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Oh my Dave, please don't tell me that you want to attempt to correlate a June "rebranding" of a University with it's next semester's enrollment, in which nearly all of those students would have already decided on their Fall selection long before? The University would let you think that the admissions office had a line out the door, in order to support their position. I sure hope you're not serious.

We won't be able to count on that large contingent coming over from Pittsburgh this week, for sure. I actually felt sick when my friend standing there with me thought that the Pitt fans might have been a larger and more vocal presence than our own fans, even early in the game when it was close. Considering the opponent, 10,000 actually showing up would be very optimistic, I would think.

gmann17.... "Growing Enrollment" doesn't make you successful as a University. You can accomplish that by simply admitting more and more of your applicants. Make the programs great, and turn out well-educated and successful alums, which results in higher and higher levels of student talent wanting to get a degree that says The University of Akron. That should always be the goal. And at this point, I don't see how investing resources in a new and misunderstood tag line is going to accomplish any of that.

Zippy Rulz....I tend to agree with you about Week 1 for the Cupcake game. Then it becomes somewhat of an extension of Training Camp, and a transition to the more difficult games. But I believe the "big programs" have the same philosophy, which is why THEY might tend to want to schedule US in Week 1. My comment was about desperately needing a WIN after the last two weeks. That's why I think that, in our current state, this game came at the perfect time.

Dave, I think that Miss. State game is not mentioned enough. If I recall, they were darn near ranked in the preseason, until the loss to Akron. But, in the subsequent weeks, they climbed back up into the rankings, before a late season collapse doomed them.

Dave...You're right. Copyright and Trademarks would be involved in that part of it. Not patents. RowdyZip...I think you are right that there would a lot of resistance from OSWho and OU.

1) This game could not have come at a better time. Some hope will be renewed after this one. I just hope it continues long after that. 2) I'd like to see Tommy W. throw the ball a little bit in this one. I want to see if some of what he showed at OU and in the first half vs. Ball State last year can possibly resurrect this offense.

Florida State was 19-14 and was a #3 seed in their REGION in the NIT. Temple was 17-15 and was a #7 seed in their REGION in the NIT. It would be quite a stretch to indicate that both of these teams were almost NCAA tourney teams. Other than beating a "name" in a first round NIT game, there wasn't a whole lot to gain here in terms of high impact wins. But as fans, we surely talk about them because they are among the most notorious wins that we have had in the last decade. Interesting Fact: FSU's RPI was 79 and Temple's was 81. In both years, Akron's RPI was HIGHER, yet they sent us on the road as the visiting team.

Spin....I'm sure Louisiana-Lafayette would love to hear that they are a "payday" game. They are a Sun Belt team. They will draw low 20s, at best, for a non-league game against a MAC team.

Ok...I will make everyone feel better. The Soccer Team has played more games??? Does that help?

Rowdy Zip...It would be a name change, not a patent. That's handled by the State. And I've been told that it would also need several levels of approval, which would be unlike a business choosing a name as long as no other business already has that name.

I still laugh every time I see the name John Zipp. Way too funny. Even though they say they had decided on a rebranding instead of a name change, it doesn't mean that it's completely off the table for future consideration, I guess. But, I am at least a bit comforted in FINALLY hearing someone say that the name change ideas was "discarded". I sure hope that's the end of it. I can find a way to live with the "rebranding".

Listen, I'm no saint. But, I think I wouldn't be happy if that kind of really strong language was part of any highlight video about me, for public consumption, when the idea is to impress people.

Geez. Who puts that kind of music in someone's highlight video, which is seen by prospective schools who might be interested in him?

zipsoutsider.....I think you pretty much got it. We were not in a good situation, offensively, going into the season. Losses and injuries at RB and WR dictated that. The coaches are trying to work in a QB as a running threat to try to maximize what we have to work with. I'll trust that they probably have a much better idea of what combinations of personnel and plays are going to work best this season vs. those on this board who are simply judging results against two P5 programs in only two games.

Once again, talk to the people at Akron who have been involved in trying to get the Suckeyes to play us since the meeting in the 1989 NIT. Dave is right. A good Akron team is a threat to their "perceived" status in the State. It's funny how Ohio State Honks justify their horrible OOC basketball schedule by saying that they play a strong enough conference slate to obtain a good SOS. But, they slam on the SEC football schools for playing cupcakes when their conference schedules provide an enormously high SOS (this year, occupying 10 of the top 25 slots in the polls...which is a record). As I've said many times, if you want to make excuses for what Ohio State does, you'll find plenty of sympathetic supporters on their fan forums. After the mocking they got from the Dayton Newspaper with the "THE University of Dayton" pasted on the front page of the paper the morning Ohio State was FORCED to play them in the NCAA tournament last year, and lost, I am going to guess that they are going to be even more selective when faced with the prospect of playing a good in-state school.

I remember the huge group of people lined up at Gate 3 for Pitt Will Call, right before kickoff. Someone had to know the number of Pitt people coming to the game, and how many would be needing to pick up their tickets right before the game. If Pitt only had 1 person there, that's pretty stupid. But, I am sure that added to the bad experience for the Pitt fans.

Dave, The Louisiana-Lafayette game is important to me too. Just like it was last time. Knowing that we are superior to a top level Sun Belt program is a great measure of progress. It's also just as important that the MAC shows the country that they are better than the Sun Belt as a whole. Being the "worst conference in the country" is not a good title to carry around, for a number of reasons. Lets allow the Sun Belt to keep that title.

The people who have tried to schedule them, unsuccessfully, for the past 26 years would prove you to be 100% wrong.

I always have to come back to this thought when I see the prospect of fans turning on Bowden. If we get rid of a guy with Bowden's experience and proven track record, what do we replace him with? Sure, there's young "diamonds in the rough" out there, if you can get very lucky to find the right one. If not, you are going back to experimentation and taking chances again. I certainly don't want to go back to that.

I tried not to think about what we accomplished at Pitt last year, but I couldn't help it. It raised expectations for this game a bit, and it turned into a serious DUD. I scoffed at the idea that 41 points was a possibility when it was predicted yesterday, but I never could have imagined only one score. And I don't think we ever even had a legitimate chance to score after that. I don't even know what to say. Then add the embarrassment of untimely STUPID penalties to seal the game in the end.

zipsoutsider.....I realize he went to OSWho, and doesn't hide it. But how does that appear when he's the ABJ's chosen representative to report about the Zips? Underhanded "mocking" should not be tolerated. Steve French went to school at OU. But you would never know it. Whether his comments are positive or negative, you don't get a condescending tone.

I was there, but entered the place after the two STL goals. It seemed like we dominated the entire rest of the game. Does anyone know what the heck happened in those first 10 minutes? Seems impossible that they scored 2 goals early. We shut them down from mounting any kind of offense at all for the remainder of the game, and had tons of opportunities and near-misses ourselves.

Balsy...I caught the same thing. The word "Distributed". That means about 12k have been "sold". That's a bit less than I expected, but there's still one day to go.

Now wait just a minute. There's a few people on this board who still believe that the Zips and the Suckeyes don't attract any similar athletic talent. How can an Akron baseball player transfer to Cowlumbus State? That can't be!