legendofzippy

It's a nice stadium, but when you're held up as an example of what not to do, that's embarrassing... Akron offers cautionary tale for FAU's football program

Tressel was on the Dan Patrick Show last week. If you get the podcast, it's from 8/23, hour 2. He mostly talked about coaching, but he mentions Akron a lot. Once he starts talking, I start changing my mind on if he could be a good leader for the University. Glad we have him at any rate.

I don't have TW - and no way in hell am I getting it - so this sucks... Time Warner Cable Sports Named New Regional Television Partner

Lol. That thing is awful. Don't even replace it, just get it out of there.

I'd love to see an upset, but UCF in a home opener, under the lights, ESPN game (can we call it that?).... I don't see it. 35-20 UCF. Hopefully D looks better and Pohl can show something. I'd say UCF is right now where we want to be in a few years.

It's probably not completely updated, but ESPN currently lists 14 App State players in the NFL. Just like the Big 5 shouldn't underestimate the MAC, you shouldn't underestimate the FCS.

I hope I'm wrong, but even 3 wins seems a stretch. There's one slam dunk, then everything else is murky. Miami and UMass are there for the taking, but they're on the road. The talk out of practice is much more positive than the past few years, but still, that home game against UMass last year was one of the most pathetic football games I've seen at any level. A few key injuries and I could see that type of performance happening again this year.

"Will we win more than one game" is a pretty depressing topic. Even more depressing is you could have also gone with "will we finally beat an FBS team?"

I'm not sure why that doesn't get more attention when people talk about the rise of the SEC. Right or wrong, they spend far more than other conferences do on coaching staffs. It's not even close. When Bielema left Wisconsin, the general narrative was that he was looking for a real challenge. What a load of crap. Arkansas is willing to pay assistants a lot of money and Wisconsin isn't. He made no secret each season he hated losing his top guys because of money, then he left because of it. But this gets back to the heart of what's giving the NCAA nightmares right now - aren't these supposed to be academic institutions? A great graphic from Deadspin: Is Your State's Highest-Paid Employee A Coach? (Probably)

Yes, I'd make the call. It's one of the "blue bloods" of college football. Playing them means a big payday of course, but it also means getting into a game that tons of people are going to watch. Same with Michigan this year or Tennessee last year. But it seems like Big Ten schools are going to be saying "no" more than they did in the past. If other Big Ten programs improve, then OSU, Mich, Neb, PSU (eventually), etc. can still have these games. If teams like Purdue, Illinois and Iowa continue to be awful, then they'll have to drop MAC teams for someone else.

Forgot about this, but Zeke was on 1350 recently talking about where he's at with the process now. It sounded like NBA was offering camp invites, whereas contracts from Europe were pouring in. So he didn't hit specifics, but it sounded like guarantees in Europe but not in the NBA. But his agent is still working so he could only say so much obviously. At any rate, if he does wind up in Europe it's not that hard to find info on those teams now.

Hmmm.... anyone care to take a stab at the starting lineup, listing which HC recruited them? Would be neat to see. Brookhart does seem like a looong time ago.

Lol - ok I guess Dr Z and I got pumped up about that interview at the exact same time.

This might be linked somewhere else, but a nice interview with Jerrod Dillard. I like this exchange: Q: What are your goals for the year? A: Win games. That’s it. UA wide receiver Dillard focuses on playing veteran role

I guess what I'm saying is that was an anomaly. There's no getting "back" to something like that.

You didn't mean "regular"? Then what, rarely? That's what we are - a conference that gets two bids on rare occasions. There was a brief run of some good players there, but since the Big Ten has somehow vaulted into the power basketball conference, they're going to get players we had a shot at before. And with the proliferation of ESPN/whoever national TV games, there are just tons of options for kids now. Besides, the NCAA will always rather take the 7th or 8th Big Ten, ACC, etc. team before our #2 team. More viewers.

Not trying to be argumentative, but we've never been a regular 2 bid league. It's always been rare.

McCrea might be the best player, tough call there. But Tree is a grown-a** man, and I'll take him in any battle all day long. These pre-season predictions are not going to be glowing for us. Zeke is gone, which is a big loss. And while we're all excited about Nyles, an outsider sees we lost our starting PG and that typically is a bad thing. The good news - who cares, this stuff gets decided on the court. Until a team proves me wrong, I say no way anyone can match our depth every night. Our bench could start for most teams.

Some more love for Moses, from SI... NFL Draft 2014 Primer: Scouting the MAC

He might have competed for playing time? Since you need specifics, I graduated in 96 when we won a grand total of zero MAC games. I had to look it up, but we won 9 MAC games in our first four years in the conference. Yep, tons of talent on those squads.

Coleman Crawford era.

I don't think Pitino and his resume need help to recruit any of these kids.

I'm probably higher on Deji than most, but you're right - at this point it has to be proven on the court. I hope people don't take that for granted right now - Deji probably would have been the best player on the team when I was a student. Now we're at the point where if a talented player doesn't step up, there's a line of kids waiting to take your spot.

How do I know they're "better"? If they have easier classes, which are easier to pass, are they "better"? I have an engineering degree, and I had to work hard to get it. Buy UA is highly respected in that field so it was worth it. I'm not for lowering standards. My friends who didn't get degrees weren't hard workers. Tough luck, that's the way the world works. Admittedly, I'm big on personal responsibility so I'll be harsher on the students because of it. But I say if you're going to college, put in the work necessary to get the degree. You're an adult now, it's not on someone else for you to get a diploma.

The 38% grad rate is bad, and lower than I would have guessed. However, why so much blame on the University? Let's put some blame on the students. We often criticize the next generation for being too entitled - are we starting to see the effects of that? Just because you enroll doesn't mean you're going to graduate. We all busted our butts do get a degree, so if 62% aren't doing the same, then what are we supposed to do? Have professors go around and wake kids up and force them to study? Confiscate all their video games? Give me a break.