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One of the primary reasons why we ended the agreement with Acme. Sorry to burst anyone's bubble. But, this is the best example you have if some of you still believe that we could turn any significant numbers of people into future paying fans by allowing them to come in for free. First time that the former OJ "house guest" has ever been mentioned on this board?

ZippyRulz....The crowds have disappointed me for well over 30 years, going all the way back to my student days. Most of the time, I can't tell one from the other anymore. If WMU is 13k, I won't be shocked.

Congratulations. You're the first person in Zips D-1A history, since 1987, to claim that the "tickets sold" for the game were all utilized. No disclaimer necessary. It was a pathetic Homecoming crowd, and fell way below what I though would be a reasonable expectation. I know this is an exaggeration, but near the beginning of the game, someone sitting next to me commented that there might have been more people on the visiting side than the home side. Maybe including our band, they may not have been far off.

Man, you're venturing into that crazy logic of Team A beat Team B who played close against Team C who lost close to Team D. You do know that Akron won the National Championship two years ago, right? Akron beat Piit, who beat Virginia Tech, who beat OSWho. All I've said is that you can't compare "Two Big 10 games" as equal when you see who MSU played, and who WMU played. And I'm not a Michigan State fan. And besides, I wish early Big 10 games were indicative of performance in the games that follow, but we Lost 4 straight games after nearly (should have) taking down Michigan in 2013, and we just got our a$$es handed to us by Wisconsin and followed that with some of the best football we've played in the last decade. ADDED: It's actually funny to take a glance at 2013, although this is the wrong topic. Despite being in the middle of a 5 game losing streak (including Michigan), here was our home attendance. Louisiana-Lafayette - 18,809 Ohio (homecoming) - 19,775 It makes me sick thinking about the 12k we had last Saturday.

Sorry. I just bolded that to reference it in my comments. Now I see why you responded the way you did.

I would hope that you'd be more intelligent than to use one game to prove anything about any team. But, since you just compared MSU's opponents Wisconsin and Indiana, to WMU's opponents Northwester and Illinois......

No, that's not what I said. MAC teams have been ranked before. I'm happy that they are currently a Top-25 team, and that they are coming here. It presents a great opportunity for us. But, if you feel we are "upper level" in the MAC, and that still makes us this inferior to another team in our own league at home, that's your opinion. That's fine. But I think our knowledge of this league should tell us that there probably isn't THAT much separation between the teams in our league. For instance, would BG or Buffalo be a 30 or 40 point underdog against WMU? If so, than the teams in our league have spread out far greater than they've ever been spread out in the past. Which would be great. We'd have some elite teams that would get some major national notoriety. And it would probably open some doors for us. But, I don't see this happening right now.

I disagreed with his rationale that this should make us a 11-1/2 point underdog at home. I also happen to think that our common conference affiliation DOES matter. Is that OK with you that I see it differently ?

Disagree Completely. At this point, we shouldn't stand for being considered (or consider ourselves) to be nearly two touchdowns inferior to any team in our own low-level league when we are playing at home. Yes, I am well aware of their accomplishments. I've actually applauded their two Big 10 wins on here, especially because I find it hilarious that Big 10 fans carry such a complex about their strength compared to other superior conferences. But lets be honest here. Comparing Michigan State and Western Michigan in any way because they've both played two Big 10 teams is REALLY reaching. I wish we could. But unfortunately I honestly have to look at who WMU played, and who MSU played.

Looking like excellent weather conditions, which could easily push this over 68 total points. I think we'll need at least half of that to win, for sure. And I expect Western to get their points too. With the the line at 10-1/2 for a home game against a MAC team, it definitely shows that nobody is taking us serious yet. And lets face it. These last 6 MAC wins were against bad teams. We need to go out and prove that we're better than just the best team in the lower half of the MAC.

Right on the money.

Maybe it was one of the Alien Ships escaping form the nearby blimp hanger.

Because "just winning more games" has never been the answer. I've said it many times. Winning 6 straight MAC games? Winning 9 of our last 11 games? Yes, a big deal to all of us. But to the average D-1A college football fan who watches the national polls? What we are doing makes them yawn and go back to bed on Saturday morning. Still, although I've been around here a long time, and know our history in regards to attendance.......I had still thought that attendance would have been at least a few thousand higher than this. I actually made that prediction, and I was wrong. I guess that illustrates just how bad the apathy about Akron Football has become to most people in this town. Now i see people who would like to see us "play dead" next week against WMU, and save ourselves for future MAC games. Ridiculous. This is the biggest opportunity we've had in a long time to impact those "Joe Akron's", especially if we get a little help from the local media in promoting the fact that a RANKED TEAM is coming to the Info.

I addressed this one in the other thread. Actually, overall, we rushed well because of Chapman. The running backs? Not good at all. The way that Van and Manny had been running the ball since Ball's absence had very good, in my opinion. And Miami just happened to be developing into a very stingy defense that was performing well against the run. So, in the end, I hope we will find out that this was just a tough team to run against, and that our RB's being rather ineffective was just an anomaly.

This is just ridiculous. Sitting guys out against MAC TEAMS? So that they might be healthier for other MAC games? Come on. If Alabama is beating us 40-0 at halftime, then you think about sitting guys for more important games. Under no other circumstances. Unless we're talking about some of our worst years, every MAC team is beatable for us. And we're AT LEAST a better than average MAC team right now. So, there's no reason to cop out. You bring everything you've got to a game like this.

Speaking of players that stuck out in different ways yesterday... How about Soph. WR #19 Anthony Lauro? He's from Florida, only 5'-10", and had a couple of catches yesterday. I had never heard anything about him, and he was in there in some key situations. He made one catch in traffic reaching backwards for a dart that was a bad pass and pulled it right in. Pretty impressive. More depth than we even know we have at the WR position, I guess.

It will take a shootout where we end up coming out ahead. I just don't see any way we can get enough stops on WMU's offense to win a game where we don't score a lot of points.

Offense: Has gotten the job done the last two weeks without Woodson. We'll need his better efficiency next week, and a guy who will look at multiple option. Our running game from anyone other than Chapman was a major disappointment today. Defense: A much better overall performance. But, those big running plays on 1st downs, with tons of broken tackles, is still bothering me.

It was a lot of fun to watch us finish some scoring opportunities.

Yes, I'm well aware of the difference. And I think you are right that "announced" will be somewhere around that number you are guessing.

If nearly half of the stadiums seats are occupied, that will be the biggest surprise of the year. Honoring the 1976 team, great weather, and homecoming festivities truly ARE reasons for families and students to come out in bunches. But they won't. Might be a little larger than a normal crowd, but we won't really notice the difference in a 30,000 seat stadium.

Oh no. I was thinking maybe this story wouldn't have any legs, since it happened so far away. As a longtime Zips fan, doesn't this illustrate our constant frustration that we can't seem to ever get enough press, but a negative story like this always seems to find it's way into plenty of media.

Bowden said that the offense wasn't changed for Chapman, and it did seem like most of what we were attempting to do was no different. But I am sure we ran some different plays. At the very least, if I were an opponent, I would regard Chapman as a more effective runner. So, I would plan to have him watched a bit more to scamper out of the backfield.

Correct. Against Terry Bradshaw and Phil Robertson. Maybe THEY would come to the commemoration too ??

Next Year? The 30 Year Anniversary of our move to D-1A ?? It's a thought. Actually, maybe these celebrations of anniversaries is a good idea, and should happen more often, simply to educate our students and younger fans of our history. Heck, people who are students at Akron right now likely don't even know that we won a MAC title in 2005. We should be educating and reminding them of all of our sports accomplishments from the past. I think it helps them connect with our athletic programs. That's why we should have placed that Heisman Statue in a place where our students walk every day.