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Huh? OU can't score tonight. That's a very encouraging sight, considering what they've put on the board the last few weeks.

That sucks. But I have to tell you that the Chain Gang incident was hilarious. Everyone was standing around waiting the kickoff, and the camera panned over to the sticks laying there on the field, unattended. Then, they show the 3 guys walking casually over to the sticks to pick them up. And clearly, one of them was eating food. WTF? Was this a job that they gave to a few minimum wage temp. service guys for the night?

And I would guess that he probably was a former "A"-level student in English Grammar.

Interesting. I didn't think people would be so excited about the Book. Maybe they should have told people ahead of time that the tickets would be in a book. Maybe they would have sold more tickets, or gotten people to renew faster.

1) I would have at least liked to have seen what the offense could have done if Kato would have saved us from the big yardage losses by throwing the ball away. 2) The long ball threat just isn't there without Tommy on the field. And this offense badly needs the chances at big plays. 3) But Miami still won this game because we can't tackle. With 400+ yards and over 5 yards per carry on the ground. 4) We got 2 int's. I guess our luck just ran out on getting enough breaks to win another conference game. Maybe the Football Gods already gave us our allotment for this year. 5) But for God's sake, OU is not an unwinnable game. We lost to those guys by 3 last year on the road with a very patched-together team. It's the damn MAC East, people.

This says, "We don't think Akron is good enough to challenge for the East title". Looks like we still need a couple more good wins to convince them otherwise. I hope we can get it done.

He confused me with this quote. “We’re not only hurting our defense with turnovers, we’re hurting ourselves,” Martin said

I think the biggest problem we all have with the ESPN agreement is that dates and times become inconvenient for fans, and sometimes that ends up all being for an ESPN3 game or an ESPN-U game (special subscription channel). I think we do benefit when they actually put us on Standard Cable TV (ESPN2), and expose us to a nationwide audience. In fact, I was just down South recently on a business trip and those who know I am an Akron grad talk about how they are well aware that we're in the spotlight on those weekdays, and they enjoy the extra football watching. But that is usually only the case a couple of times a year. The rest of the time, we are being majorly inconvenienced for nothing. But, we unfortunately still need the money.

Wow, You just brought back a 35 year old U of A memory for me. Thanks. Now I can run and tell my wife that I really don't have Early Onset Alzheimer's .

I hear that. That WAS our offense in that Buffalo game. Period. Without it, we aren't talking about sitting on the doorstep of a MAC East title right now. Just look back. Maybe to the breakout offensive performance 2 years ago at Louisiana Lafayette. We've had our greatest successes going for big plays with Woodson at QB. There have been times where we died offensively also. I guess it's like being a team that relies on a lot of 3-point shots in basketball. And Terry has always had that "throw the ball downfield" tendency. Three weeks from now, I hope I can say that it helped us this year, instead of failing us. Because it ain't goin away, Dadgummit !!

Well, apparently the gamblers disagree with me, and didn't think that Akron was getting enough points. I really thought it would be no more than maybe 3

For me, I wouldn't say that McKinley High School is "the Akron area".

No problem. It's not about who's right or wrong. I'm just puzzled that nearly everything seems to be the same as always, and the people aren't coming anymore.

That's why I refuted the excuses that have always been a factor. For instance, I don't want to hear "the games were on weekdays" when we've drawn 2 or 3 times that many people on weekday games in previous seasons. But I do think there's some validity in the point that maybe there's a lot of people who only get on board when we're holding that #1 ranking. Maybe it really does take that kind of level of success before the real outsiders show up.

The students getting excited was certainly a big factor. But, I can tell you that I am in that category myself. I've been involved with Zips Athletics for decades on a number of levels, but NEVER attended a soccer game for the first time until about 2009. I'm still going. I got my wife hooked along the way too. And neither of us are there because we like soccer. We're there because it's exciting to be a part of our alma mater competing at such a high level nationally in a sport. We're definitely not the only ones. Many other big Zips supports and donors have those seats in the main grandstand. And the ones I know personally would never go to some other soccer game.

I'm hoping that the Suckeye Faithful down there on Exchange will now get bored, knowing that there's no more drama to cover in Cowlumbus for the rest of the season, and might be looking for some other relevant local sports news, and might suddenly discover that the Division I-A school that's a 5 min. walk away for their office just happens to be on track for a conference title. I know. Blind hope. Expect to see more coverage for the Suckeye's upcoming invitation to the Holiday Bowl instead.

I'm surprised that it's 5 points. I thought it might be a field goal, or less.

The reason I bring that up is because it is the only time I see people gaining any interest in soccer, if they are not already a fan of the sport. And I think many of those "non-soccer fans" have gotten behind the Zips in previous years.

That could be it. UAZipster seems to indicate the same thing.

Let me just question a couple of things. 1) The Suckeyes always play on Saturday in the Fall, and their demolition at the hands of Iowa was completed long before that game started. 2) The MAC has always sucked. 3) We've been playing some far inferior opponents in conference play for most of our soccer existence. 4) We've played plenty of weekday matches. I think some of those record 6k and 7k crowds were even on weekdays. But, I do agree that the rough start could have had some impact on the rest of the season's attendance. But crowds between 1,000 and 2,000 for the entire season is quite a dramatic difference from the past. I'd think that the crowds would have grown over this last month or so as we started to move near the top of the national rankings. Something has clearly changed.

That's fantastic news. I think that adds some credibility to our national standing as a program. I think we have way too much talent and experience this year to not make a run at a national title. We might also be playing our best at the right time. But it's soccer. One stupid play can end everything. So I have to ask again. Where are the fans? Another sparse crowd on a Senior Night with fantastic weather. Why are people failing to connect with what is happening, vs. how they connected and responded maybe 5 years ago? No blame on the students either. Even the formerly-always-packed main grandstand appears to have plenty of room lately. Does it take some of the excitement out of it when you now come to expect this every year, like basketball did for so many years? I don't want to get the soccer fanatics all fired up, but I am also worried that not having a team in the upcoming world cup is likely going to have some impact on the sport in this country. I think we always could count on some sort of added interest in the sport outside of the core soccer fans when that event was about to take place.

The projection is that they will move to about #14, and that won't break my heart. No way a team from the Big 10 will ever make the playoff with 2 losses. Wisconsin might not make it with ZERO losses, if you can image that. They even joked last night about all of the really bad teams in that league. And even some of the teams that they thought were good a month or two ago are fading fast. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/columnist/dan-wolken/2017/11/05/misery-index-week-10-ohio-state-set-another-underachieving-season/834000001/ It's all good news for us. This means that there's a chance that the Beacon will be covering the Zips run to a championship this year......Maybe.

I should have waited just a few more days to respond. I don't even believe that the CFP can work enough magic to justify putting the Suckeyes in the playoff this year now. But I'm sure they'll try.

Alright, since I am on an ATTENDANCE rampage, I'm tired of seeing these 1,000 to 2,000 crowds for the friggin TOP 10 Zips. What's going on? It's going to be a very pleasant Saturday evening. We need some people out there tonight.

I remember being 30 and being the first person I knew that had a cell phone. I even remember the huge bag phones that some people put in their cars 25 years ago. Things have changed.