what are we going to do to change it? Complaining about it hasn't done anything.

Soccer compared to 5 years ago. It really dropped off after porter left. So I'd wager that the "increase in attendance" is talking about over those couple of years it has increased after that drop off. There are more students at games, and longer. That is one observation I've made in 2 games thus far this season. Remember when there were like 2 students in the stands next to the band? And hey...coming into the stadium to get free stuff is still better than in the icoach years where they had the 10,000 Zippy bobblehead giveaway and so few people came they were giving those things away as prizes for the next couple of years. I think they still are... Baby steps skip, baby steps.

This topic has been derailed...

I agree, I don't think you're off base at all. Is UA's future in danger? I don't believe it is. UA, however, does need to focus itself on building relationships with the local community, and supporting/growing the local community...and not just in business. As for the portion of it being political apathy or political incompetence...well, it's probably both. Ideologues demagoguing from an ivory tower, instead of actually asking young people about what they think/want/desire. But I would even go as far as to say it just isn't political...it's also business incompetence and apathy as well. I almost took a job in Maryland (which paid more than what I get paid now, with benefits that out pace my benefits here), but decided to take the one here because it was a known quantity and I liked the work environment (some of the best people I've ever worked with, and they're willing to invest in me...and have done so already). There's Loyalty there, and that's not something I thought I'd get in Maryland being somewhat of an outsider. My girlfriend the other day just had a conversation about this very topic. We're both millennials, college educated (masters). She desperately wants to work in Akron because she wants to work on growing/supporting the area as do I. This is home to us. But we both feel that there has been decades of neglect to the community, and when you have multiple job offers at places more well known than anything in Akron...it becomes very difficult to make that decision. The Akron Young Professionals has get togethers in like 1 of 3 different places every month. In other cities, in other states, there never at the same place twice.

1. Zips will blow out the Flashes despite it being a rivalry game. Kent has nothing to play for, the Zips will score a lot early and never look back. 2. Zips will not repeat keeping the ball away from the Kent for an entire quarter like they did last year, but they'll still minimize the opportunities that Kent has. 3. I am going to be wrong on this (what I actually voted). He will score more than 4TDs. I mean currently he has 13 TDs this season for (if we exclude wisconsin) 4.3 TDs per game. I seriously doubt he wouldn't get at least 4 in this game as well.

Terry Bowden on the Really Big Show ESPN Cleveland 850.

If it's true, wish J.Marcus a speedy recovery. He was awesome for this team, and hopefully will continue to be a great representative of this program in the NFL.

I was trying to get the conversation back on topic...