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For those of us who go at least back to that dramatic overtime victory in 1986 in an OVERpacked JAR Arena when both teams were very good, this game could not come soon enough. I don't expect a packed house tonight, but I'm hopeful it's at least a good crowd.

Watch and see how quickly he's snapped up as soon as OSU's season has ended. How blind can you be, dude? (And if you're nitpicking, I guess we can always ask: How close would Ianello ever come to winning any award for dedication to team or community? He won't even SPEAK to the press, he hates the AKRowdies, and umpteen players have quit rather than listen to his constant berating. Got any other defense?) Read the post, where I clearly indicate that I would have taken ANY OTHER DIRECTION if we had to do it over again. Like I said. I get it. You love Fickell. Your colorful and bold typefaces say it all. I just don't agree with you. But, I'll be sure to get my blindness corrected.

Ok...I get that you're thrilled about this guy. But your rose-colored glasses may have missed the part where it says that the award is given to five college coaches to recognize "dedication to their team and community". Of course, I wish that we had gone in another direction last year. Any other direction. But, I'm not hearing about anyone else going after this guy, and the writer of the article states that Ken+ should "consider" him.

It's interesting if we are favored by one point. Considering what most teams get for home field advantage, it seems that they'd predict us to lose if it weren't for the fact that we are at home. If any home field advantage even exists for us anymore. I predict a repeat of last year's final game. We find a way to play well enough to beat another really bad team, and some people start getting higher hopes for next year, and start putting high-achieving career labels on players that showed us little in previous outings. I think we'll win this game, but lets keep it in perspective

I did! +1

I like someone who thinks like this. As you well know, I think an at-large consideration should always be the goal, but I don't think this schedule (although better) was good enough to get that done, especially with Dayton already eliminated from the "big teams we beat" category. And after Saturday night, I'm still waiting to see if we are going to be good enough this year to possibly record any of those quality wins.

Of course it will free-fall considerably over the next several weeks, no matter how we play. But, it is pretty cool to see that.

I've wrestled with this attendance issue for decades, and posted many of my own conclusions on here. And I'm sure many of the other old timers have as well. But over the last couple of years, I now at least have some new answers. 1) The new stadium wasn't the "big solution". and 2) The increase in convenience for on-campus students had a very short-lived effect. I mean. Come on. Poor season or not, nearly 30,000 of you students were on campus during the day last Wednesday, and by 6pm only a few of you made it over to the stadium? Even to just enjoy a college football game? Even if you aren't a big Zips fan? I think the new stadium has made the fan experience much better....but sadly, only for those who had an interest in Akron football already.

I was looking forward to it as well. Unfortunately, you can chalk this up to a missed opportunity at developing these guys. Besides possibly Egner, these guys collectively showed their inexperience, and forced our starters to play a lot of minutes tonight.

iCoach is a loser. Should never ahve wasted that last time out. What an idiotic decision. I agree. If we had that one timeout, Miami would have had to punt again. Which was a lot better option than trying to overturn a fumble call that happened while a receiver was clearly upright on both feet running with the football.

Is the photo of the tailgate lot accurate? Looks pretty light out to be "around the time of kickoff"???? Lot 9 was dark around kickoff time, and it had tailgaters in it. I was thinking this was meant to be funny, especially since I don't recognize the lot at all. But thanks for pointing out the lack of darkness too.

Absolutely. Anyone who thinks this is not the scenario right now is fooling themselves. We're going to be playing without a senior front court player who was maybe going to average anywhere from 20-30 min. per game, and replacing him in the rotation with a new freshman. There's going to be a few guys that are going to have to do more right now, including Mike, and hope that the new guys can develop enough at some point to help pick up some of the load this year. Brett likely would have seen closer to that 20 minutes per game than 30. The past two years he's only averaged around 20 minutes per game as his conditioning has never been solid enough to support much more. He's had knee and back problems throughout his time here and 30 minutes a night was never going to be much of an option for him. His averages last year were 10 points and 4.5 boards in just under 20 minutes per game. I think the big question here is do you think an improved Nikola and Zeke combined with Euton and Egner can cover those stats and those minutes. If your like me and believe they can then this isn't all that big a deal. If you don't believe that they can't then this is a huge hit. Boy, I couldn't agree with you more on that point. Regardless, I think it's tough to try to make anything positive out of losing one of your best players in his senior year. As you said, it all does indeed come down to whether one believes that the other guys can pick up the slack quickly enough. Of course, it CAN happen, but I'm certainly on record as saying that situations where you're forced to COUNT on freshman to fill too big of a role for departed players is not where you want to be.

Absolutely. Anyone who thinks this is not the scenario right now is fooling themselves. We're going to be playing without a senior front court player who was maybe going to average anywhere from 20-30 min. per game, and replacing him in the rotation with a new freshman. There's going to be a few guys that are going to have to do more right now, including Mike, and hope that the new guys can develop enough at some point to help pick up some of the load this year.

Wow. A freshman who was going to redshirt because he probably wouldn't be in the playing rotation as opposed to a Senior, who is probably our biggest scoring threat, and the most experienced player on the team besides maybe McNees? It doesn't make me wonder one bit.

That was my thought. Nice to see.

I'm surprised this took so long to come up. I'm sure everyone was wondering about his absence on Tuesday.

I couldn't believe this when I saw it.... It looks like this is the first time in 11 games that PN threw for 200 yards. 200 yards? Not 300 or 400, but a total that even mediocre QBs can do often enough, and he didn't do it even once in the last 10 games? Hey...you gotta feel good about something

I think Nitro at least seems to have grown past the point of looking overwhelmed and in a panicked state when he is on the floor. It's nice to see since this is a guy who I think actually took a step backwards between his first and second year here. I hope he continues to improve, and get more confident. For the original poster who thinks this game is an indication that we'll be a VERY good this year, who knows. If Dayton is a VERY VERY good team, then I think it's fair to make that early assessment. There were times in the first half when they looked like they'd blow us out. Did Dayton just go to sleep in the 2nd half? Or, we're we actually good enough to be that close to beating them? Time will tell.

He may also still not believe that Linhart got punched. Still to this day, the most hilarious part of that footage is when .13 was pleading to the ref that he simply pushed Linhart with an open hand.

Sorry. I can never root for Ken+, as much as I want to see the MAC increase it's strength nationally.

We've certainly played well against them the last two times. If we win, it's HUGE. If we play competitively, I'll be satisfied. Certainly an early-season test to see how good we might be this year. Guys like Egner, AA and Diggs are indeed our future. And whatever they can contribute this year is a big plus. As I say all the time, never count on newcomers to pick up the slack for departed players. But if any major contributors do happen to emerge from this bunch as the season progresses, we could be a really good team.

That's right. We have a game this week. Thanks for waking me up Johnny. Weekday tailgating will be fun. I may not take as much interest in the game, and will be shocked if we win.

I won't be able to resist calling him "Coco"

Even as you sit on a seat you paid hard earned recession cash to reserve? I know. I've probably never been more unhappy about my mid-summer decision to buy a large group of reserved season tickets. But I am also so frustrated and tired of looking around at an empty stadium this year that I probably wouldn't care if they just opened up the gates the next two games.