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As much as French and Dunn talked about how coach Peele was ranting at the close of the game, they NEVER asked KD what it was about. Apparently, he even said a few things to Keith. Why in the world didn't they ask him about it? I couldn't believe it.

Pitt drilled Miami by 30 points last night, and that's pretty hard to do that to Miami...the way they play. Keith thinks they might be a best team in the country. And they are huge inside. Lets hope we don't face a similar fate Friday night. Just for some nostaliga ....for my fellow old timers......we played a game against a good Pitt team in Pittsburgh in 1986 behind a couple of guys named Boyce and McLaughlin where we actually had a chance to tie with a 3 pointer at the end. Then, they came here in 1987 to play us at the Richfield Coliseum when there are one of the best teams in the country.....and we took them to the wire.Do we maybe have some magic against these guyes? Lets hope.

I do feel a little bit more encouraged about us having some level of success this year after what happened tonight...as opposed to what I saw the last two games.Here's a few thoughts....1) If Bardo can score a couple of baskets a game in the paint....JUST A COUPLE...that would open some things up for us that would help us tremendously. He has to be viewed as at least a minimal scoring threat for our inside-out offense to really work come time for conference play, when we'll really need it. 2) We can't go into conference play without a point guard who can really, truly quarterback our offense, for the 2nd year in a row, if we expect to be competitive. Steve started the game tonight as that man, but I don't see him filling that role long term. It looked like Keith may have tried to go with the guy with the most experience in that role tonight, and right now, that would be Steve Mc. Can we get Ronnie up to speed over the next 10 games? I sure hope so. 3) Whew....what a relief to see that we are indeed capable of grabbing rebounds. 4) By about the mid point of last season, I really saw Chris Mc as the only other guy who could join Nate this year as a major contributor. It's really starting to look that way. Will someone else (and we need it) emerge? Darryl R. showed tonight that he could possibly be that other key piece of the puzzle.5) Am I the only one who has been surprised about the contributions of Cvetinovic? Many of us have been saying this all along....at least a couple of these freshmen need to become contributors...quickly...in order for us to be competitive this year. Let's hope we continue to get these contributions from Nik. Just for the record, I am not ready to back off of my 10-15 win prediction after what I saw tonight. Remember, some of the teams we are going to beat during non-conference play (including this year's Winthrop version) are not in the same league as most of the teams we will face in conference play. But, I still hope for the best.

It is amazing to me that guys like Bowser and Braylon sometimes make the most difficult catches you've ever seen. Then suddenly, they drop balls from point blank range that hit them right in the numbers.

g-mann....WOW.Traffic will be a non-issue at the new stadium?? Have you ever been near the Rubber Bowl when a "real" 25,000 showed up? I have...many times over the last few decades. Contrary to your statement about limited access to the RB, people access the RB from many different directions. Route 224 has two lanes going right there, with few stop lights, and very large parking areas to enter. Triplett Blvd. has two lanes going right to RB parking, with few stop lights, and very large parking areas. Massillon Rd. has 2 lanes going right to RB parking, with few stop lights, and very large parking areas to enter.If this situation has caused traffic to stop several miles from the RB when 25,000 people really do show up (and yes it does...I've been stuck in it). You can bet the problem will be much more difficult on campus. Now about the students:My original post said...1,000 more?...2,000 more? Not to make an argument, but to ask a question. I will join the ranks of those who will be pleasantly surprised if several thousand ADDITIONAL (meaning..those who don't already have an interest in going) students suddenly decide that they have an interest in Akron football, and will stay on campus for the entire weekend just to go to a Saturday game....year in and year out. I just don't see it. My basketball game reference was not intended to compare basketball to football attendance, but merely to point out that when you can only get a few hundred students to show up to a basketball game that's on campus....what kind of additional, consistent student attendance can you really expect at football games? Winning vs. playing in the MAC:Whoever posted the "see Ball State" comment must be joking. Check the history. How often does any MAC team ever get enough respect to get to where Ball State is right now? When it happens, people notice, but it's certainly not a frequent occurrence. So, how about just winning the MAC? I can tell you several knowledgable college football fans right now who have no idea whatsover of how Akron is doing this year. Why? Again...MAC teams do not compete for national titles....so most Northeast and Northcentral Ohio football fans couldn't care less. I'm telling you...just winning MAC games will not bring flocks of new people to the new stadium after the novelty of wanting to go to see it wears off. We'll need a run like Marshall had several years ago or a Boise State type of success story to accomplish that. Again...not being a good MAC team, but being a team with some kind of national stature. Check the attendance figures of other MAC schools...even when they are in positions to win MAC titles....and you'll see that there are not significant attendance increases. As much as I'd like to believe that if we just win more games everyone will come, I'm just not seeing that it's really the case in this conference. I've been around this football program for a long, long time. I'm just telling it like I see it.

uafan...and some others....I'll make two points...1) I think what some people are trying to say (including me) is that we had some good performances against some superior competition, and feel some sense of encouragement from those performances. I don't think any one of us are happy with a loss, or somehow relish in what some call this "loser mentality". Cincinnati is a Top-20 team, and we played them to the wire. I walked away from that game thinking "if only we could have found a way to win".....but certainly was not dissappointed with the way we performed.2) You're forgetting....there were other close games this year where we DID find a way to win.

Interesting. Thanks for the analysis. You've definitely spotted a trend with late turnovers in our losses. I don't know. Sometimes I'm torn between the idea of making sure you don't turn the ball over, and taking some level of risk to try to make the plays you need to make when the game is on the line and you're behind. If Jac had not thrown that ball up for grabs in the end zone against Can't, we would have never won the game. Yes, it could have easily been picked, but it turned out our way. Would the better decision had been to throw it to someone else and not risk the int? When I look at this season, I see a lot of close games that could have gone either way. We ended up on the good end of a couple of them, and on the bad end of a few as well. That's just the way it goes in a league/division where the teams seem so equally matched this year.

If the Rowdies have grown to the point where they can fill both sides every game, that would be wonderful for Zips Basketball. Being a student back when JAR Arena first opened, I would have begged and pleaded to get to sit down there. You folks have a great seat for the game, and I just cannot figure out why it's been so hard to get at least that many students to a game. Hopefully, we've reached that point.

He is right. This is not the Winthrop team that we played last year. I remember that game well....we were in pretty good shape, and then they put the hammer to us over the last few minutes of the game. Lets hope for better results this time, and hope that we have found a way to resolve some of the issues from the last two games.

I would go down 77 to Marietta, and then over to Athens.

7 wins would certainly put us in a bowl.

Yes, I know I have an alarming level of concern here about where this season is headed. I wish I didn't feel that way. But after our exhibition game troubles, and after trying to remove that from my memory, we had similar issues last night.Let me remind everyone...Canisius is coming off of a 6-25 season, with an RPI in the 300s, and is picked this year to finish near the bottom of the 17th ranked conference in the country. You'd probably expect us to look pretty good against teams like Canisius and Walsh, especially since the schedule gets tougher as we go along. I sure wish that had been the case, and it certainly was not. Once again..I'm only giving an honest assessment of how I feel about where we are headed THIS SEASON. It's not a knock on the program, the potential of these players, the coaching staff, the direction of the program, or where I think we will be a couple of seasons from now. Both as a fan, and a financial supporter of this program for nearly 3 decades, I'm simply saying how I feel about where I believe we are headed over the next 20+ games this year. And of course, I sure hope that's not the way it goes. And I sincerely hope that everyone who's also feeling this way will continue to support the program and ride the storm out and be there for us when we need you in the coming years.

Unless I missed something, there is no postgame thread to be found.First for the bad:Most of us probably don't feel that great this morning. And understandably so. In my opinion, we only won that game in the end simply because we had a little more talent than they have. But, that won't be the case when we eventually get into the meat of our MAC schedule. I wouldn't criticize anyone right now who sees this team as a 10-15 win team, in the best case scenario, at this point. I have to admit, with all of the time I have spent in my lifetime around both high school and college basketball teams, that's honestly where I saw this heading even before we stepped on the court this year. KD might have said it best in his post game interview. He said something to the effect of...the guys who can rebound and play defense cannot score...and the guys who can score can't rebound and play defense. That fact is not likely to change overnight. As much as we all wanted to hope that freshmen could fill the huge voids we've had to fill over the last couple of years, and effects are showing. The loss of Dru and Romeo even seems at this point to have been dramatically less of an effect on this team than the loss of the 3 other key pieces of the puzzle after last season. And after the exhibition against Walsh, I saw something very telling in the numbers....the rebounding problem. And it reared its ugly head again. Canisius DOUBLED our rebounding total. Now on a more positive note:I want to try to accept the fact that this team is truly a work in progress. There is great promise, but it's not likely to develop into many wins this year. But we all know that our future still looks bright at this point. We had hoped that this would be a decent year, and we wouldn't have to go through a rebuilding process....but it is what it is. But, I urge everyone to not lose your enthusiasm, keep posting and showing your interest as if we were a potential 25 win team, keep supporting the players and our coaching staff, and wait for better things to happen over the next couple of years. This season very likely will be a struggle for us....but it changes nothing about the direction of Akron basketball. Good things are going to happen.....keep the faith.

Ok...as an old timer...without really reading your posts carefully...here's what I've been thinking.....First and foremost....the NE or North Central Ohio sports community, in general, couldn't care less about MAC football. MAC teams don't win national titles, and only rarely put themselves into a national ranking position, as Ball State did this year. So...as a Zips fan, you have to ask yourself....Once the loyal Zips fans show up, and the curious people who want to enjoy the new stadium....where are we a few years down the line? Are there 10,000 to 15,000 people who will keep coming to enjoy the "comforts" of a new football stadium even though they have no real interest in MAC football? And most of which will probably not even follow the MAC standings any further than September?...Unless we happen to be unbeaten? It's a quick answer...NO. Beyond the newness of the stadium, the only real unknown variable here is the students. Would anyone like to take a guess at how many ADDITIONAL students will go to the new stadium who do not already go to the RB? And will they stay on campus all weekend to do so? Year in and year out? Even if its 1,000 to 2,000 more, that's still not a major impact on attendance. And here's a clue...how many students flood to JAR Arena for basketball games? I know...not a good sign. Here's my most honest scenario....2009Possible sellout for the opening game. Plenty of people will want to be there. Even if the place is not full...the tickets will be sold. 20,000 by October home games. (the actual people in attendance will be lower than ticket sales...as always)15,000 by November home games. (ditto)2010Without a major promo and ticket giveaway....20.000 for opening game.And one more factor....for some of us like me who live down here in Green, the RB is actually very convenient. Easy to get in and out of, and plenty of open space to tailgate without having to negotiate the Akron city streets, parking decks, etc. I LOVE that we are getting a new stadium...don't get me wrong. But in many ways, the RB's location and parking layout was much more convenient for someone like me. Folks...I hope that I am dead wrong...but this is how I see it. The only thing that is going to change all of this? Getting into a HIGHER level conference (not CUSA), and playing a higher level of competition where we at least have chances at national ranking, and national titles.It is what it is.....it's MAC Football.

I just hope that we don't have happen what happened a few years ago. My memory is a bit foggy on the details....but I believe we really got pushed back in the seeding, which made us have to play on the road by the 2nd game, and we were one of the top teams in the country.Can anyone clear me up on the details of that?

ZipAlumn....like one of my friends always reminds us....just keep walking and hope nobody says anything, and that's worked almost every time. Honestly, I've done it dozens of times. There always seemed to be an unattended gate somewhere by the start of the 2nd half. The difference this time was that we got stopped at several gates by the yellow jacketed rent a cops. We had to go down to the last gate to find one that was not attended. I know the policy...but it was just upsetting to me that they were giving away tickets to this game, but were going to try to make me go to the ticket counter a buy a ticket to get back in.....on the final night....when they literally begged the Akron community to come to this game? I'm surprised that they used THIS night to enforce that policy so strictly. Maybe I've just been lucky all of these years, and they do indeed try to keep everyone from re-entering. Anyway...it's a bad policy when you tick off long time suppporters, it's the 2nd half, and the stadium is 1/2 empty.

Zipsrifle....Unfortunately you are probably too young to have been here in the 80's and 90's like I was. I even remember games where those end zone sections that are covered with tarps were full, or nearly full. Take my word for it, we seemed like a big-time college football program on those days. Yes, they tended to happen early in the season, and were usually part of the Acme Zip promotion....but it was great to see. Probably the closest thing you had to experiencing something like that would have been the Marshall game in 2004, if you happened to be there. That game was about 10,000 people short of some of the games that I experienced, but the atmosphere and electricity that night was very close to the same.

Guys..one other thing.As you look at the "could have been" when looking at this season, please don't forget that we did pull out victories in a couple of close games this year. So, although we like to think "we could be 8-2 right now".....we could also be 3-7 as well. We could have also folded on the road in the 4th Q against Syracuse on the road when they started coming back, but instead came on with a vengeance to close the game. There's a lot of "ifs".So, should we be thankful to be 5-5 right now? I don't know. That's up to each of us to decide. But when we think that it could have been better, a couple of bad breaks could have made it worse also, considering the number of close games that we've been in.

Here's the way I see it with our coaches, and our 1-A history.....Coach Faust took over a program with 1-AA players, and slowly worked to try to make it a 1-A team. He was also further limited by the NCAA not allowing us to immediately go to 95 players, like the rest of our competition. Unfortunately, he left on a bad note with that 1-10 team his 9th year, but compiled a .500 record through the first 8 years, and still holds our best record of 7-3-1 as a I-A program. Analysis: A good start, but more work to be done. Mr. Owens takes over a program established for nearly a decade at D-1A, and a roster full of returning starters. He end ups with a record 20+ games under .500 through 8 years. Analysis: A step backwardsJD comes in and competes for a MAC title his first year, wins it his 2nd year, and further accomplishes a number of firsts, including a bowl bid, and our first ever wins over BCS schools. He's struggled the last couple of years, but still owns a record of only a few games under .500 in his 5th season as coach.Analysis: Some steps back in the right direction, but needs to show that he is going to bounce back from the last two dissappointing seasons.

We knew going into the season that our toughest games were going to be at home. Winning our last 4 road games in a row is pretty impressive.

I am basing the coach of the year possibility on the fact that he's doing much better than expected, and the fact that a couple of web sites have already listed him as one of the top 2 to 3 candidates most likely to get that honor this year. As far as the Ball State coach is concerned, being the best team in the league is never in any way an indication of their coach being named coach of the year.

Captain......that is a great post !!I took my wife's hand after the game, and somehow walked onto the field after the ceremony unopposed. It reminded me of those other times I did the same thing, such as the night Darren Alcorn kicked the 56 yard field goal. Except, this time it was for nostalgia, and not for a win. But it was cool since I know so many former players. What upset me greatly was the security people who chose to NOT let many of us re-enter after halftime tailgate parties. WAKE UP. I've supported this program with loyalty and money over the last 30 years, and they are going to do that? You wouldn't believe the number of people standing out there that said, "We've been doing this for decades...and you are going to stop us on the final game"? We eventually snuck into an open gate, but I thought it was a crying shame that they decided to snub us after being so lenient about that policy for 30 years. Doesn't make sense. And a lot of long-time fans were quite upset. I'm sure the U does not want to alienate these people, but the damage is done. Now...on the game points...#3...I'm convinced we were going to kick, until the penalty.#4...I couldn't assess Jac's improvement any better myself.#7...I think AJ had one carry last night. I'm sure he indeed didn't see things ending up this way for him.#9...Buffalo did a great job of execution. My only peeve is that we forced them into several 3rd and 4th downs late in the game, and could not make the stops. Not a knock on our defense, who played as good as we could expect. But, when it counted, they made plays.#11...As I said before, we need playmakers like Mackey and Stokes used to be on our defense. We don't seem to have any right now. But, maybe Aaron Williams is starting to emerge as one of those guys.

I guess this debate could wage on forever. And we are all Zips fans, and can have any opinion we want. But I am convinced, and many others who have watched this program forever agree.....regardless of the formation......we've had way too many 5 yard gains turn into 15 yard gains this year. Bring in 4 defensive lineman, or 5 defensive lineman (even though we have limited talent in that area), and the problem still remains the same. Smart teams at this level will run plays accordingly to exploit your alignment. The bottom line is...forget what they "say" the alignment is. Opponent's RBs are breaking tackles, receivers are getting loose in the middle of the field and turning short gains into long ones, and we don't have guys breaking on the ball often enough to knock down passes. We still have 11 guys on the field, same as the offense we are facing. People have to stop recievers and ball carriers, and unless I am missing something, and there is someone who you can point out to me who is as solid as a Mackey or a Stokes at doing this, I don't believe we have any right now.

In my opinion, we haven't had a real strong defense since coach Junko was the D-Coordinator during the Faust era. With that said, where is the problem? In my opinion, which is shared by some of the rest of the old timers I talk to........I urge everyone to think less about the alignment, and more about the personnel. We simply are a bad tackling team. 3-3-5...3-4-4...4-3-4.... it doesn't matter if you can't tackle. I'll say this for the 10th time. Guys like John Mackey made this defense look good at times over the last few years (refer to the game at Ohio State last year, for one...or the game at Miami, where we shut out their offense). So, I ask all of you...where is the Mackey or Stokes on this team? The guys who you could count on to make a textbook tackle when you need it? The guys you always talk about when you watched a game and said, "Hey..he's solid and can make plays all over the field". I know...I don't think there is anyone who fits this bill right now, and herein lies the difference this year.

bigzipguy and bandman...sorry, I forgot about the Kennedy fumble after the long gain. I do remember that now. I guess I am just rambling a little bit this morning. Yes, our big wins against Can't and EMU put us into position to possibly win the MAC East in improbably fashion, but regardless of how exciting that has made this season, I still wish we had pulled out another big one to finish the job.