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+1 and I don't like him either.Other than a possible recruit hearing that LBJ occasionally comes around, how does his presence on campus benefit the "program?" Do you think a recruit comes to Akron instead of (fill in the blank) because LBJ stops in once and a while? If you answer yes, can you name me this recruit?PS If I were in UA Marketing, I would get some video of LBJ playing ball and "leak" it to the media tonight.Give us a list of recruits who say that the LBJ connection was NOT a factor in their decision. Come on. Most of us are aware that a whole host of factors could sway a recruit. We have possibly the biggest player and celebrity figure in the NBA hanging around our gym, and talking about it. You can't buy that kind of publicity with every dollar you have in your budget. There's people who have never even heard of Akron if it weren't for LeBron. Everything helps. There's a big reason why you see pictures of KD and LeBron so often in things that pertain to Akron Basketball. And there's plenty of secondary benefits as well. Would KD have ever ended up in a movie wearing an Akron Basketball shirt if it wasn't for LeBron?Would he be getting interviewed on ESPN wearing an Akron Basketball shirt if it weren't for LeBron?How about his quotes in newspaper articles about Akron's support for LeBron that appeared around the time of the NBA finals?

I'm not sure this even matters. We just want Akron people to support Akron, instead of going elsewhere. Right?And Akron should have a convention center. Were a large enough city.We do. It's called the John S. Knight Center.I know that. I've been in there many times. That comment was my reaction to the mention in this thread that Akron doesn't need a convention center.This gives me a thought. With the University already owning the Quaker Square property, and with the convention center being almost right across the street, with a huge parking deck right in between........I wonder if that area can all be connected together and incorporate an arena? There's also a huge church property right there that's for sale, and Greystone Hall is right there as well.

I'm not sure this even matters. We just want Akron people to support Akron, instead of going elsewhere. Right?And Akron should have a convention center. Were a large enough city.

The large MAC schedule is why I believe in the worst of rebuilding years we should be 6-6. If the scheduling is done properly, we get two OOC wins (vs. D1-AA and Sun Belt-esque team) and 4 in the MAC (Can't and UB need to be guaranteed every year and two other wins should not be hard to come up with especially if EMU is on the slate).Unfortunately, we've had the poor fortune of picking the wrong Sun Belt teams over the next few years. Unless Cristobal gets plucked away, FIU should be decent for a while. And has anyone else noticed to fantastic job Mark Hudspeth has done with the Ragin' Cajuns in his 1st year (more on him in one of the coaching threads). I personally think many of us MAC fans should have higher regard for the Sun Belt. They're basically at the same level now, and time is on their side.Unfortunately, I think most people's view of the Sun Belt was the North Texas team we played a few years ago. Yes, they had recently won multiple Sun Belt titles, but at that time, they were very much in a "down' period. And I think we are going to find out that the FIU team that beat us at home last week is going to be nothing more than a middle of the pack Sun Belt team this year.

A few years ago, I said that such a thing becoming a reality might be 10 years in the future. So, maybe I can cut a few years off of that now. So, don't hold your breath. It's still just talk. A number of factors make this a more distant propositon than some people want to believe.

Is it any revelation that there are several MAC teams on our schedule that are beatable? That's the case every year, no matter how bad we are.But, as this team grows and hopefully gets more competitive, I think we will indeed find that having Temple out of the way early was a blessing. This gives us a nice stretch of games in a row now where our opponent probably is not capable of blowing us out.

Not just the students. Although, with the 2,500 "announced" for a marquis opponent like Penn State on Wednesday, what could we expect for an unknown school like Hartwick? I can't explain the downturn. The weather gets colder this time every year. Is the difference between a #1 (last year) and #5 national ranking really that big? Were the Zips fans who are not soccer fans only on board because of that top national ranking?In another earlier thread, I think I said that I expected maybe 3,500 to 4,000 average for the Zips this season. I sure hope it doesn't come in lower than that. Good thing OSWho was a home game this year.

Nice article. I like the photos included. Speaking of that...shouldn't that face be plastered all over Akron? I want to see this one on a billboard with just the caption "Zeke!" using the stylized Z. Zeke swatted him, and he is doing his best to push him off !! I see an offensive foul there. I'm sure it wasn't called.

I don't know if anyone else caught the notes at the bottom of the article. Dials is now coming here as a "volunteer". I have to admit, it hurt when I saw him getting excited on the Miami bench last year in Cleveland during that OT battle in the MAC tournament. That was hard to watch. Glad to see that he's back with the good guys.

I think you're mostly on the right thought process. The higher conference affiliation and winning would elevate Akron's national stature, and at least put us in the same neighborhood as the schools competing for a national title. I'm sure plenty of the typical Akron area OSWho bandwagoners could jump off of that wagon, and jump onto ours, if that woudl happen. That same thing seemed to happen in Cincy, and it exploded when they finally got ranked higher than OSWho. The big hurdle is that right now, most area college football fans don't even regard us as even playing in the same division as those schools. A higher conference affiliation would instantly change that.

You think so? Just the "announced" crowd (2,500) wasn't even 1/2 the size of the biggest crowds this year, and it was against one of the biggest names on our schedule. And there were certainly quite a few no-shows, so the actual attendance was probably well under 2,000, which may have made it more like 1/4 or 1/3 the size of Ohio State or Cleveland State crowds. If people were paying attention to the forecast, they could see that the rain was ending. I was surprised and disappointed. Just inserting a little perspective: Prior to 1980, the school record attendance was "well under 2000". I bet it didn't pass 2000 till after the 1986 Final-4 trip. I'm well aware of that. I've been around here a long time. If you go back a couple of posts, you'll see that I am responding to those people who were predicting some very lofty attendance numbers this year. A 2,500 "announced" attendance against a big-name program should be pretty humbling, and a return to semi-reality for everyone.

You think so? Just the "announced" crowd (2,500) wasn't even 1/2 the size of the biggest crowds this year, and it was against one of the biggest names on our schedule. And there were certainly quite a few no-shows, so the actual attendance was probably well under 2,000, which may have made it more like 1/4 or 1/3 the size of Ohio State or Cleveland State crowds. If people were paying attention to the forecast, they could see that the rain was ending. I was surprised and disappointed.

I'm not one of the people on here predicting major soccer attendance numbers, but I was even shocked that the NIU game attendance was so low, considering that the football crowd and tailgaters were on campus all day, the weather was perfect, and the homecoming alums were all over the campus. I think a lot of that has to do with the tradition most schools have of going to the football game as a homecoming activity. Soccer obviously was not on most of those people's minds. Maybe someday there'd be interest in a soccer homecoming. You never know. I know Bobby just wishes for soccer to become something much bigger at Akron. As a Zips fan, I hope for the same. But, as I've said many times, the lofty attendance predictions of near 5k average get competely blown out of the water when you have just a couple of bad games. NIU failed to bring in the tired football homecoming crowd, and the Penn State game was a disaster with the temps being a little cooler and a little bit of water on the ground. I can only speculate what might happen on Saturday if it's wet again, and we're playing a virtually unknown school like Hartwick, and college football games are on TV. I guess the so-called "die hards" are waiting for playoff time to jump back on the bandwagon.

If we become a candidate, I would absolutely try to make this argument. But, the truth is, there's 3 schools in that market that can all make the same argument. And, that market doesn't currently show much support for Akron. Even in basketball, where we are successful, I'd clearly say that OSWho and Cleveland State get far more media support on TV, which is the media outlet that would certainly get the most interest from a potential conference in terms of how the media market could help the league. So, if they were to look at Akron, would they see that Akron is virtually ignored in their own local TV market? And how much would that reflect negatively on our chances? And would our local TV market potentially turn a great deal of attention our way if we joined a more notable league?

I'll take a repeat of the hurt we put on them in 2005 during our stretch run to the MAC title. It's still funny to look back at that 05 championship season, and see that it included a Shutout Loss to Army at HOME.

All we can do is hope! Hope.......for Akron to suddenly have the kind of money that a school like Arizona has, which allows them to make that kind of decision. And...was this Arizona coach only 1-1/2 years into a 5 year contract? So how many here would be okay with a 5-55 record after 5 seasons if his wins and losses continue on the current path? Oh, I'm not disagreeing with your logic at all. I'm just pointing out the remote chances of it happening, because of the financial circumstances.

All we can do is hope! Hope.......for Akron to suddenly have the kind of money that a school like Arizona has, which allows them to make that kind of decision. And...was this Arizona coach only 1-1/2 years into a 5 year contract?

I saw him make a play at the end of the game as well that involved the football hitting the ground and ending up underneath a FIU defender. Neither QB has done anything to warrant starting. This decision rests solely on Icoach and he will take the fall when/if both fail. Why not give time to both because I believe neither has all of the skills needed to get the job done. Hell you might just confuse the defense a little and keep them guessing. You mean the play where our own RB ran into him, which caused the fumble? You may want to read my post again. It's not a raving endoresement for Moore's greatness. But it does show marked improvement. And after what we've seen at that position for the past 2 seasons, that should be encouraging news to any Zips fan. Big play. You may want to read my post again because it wasn't a raving condemnation of Moore either. I don't see a huge improvement in QB play rather in the running game. We will revisit this at the end of the year but I do believe both QBs should see time. Moore’s play has not been stellar and neither has Nicely’s . Play both and go into next year with the battle running hot. I am not a Nicely or Moore suporter. I think they can exist together and have success. Of course we'll all look at it again at the end of the season, and maybe he'll get even better, or maybe he won't. But, knowing that our beginning schedule was mostly brutal, I would sure as heck hope that it will continue to improve. But at this point, having a QB rating 25 points higher after only a handful of games in his career doesn't leave me with the feeling that shared time between QBs is any benefit to us. And I think it also shows that our coach should feel justified in giving this guy nearly 100% of the QB play at this point. His rating is much better after only 1/2 of a season, and I want to see where it's at after a full season. And his ability to make plays out of nothing adds another benefit to our inept offense. Why would we go back now to something that failed us for nearly 2 seasons? Dave had once mentioned that Moore may not be ready to carry a D-1A team. But last Saturday, he darn near did.

I saw him make a play at the end of the game as well that involved the football hitting the ground and ending up underneath a FIU defender. Neither QB has done anything to warrant starting. This decision rests solely on Icoach and he will take the fall when/if both fail. Why not give time to both because I believe neither has all of the skills needed to get the job done. Hell you might just confuse the defense a little and keep them guessing. You mean the play where our own RB ran into him, which caused the fumble? You may want to read my post again. It's not a raving endoresement for Moore's greatness. But it does show marked improvement. And after what we've seen at that position for the past 2 seasons, that should be encouraging news to any Zips fan.

I only wonder what you were thinking of our QB play last year while you were one of the people who were defending, and waiting for a bad QB to magically emerge after 20 starts. It's not great right now, by any means, but I'll certainly take his 110 QB rating through his first 1/2 season over the 85 QB rating we painfully endured last year from an experienced QB, in a heartbeat. Playmaker? In this particular game....Absolutely!! Again, nothing stellar is happening on that field right now, but one could easily make the case that we may have been shut out Saturday if not for Moore's ability to avoid the onslaught of rushers long enough to complete passes, and his ability to find yards on his own downfield. And the overthrown pass in the end zone near the end of the game could clearly been seen as a situation where he needed to get rid of the pass way too early on a blitz. Everyone in the stadium could see that. Does he still need to improve his passing efficiency? By my expectations...yes. As I've said many times, a D-1A QB should still be in the 50s, regardless of whether he has a green crop of inexperienced receivers, and an OL that is quickly approaching devastating circumstances.

I have news for you. We probably would have gottten shut out yesterday, if not for his individual effort to carry us to victory. I'd like to see his efficiency improve. He overthrew that ball in the end zone because he had to throw it early because he was about to get hit. I think everyone else in the stadium saw that. Moore is a better runner than passer. At this point, looking at that and how our offensive talent is distributed, the team would be best off running a Flexbone offense. Maybe so. Who knows when someone has played only a handful of games in their career. But in specifically addressing yesterday's game, his ability to elude rushers to get more time to throw, and his ability to use his feet to pick up yardage in open spaces downfield, are probably the only reasons that we put any points on the board at all yesterday. But again, his passing efficiency needs to get better, even though it still stacks up favorably to what we endured last year. It might seem hard to put that kind of pressure on a new QB when the OL has deteriorated into a complete disaster, and he is playing with such a green drop of receivers, but I still think any QB should be able to complete at least half of their passes under any circumstances....MINIMUM.

I have news for you. We probably would have gottten shut out yesterday, if not for his individual effort to carry us to victory. I'd like to see his efficiency improve. He overthrew that ball in the end zone because he had to throw it early because he was about to get hit. I think everyone else in the stadium saw that.

The discussion started about ONE aspect of his game, the deep ball. If you think Moore has been acceptable in that area, then we disagree. I'm not calling for a change, and actually I can only think of one poster who has recently. I'm also on record saying that he might be able to adjust his timing on throwing the deep ball to have more success. He'd better, because his arm strength isn't going to magically increase overnight. Not that it's a big deal of course, but his career is now through 5 games, not 4. Actually, I'd want to see a change much sooner than 20 games, if he doesn't show progress. And I actually share most people's concerns over whether he will become good enough to be our guy for 3 years. But, I am still amazed that it appears that some of his critics so early in his career are some of the same people who felt that PN "just needed more time" after 20 games. It's pretty obvious that we had nothing to lose by making the change, except an injury. The pass protection might be worse than ever right now.

Once again, I find it amazing that some of the critics who are growing impatient with Moore after only 4 games in his college career appear to be some of the same people who were still pleading that we wait for PN to "develop" after 20 games.

After reading this thread, I'm beating my head against the wall too.....thinking about how we let two guys be at the forefront of our football program for several years who have done nothing more than coach at the D-II level ever since. That's all the affirmation I need. And their two D2 teams would probably beat the Zips this year. What does that affirm skip? That you believe that a D-II team could beat the Zips ?