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THanks for the post!! A very good and thoughtful post from an opposing fan. What a refreshing idea !! I did enjoy seeing you guys rattle the Suckeyes a couple of years ago. If you recall, we played them to a 3-2 halftime score a few years ago ourselves. When they do eventually lose to a MAC team, it will be a great joy for all of us.

Another good point. In my opinion, there is no scandal on either side. I don't know why this is getting so much attention. Having served on non-profit boards in the past, you're merely paying a service provider who has the ability to raise money for you in a very competitive environment in which many, many organizations are competing for donations. If people are concerned about making a donation under those kind of circumstances, they can easily just make a donation directly, or do their own research on the organization and their financials before donating.

This is a good point.

I'm not even sure if you were around here at the time, but lets get a few facts correct. Faust had even less facilities. He couldn't even get a grass practice field, despite having several opponents that still played on grass. He had to build a 1-A program with a roster of 1-AA players, many of which were simply too slow and too small to play 1-A football, and had to be replaced right out of the gate. He couldn't even build his roster up to the 1-A number of players that his competitors were fielding for several years. Owens had much more than Faust, including a roster of players equal to their opponents in terms of numbers.....and never had to deal with all of the issues of transitioning between NCAA levels. Yet, Faust still had a better record than Owens. And still has the best record ever in our 1-A history. Essentially a .500 coach ?????? His record as 40-61 You're right that Owens inherited the team after a particularly poor Faust year. But, do you recall that he only went 2-9 with most of the starters returning the following year ?

373 passing yards and over 500 yards of total offense? From UMass? Even before OUs recent defensive injuries, our staff and players had to be licking their chops thinking about the possibilities with our offense vs. their defense.

I felt all along as if the conditions were right for a hardship. I would have been surprised if he was denied. This makes the Quincy situation really hurt. This team could have really been super loaded, and possibly given us our best chance ever of going beyond the MAC. Hopefully, we can still make a run at that status.

Yes, a degree from a horrible school like Akron and a 30+ year business career makes me pretty stupid. I'm referring to your statement where you feel pretty confident that you can outscore anyone in a shootout-type game. Just want to make sure you were aware of some of our monster passing performances this year. Relax, and go hit your bong again. That would create a far more reliable picture of OU than a reference to your self-perceived academic greatness.

None of this explains why the people in the main bleachers aren't even showing up. And those no-shows are counted in attendance because they are season tickets, so you can only imaging how bad it is right now. We're not a #1 team right now. We're not on an incredible home winning streak. We're not in the middle of an unbeaten season. It takes some incredibly exciting things going on to sell college soccer to people who otherwise don't normally care about soccer.

Hey Bubba, You're not worried about someone scoring points against you, and you have a depleted secondary? Have you been hiding under a rock, and haven't noticed some of the monster passing numbers we've been putting up this year?

I think that about sums it up. This year, we SHOULD win when our opponent is held to 24 points. "Defensive Depth" should not really even be part of the discussion this week. The way our offense was completely shut down after the halftime break is very puzzling. We were able to score pretty well against FIU and Tennessee in much warmer conditions, and nobody was making excuses. It shouldn't be unusual for poeple to be questioning the coaching after this one.

Maybe plenty of players do think like this, but it just happened to be an OSWho player who was stupid enough to put his thoughts on a public forum. I'm not sure where you stand in terms of possibly being a Suckeyes fan, but this is the typical excuse for their fans. "Oh.......everyone else does it too". Meanwhile, a recent Columbus Dispatch (their own hometown paper) inquiry found that they have committed twice as many violations as the next closest school over the last 10 years.

And at the end of the Miami game. That's now a little bit of a concern to me. Let me add that it would certainly be understandable that someone might be a little rusty in their in-game decision making after experiencing a long layoff away from major college coaching in the middle of their career. Some of the comments at the end of the Miami game caught my attention, for sure.

I left the game saying, "how did we lose a game in which our opponent scores ZERO in one half, and only had 24 for the game"? Now, I don't really know what to expect from this team. All I know is that we continue to lose, and frustration among fans has really started to settle in again. We just lost 2 games where we HAD to win at least ONE to keep the Bowden-era interest alive this year. Unfortunately, after a little bit of hope recently, we may have to go back to looking at this as a long term proposition. I just hope the fan find a way to maintain their patience.

Dear Mr. Jones, If you ain't come to play SCHOOL, can you please step aside and allow that scholarship money to go to someone much more deserving, who really wants and needs it ? The godly aura surrounding OSWho continues to deteriorate, and I can't help but to keep laughing.

.........if they haven't, for the most part, started to disappear already. It's time for another long home winning streak to talk about.

Excellent. Thanks for posting. I think everyone who has contacted me about the Diggs situation in the last few days has mentioned the fact that we handle our problems appropriately. That's something to be proud of. The folks over in Portage County are what they are, and this article supports that.

We'll have to see how it plays out. But, I have always believed that there were a fair number of bandwagoners that showed up just because they wanted be a part of an Akron Zips team that was tops in the nation, and not because they had a great interest in supporting a college soccer program.

That statement depends on the length of the time frame you are examining. The year right after losing Bassett, OU lost about half of their games, got knocked out of the MAC tourney in the Quarterfinal round, and played in the College Insider postseason tournament.

No kidding. That's wishful thinking. I'd like to go back and see if these are some of the same people who thought the threat of losing Brett McKnight during his Senior campaign wasn't a big deal. This was shaping up to be a great team, and they just lost a major piece. How much it will hurt us from possibly reaching new heights will probably never be known.

I highlighted the phrase above for a reason. Because, "when" it happens IS relevant since it could impact attention, attendance, and recruiting much sooner if a turnaround is percieved to possibly be taking place sooner rather than later.

Sad, but maybe expected since the excitement of having #1 teams, unbeaten teams, and national champions is starting to wear off. Lets face it. It's college soccer. It takes more than just having a good team to get enough area residents and students on the bandwagon to produce the kind of numbers we are hoping to see right now. The surprising thing about the low turnout is that it followed a football game. Didn't some of those folks stick around? I'm hoping that some of those folks are just waiting for us to make a climb back near the top of the rankings to get on the wagon again.

A reciever being out of bounds, and therefore being, by rule, ineligible to catch the ball, IS reviewable. On the other hand, pass interference is NOT reviewable. I'm in complete agreement with Captain that these head-to-head personal fouls MUST be reviewed. 15-yards tacked on to the end of a play is too great of a loss for the the officials not to be certain that the call is correct. And as I said in another post, it is going to ruin college football if they continue to make errors in making that call.

Good post. I agree with you on most of this. I don't recall ever saying that we took a step backwards on Saturday. I was just pointing out that we have a big and consistent problem that's probably not going to get better anytime soon.

I think this is something that hasn't really been discussed. Forget about how many games this staff has to win this year to restore confidence among the regular fans. I'm with you in being even more concerned about how many wins it's going to take to make a good recruit feel as if Akron has changed enough to make Akron their top choice. If Miami seemed like a must-win to change the attitudes of some potential recruits, BG now looms even bigger.