Lee Adams

Al Bundy scored 4 touchdowns in one game! Why can't the Zips? Chisholm runs strong, and the Zips win 35-28. Good thing it wasn't Ted.

You can't say that Nicely had a fair shot lats year if you are saying that the rest of the offense is bad and it is Moore's first year in the new system. Thats exactly what happened to Nicely last year. The thing I still wonder about is Nicely's freshman year. He did pretty well under the circumstances and in a different offense. I don't know if Nicely would have performed any better in the first 3 games this year, but it would have been nice to see if he improved after being with Ianello for a year. Well,we'll see Saturday what the rest of the season may hold.

Maybe GE will sponsor the resurrection of the old 'Acme Zip' game. I was told by a suit in the AD that they are looking at trying to stage something like that again.

Since this realignment thing is all about money,TV,fan base BIG bowl games,I am trying to figure why the MAJORITY of teams in the MAC would be attractive to any conference particularly where football is concerned. Temple is understandable. In a big market,recently successful. Northern Illinois? Near Chicago market recently successful. The directional Michigans? Even near the Detroit market Michigan and Michigan State are the big dogs. Not attractive. Toledo? Near Detroit,successful program,fairly strong fan base. Maybe. Miami,OU out in the middle of nowhere,no big market attraction.Akron,Can't State? No recent success,no great fan base and they get little attention in the Cleveland TV market. And, the MAC is allowing a 1-AA football prgram in as football only. That doesn't upgrade the conference.There are going to be lots of teams like this in other conferences too. Sunbelt,C-USA,WAC etc. Is it realistic to continue to try to compete with the BCS and the top non-BCS schools anymore in football? Maybe the football program could latch on to another bigger conference on the coattails of the basketball program. Thats still seems to be stretch. Might be time for some of these schools to start looking at a level just below BCS and just above 1-AA.Just a thought.

Where do you have Notre Dame?Very good question. ND is another school like Temple and Rutgers that could be left without a good fit conference when the music stops. ZtZ, there is no way the Big Ten takes ND as a football only affiliate. Though, ND might make a good pairing with Northwestern as a full member of the Big Ten.In prior posts, I neglected to include ND with other D1-A private schools that don't currently fit in with their current conferences and should form their own...ND, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Baylor, Rice, Stanford (not a geographic fit)...a good nucleus but not enough for a full conference.I'd like to add that with the Big East falling apart and C-USA maybe being reshaped as a continued mid-major, I don't foresee any MAC teams advancing their overall standing to a 'BCS' conference. Geographically and academically, UT had a respectable sniff of the Big East and if we had our stuff together in football, we might too...but with the Big East blowing up, any move a MAC school might make would be lateral. C-USA is the absolute pinnacle of advancement for any MAC school, which would provide a little bit better bowl scenario in football and maybe a multi-bid league in basketball with greatly increased travel costs and opponents that are less locally familiar. Are you sayng Stanford doesn't fit with the PAC-(name your number)?

No,whether they win or not,Ianello's job is not on the line this year. Not that losing to VMI is going to help anything. It won't. But,the AD is not going to get rid of him this year,nor should he. I was not a fan of hiring someone with no successful head coaching experience. But,Wistrcill did. That is HIS responsibility. Hopefully,Proenza will hold him responsible one way or the other. What I want to see is if Ianello can correct the mistakes he has made not only with personnel and who is playing but the way he is handling the team in general. Obviously the team is not responding to what he has done so far. As far as the QB situation Ianello made the decision to go with Moore over Nicely based not on Moore's better performance in the spring or summer but what Ianello perceived to be more of an upside as far as leadership and style. Right now that is obviously not paying off. I felt Nicely should have been the starter. Then if he didn't show improvement from last year,then Moore plays. Now Ianello is sort of limited. He could make some changes to his offensive scheme to better fit Moore's physical skill set. Or, he could paly it out and hope Moore makes better progress as the season goes on.As far as palying more underclassmen,if the stareters are dogging it,fine. But, what do you say to a guy like Wagner when you replace him? The defense isn't controlling the game so we have to play younger guys to see what they can do. What about Waller,Marcoux,Hazime? What about Anderson,Simkovich,Kasperak on the other side of the ball?

With all the realignment of the big schools/conferences teams like Akron,Can't,EMU,most of the rest of the MAC and most schools in the Sunbelt will find themselves on the outside by default. It may pull some of the bottom feeders from coferences like the WAC,C-USA,MWC. And, these schools and others could in essence if not name find themselves playing in a lower level division by default. It could be an entirely 'new' division that is not 'attached' to the really big conferences anymore. Maybe its a division one cut above 1-AA. Maybe it has its own playoff and or bowl system. Get away from the thinking that you want to try to constatnly play with the the big boys. Who knows?

Trying to send a message to the rest of the team that if they don't perform better they will lose their jobs to freshmen? Dunno, Rifle. I am grasping at straws. Looks like RI pressed the panic button.Good enough for me.Second question. Now I was listening to the game on the radio, but did Nicely do that bad? Seemed like he had quite a few dropped passes and his INT was because he got blind sided. Was he really doing that bad that Moore was needed to come back in? Frenchie can be a huge homer so sometimes things are sugar coated quite a bit, anybody watch the game?You touched on a good point. The media,including the 2 guys on 1350 and the Beacon need to start calling this for what it is. You can question what the coach is doing without resorting to personal attacks. Time to start.

THANKYOU!

Trying to send a message to the rest of the team that if they don't perform better they will lose their jobs to freshmen? Dunno, Rifle. I am grasping at straws. Looks like RI pressed the panic button.I have to believe Ianello doesn't really have any idea why the team is playing this badly. I think at this point he is 'just along for the ride'. Nothing he and his staff are doing is making any difference. He can't 'send any messages'. At least until today I don't get the impression that the players had not been playing with intensity. It didn't seem they had quit. What message can he send,that what the head coach has you doing isn't working?

Drops drops dropsReciever means you catch the ball rightIs anybody watching this, another drop right thru the hands of Fleming somebody please catch a footballBlock please. Batted from behind wowHow does he put Moore back in nothing was PN 7 faultI wonder if Ianello is starting to feelsome pressure to actually have his team become at least competetive when getting beaten? This starts to look a little desparate. Wonder what the team is thinking now?

Not sure coparing Nicely last year with Moore this year is really telling. Ianello pulled his chosen QB 2 and1/2 games in to the season. Ianello chose to play Moore even though Moore had no experience in Ianello's offense or at the DI level. Moore as much as said he was not expecting what he has seen during the first 2 games. Now he goes into the 3rd game and Ianello decides that his QB needs to be yanked. Ianello brings in Nicely who had a year of experience in the offense and 2 years at the DI level. Nicely had actually performed pretty well as a freshman under a different coach and in a different system. But Ianello didn't give him a chance to see if a year in his system would help Nicely improve.Realizing this team has other problems besides the QB,you sure have to wonder if Ianello thought Moore was going to step in and take over the offense without any experience. Makes me wonder what kind of decision making is going on at the top.

For me, that should have sent PN to the bench a long time ago. So, I will hold Moore to the same standard.Remember...he hasn't had the luxury of throwing against EMU, Buffalo, Can't or a 1-AA team yet either, which better be enough to bring those numbers up significantly. I'll say this again, even though I do NOT want to be put in the same category of those making excuses for our QB for the last two years. But....most people think that our protection and dropped ball problems were worse than ever Saturday night. Losing all of our skill guys, and a few OLs HAD to be a big concern to all of us going into the season. Our backs are having problems even holding onto dump passes. And Carter and LaFrance suddenly must be looking like All-Americans to us, compared to what we saw last weekend. But again, in my opinion, I could see a QB using this as an excuse as to why his numbers should be better. But, regardless of the circumstances, I still believe that somewhere in the 50-60 range should be an ABSOLUTE MINIMUM for a college QB.Please don't assume that games against those teams will prove to be any more productive. Frankly when Ianello decided to go with a QB who had never played in his system,and,as far as I know never threw a pass at the DI level and didn't actually show anything more in 'pre-season' than Nicely,it said to me that he was starting all over again. Ianello isn't in it to win much if anything this year. He knows he as at least 1 if not 2 more years before the AD actually expects any consistent winning.WAIT,, Didnt Coach I have a QB last year who had never played in his system? Hadnt been impressed with the Lone Ranger. So why not try Nicely again,,maye give him more then 2 minutes at the end of a game and were not DOWN by 40I wondered why Nicely wasn't named the starter to at least begin the season. See if a year in Ianello's system allowed him to improve on the field. If he didn't show significant improvement after a few games THEN get Moore behind center. That would have given Moore some additional time to get familiar with the new system and the game at the DI level. Apparently the decision to start Moore was not based solely on performance in the spring or the summer. Thats OK,to an extent. But now we are hearing Moore saying what any kid in a new situation would say. Its going to take time for him to get adjusted. The problems with this team go beyond just the QB. But,it sure makes things a lot tougher when the QB struggles.

No he hasn't! He should have been playing at safety like he did at Hoban. I know he got hurt. But,he got buried on the bench. Physically,he had the attributes to play on that side of the ball. For Ianello to ty to make him into a tight end at this point seems ludicrous especially when the defense stinks.

This doesn't sound like somebody that was ready to come in and start and give the team the best chance to win. :unsure:The fans get to suffer through his learning curve? Is that fair to us? We better get a payoff in the end.We have been discussing this for several weeks haven't we? The coach makes the choice to start the QB who has never thrown a pass in DI. The kid has never played in Ianello's system which requires the QB to be able to stand in the pocket,see over/around linemen,throw crossing routes etc,etc etc. Nicely was not ready to be a dropback/pocket passer last year. He was better in the 'gun'. So due to a coaches decision the team has to go through another QB who does not seem to fit well in the offensive system. Maybe some flexibility is needed on the part of the staff to better use the talent that is on the team.

I hope no one is thinking they know more about a 'pro style' offense than a coach who has actually done it. Maybe there are some out there. But,what appears to be happening into the second year of the Ianello regime/system is that the players who played in the systems both offensively and defensively last year and there are a significant number don't appear at this point to be improving under his coaching. And,to complicate matters the coach chose to start a QB who had never played in his system. Its possible that the 'talent' that has been here for these two years is that bad. I happen to believe that there are some players who play their butts off but were overrated talentwise when they were brought in. Some of those are pre-Ianello. But for this team as a whole to still be performing as badly on the field as they are is very distressing to say the least.

Absolutely! Its close enough for a road trip for the few Akron fans who might be interested. And,it might generarte a little local interest as wellas bringing some Pitt fans to fill empty seats.Also like that they are playing the Sunbelt. For most MAC teams those are competetive games.

If the Ianello thing doesn't work out, and, we have to wait at least 1 more year on that. If Louie Pro doesn't mandate a coach with previous head coaching experience be hired,then there will be no hope. It will take Proenza to dictate the next hire.

Notre who? I like the fact that they play a team like Pitt and get a home game out of it. As I mentioned previously on this board at least it might pump up the home interest. It also give us a nice,close road trip.

+1Disappointed in Saturday's results. Progress and Improvement must happen soon. We need to stop scheduling the top BCS schools. They do not help in getting the team ready for MAC play. We should schedule other Non-BCS and lower BCS schools. Urban Meyer's comment made me start thinking about this and I do not think there are many advantages other than recruiting. And I think recuiting would be better if we won games. Let's stick with the NC State's of the world.Agree. If you can get teams like Kentucky,Indiana,Syracuse,maybe Pitt to do a 2 for 1 you can at least get 1 home game out of it. That might bring in a few of the curious plus their fans.As far as the performance of the coaching staff and team nothing is going to change significantly this year. After the 2012 season Proenza and Wistrcill will have to make a decision one way or the other on Ianello.

Tressel is probably going to get what I think is a 'show cause' from the NCAA. That means he will probably not be allowed to coach for a while. That may be why he is hooking up with the NFL. There he really doesn't have to worry about what the players do. Somebody else handles that.

For me, that should have sent PN to the bench a long time ago. So, I will hold Moore to the same standard.Remember...he hasn't had the luxury of throwing against EMU, Buffalo, Can't or a 1-AA team yet either, which better be enough to bring those numbers up significantly. I'll say this again, even though I do NOT want to be put in the same category of those making excuses for our QB for the last two years. But....most people think that our protection and dropped ball problems were worse than ever Saturday night. Losing all of our skill guys, and a few OLs HAD to be a big concern to all of us going into the season. Our backs are having problems even holding onto dump passes. And Carter and LaFrance suddenly must be looking like All-Americans to us, compared to what we saw last weekend. But again, in my opinion, I could see a QB using this as an excuse as to why his numbers should be better. But, regardless of the circumstances, I still believe that somewhere in the 50-60 range should be an ABSOLUTE MINIMUM for a college QB.Please don't assume that games against those teams will prove to be any more productive. Frankly when Ianello decided to go with a QB who had never played in his system,and,as far as I know never threw a pass at the DI level and didn't actually show anything more in 'pre-season' than Nicely,it said to me that he was starting all over again. Ianello isn't in it to win much if anything this year. He knows he as at least 1 if not 2 more years before the AD actually expects any consistent winning.

But isn't it still ashame that we can't say it was the GAME that was the highlight of the evening?

Zach, send this comment to Wistrcill. Seriously. It is very honest and factual. The AD would like to hear this and it is solid student opinion. If he doesn't give you a response then let me know and I will submit too.I have sent e-mails directly to Wistrcill before. He has always responded if not the next day,within a few days.

I was there. No way that place was half full.