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Zippysgotagun...you just made the point that I always try to make on this board.We, as fans, can look as far ahead as we want. It doesn't affect the way the team plays. It just cracks me up when some people say, "hey, lets just take one game at a time", as if we are the coaches talking to the players. Getting two games of separation in the loss column from both Miami and Ohio will really be huge. And if we can pull off a win at Can't again, that really swings the entire East race in our favor, especially since we'll have that home game against Can't to end the season, if needed.

I think playing in the CFL is the most likely scenario for him. If he does make it in the NFL, I'll be very pleasantly surprised.His glaring weakness is that he is not a consistent pass catcher. A few dropped balls at an NFL combine, or during training camp would likely spell doom.Beyond that, he sometimes makes the spectacular catch, and has a knack for getting yards after the catch because of his size and strength. He's very athletic, and played QB before making the transition to WR a couple of years ago. If you are looking for a guy in the CFL that can play in the middle of the field, I think you found your man.

Well, on second thought, after reading the poll, I guess a couple of these matchups could help us. But it needs to come from a top-tier mid-major. It's certainly not making my day seeing that Winthrop, a team that beat us by 10, is not even in the top 25 of the poll.

I'm not seeing too much in any of these potential matchups.We're a top MAC team. Anything short of us playing the top 1-2 teams in another mid-major conference would likely accomplish nothing for us.

Can't is ahead of us in every other poll or ranking I've seen so for anyway. So, this should come as no surprise to anyone.The only thing that will change that is if we beat them. Honestly, I'd still rather have home court the 2nd time we play them this year, since that one will most likely decide the East title.

Well, before Can't, the great thing that can come out of this week is that we will be separating ourselves by 2 GAMES in the loss column from both Ohio and Miami. Then, it starts to look like a two-team race. And we can put the road game against Can't clearly in our sights. I really believe that the MAC East winner will be the team between Akron, Can't, Ohio, and Miami that can steal a win against one of the other 3 on the road. That's how we won the East last year, and I don't see this year being any different. Can't has an identical record as us, and has played a much higher SOS. I'm not surprised that they are getting top-25 votes instead of us at this point. But, we can change that next week.

If the ratings for a MAC contest on espnu are that poor, then it really isn't worth it. I don't know how bad it is. I have never checked.I've talked to quite a few people in the last few days who normally go to home games, and most of them said something to the effect of, "oh...it has been changed to 9pm?". Which indicates to me that our attendance AT the game will probably suffer because of the time change. Plus, there will be others that might have gone to a game this big, but will choose to stay at home and watch it, which reduces the attendance by even more.Maybe making sacrifices to have a game on espn or espn2 makes sense, but I'm not convinced that espnu exposure is worth this price. Especially with it being such a critical game in our division, and a packed house could play such a factor in the outcome.

Ok...this might be a little premature and optimistic....but here's what I see.....OU beat Miami tonight. Miami now has 2 losses, very early in the conference schedule.We play like we did at home against the Bubba Cats last year, and we tag them with their second loss also. One of which is to lowly BG.On the other hand, we quickly move to 3-0, AND with a division road win (tonight) already under our belt. Could this be turning into a 2-team race early in the East Division schedule? Looks like that could be the case. If so, when the Flushes come to town, it could be one of the hardest games to get into at the JAR in quite some time.

I agree. We needed to win. I'm not sure if we're ready quite yet to be getting "also" votes with the losses to Portland State and Winthrop hanging on our resume. But, if we can keep winning in the conference for another 4-5 games, we might be there.

I've always said......The only thing that will keep him out of the NFL is his INCONSISTENCY in making catches. You can't make a few hard catches, and then miss an easy one. That will give him a quick ticket to the CFL.

g-mann...the big boys would never go for just the winners of each conference, and a couple of wild cards, getting into the playoffs. It doesn't really leave the stronger conferences with more representation. But...I do think that a "best 12 teams", nfl-type system would work. At 12 teams, you would be going deep enough (probably) that #13 could never say "hey, we were the best team in the country". And it's also a reasonable amount of teams to have a playoff that doesn't extend the season too much. But, how do you mix this into the bowl games? Or, is this after the bowl games?I think the reason why this has never happened is because they just can't find a way to do it. College football would be breaking 100+ years of traditions, and the current BCS system was a way to compromise between the two. I'm still thinking that it will be quite a few years before they will scrap what they have now, and try something else.

Correction...Loyer was a scout for the Trail Blazers, and then an assistant coach for the Sixers. After playing here, he was also an Akron assistant under Huggins, and a long-time assistant to Huggins at Cincinnati, for those who have not followed his career.

Zipgrad1990.....I'll add to that by saying that we won the OVC and played Michigan after Marcel's JUNIOR year, not his senior year. And he was also OVC POY. What an amazing feat for a guy who had just left junior college the year before.Unfortunately, Marcel lost out to McCann from Morehead State during his senior year as OVC player of the year. Or, he would have been a two-time recipient. The only two years he played here. That would have been mind boggling. I remember that 1986 team fondly, as I was still in school at the time. John Loyer (current Portland Trail Blazers assistant), Mike Dowdell (an Akron boy), and Eric McLaughlin (has his banner hanging in the JAR) in the backcourt. Marcel, Shawn Roberts, Russell Holmes (playing center at 6'-3") and Doug Schutz in the front court. It was an exciting time, coming out of nowhere to win the OVC, hosting and winning the OVC tournament in the JAR, and then playing a great first round game in the tournament. That was when people started to see the brilliance of Huggins. Putting a team together like that, when he was really left with very little when he took over.Great memories.

Building a program is a process. Playing better programs, and the benefits that go along with it, is not something that's never been done before. In fact, it's done all the time. But that doesn't mean that you'll see immediate results. But you HAVE to schedule much better than we do in order to start the process. Citing that the MAC teams see their RPIs drop during conference play is EXACTLY the reason why it is so pivotal to play a high SOS when you can....during the OOC schedule. Until we can get the entire conference moving in the right direction to make the conference portion of our schedule really impact our national stature, it's our only choice. I certainly hope that you are not putting "exposure" in parenthesis as if you are joking about it. Exposure is EVERYTHING. Just count all of the people in this country who are Gonzaga basketball fans, and I assure you that most of them outside the state of Washington didn't even know the school existed 10 years ago. And over time, it resulted in their ability to recruit several future NBA level players, and continued to get higher and higher seeds from the selection committees. Frankly, the reason I get so fired up about this topic is because I've been attending Akron basketball games for 30 years, and we continue to follow the same path, and continue to get the same results.I want to see the philosophy change so that we are at least making an attempt to put ourselves in a position to get into the NCAA tournament by some other means than just winning the conference tournament.

Ok...so how about we just sit back and do nothing about it? We need to collectively schedule better as a conference, which challenges your players to compete at a higher level, increases the visibility of the teams/conference, helps recruiting, increases your chances of beating better teams down the road, and therefore increases the chances that more teams from this conference will be in a position for post season bids.You can schedule well enough to have a chance to be in this position, or you can play out the entire season for the only other chance you have, which is winning the conference tournament. Two Chances vs. One Chance.

In response to uakronkid...1) Great. Our RPI was better than the other teams in the MAC last year. The point is, it was not good enough.2) Even if the other schools that played tougher schedules did not get into post season play on that particular year, they are getting a number of long term benefits that will help them grow their program.

Big Zip...I'm with you.I don't like the writer, and he might not be accurate on the SOS. But regardless, our SOS is an embarrassment. And we're certainly not helping our conference either. And when March rolls around, we'll likely get the same treatment if we need to rely on selection committees to grant us an at-large bid to a post season tournament. If OUs coach has been the one leading the charge to get our conference to schedule better, than I salute him. We can't just continue to win our 20+ games, against numerous weak opponents, and expect anything to change. And since we play in the MAC, our OOC schedule is our only opportunity to do anything about it, and we're simply not taking advantage of it.

bobbyake....I enjoyed every minute of it.Ohio A&M layed yet another egg, just as I predicted. We compete against them for students, athletes, etc., so, I continue you to say that every Suckeyes defeat is helpful to the Zips Nation.Beyond that, The "weak" 10 is getting it's due. It's being rated as nothing more than a step above a mid-major, and rightfully so. Especially when you play us, Can't, and YSU in your OOC. They deserve what they get.Not much you can say at this point, from the college that spends MORE on athletics than ANY other school in the country.I'll be enjoying this for awhile

I'll stay up long enough to see if I can catch the Suckeyes laying an egg again, just like I did during the Florida game last year, and the Illinois game this year. If not, I will go to bed. But I will STILL have the satisfaction of knowing that little ole AKRON, a 4-8 team from the MAC, played the best defensive game against them of anyone they played this year. As a matter of fact, I still have a picture of the scoreboard at halftime of our game against them this year, showing the 3-2 score. If I were a Suckeyes fan, I would have crawled under a rock.

Well, with a new stadium coming, I think it's safe to say that our U is dedicated to growing the football program. So, the idea of being a Xavier or Dayton, where we concentrate on basketball, is pretty much off the board.With that said, obviously our destiny lies in our ability to maybe dominate the MAC. If we do that and attract some higher attendance, we can get out, like Marshall. If not, we're in for the long haul.

Ha Ha....I see some things never change.I've said it all along. Bubba finds a way to lose you as many games as he wins for you. Whether it be an off shooting night, a couple of bad passes, or poor defense. I'd love to have him on my team if he is shooting hot from the field. If not, I'd rather see him on my bench.

sgm...although I feel that you are sometimes on another planet with some of your commentaries, this is pretty accurate.I'm getting up there in age, so I've been around this environment quite some time as a major supporter of the Zips. And although I have always hoped that we'd draw some revenue from women's games, I have also come to reality.Yes, the athleticism is a factor, and so is the "I want to see people doing things that I cannot do". But beyond that, people seek entertainment. And the crowds, and the athletes, and everything else attached to a men's game will just always bring forth a more superior brand of sports entertainment.

Players don't always go to a JUCO because they have academic problems, or other problems. Oftentimes it is because they just need further development to get a D-1 scholarship.

That's the coaches job to take the schedule one game at a time. As fans, we can look ahead as far as we want Thanks for mentioning those 6 games against West Division teams. Assuming that we can win the home games, here's the current rankings of the 3 teams that we will play on the road from that division.Central Michigan - 118Western Michigan - 139Ball State - 287It's not looking like any of these teams are world beaters at this point, but they are road games. Remember, our letdown last year @ Toledo cost us our NIT bid as the overall regular season champ of the MAC.

After last night's convincing win, which confirms that we will (hopefully) be in the hunt for the MAC East title after most people picked us to finish 4th, I thought it was a good time to get an updated look at where we stand against those other 3 teams.I choose to look at the Sagarin since it has been the one that has ranked us the most favorably.Here's how it looks after last night's results:Can't State # 50Miami(OH) # 60Akron # 68Ohio # 88We moved up about 8 spots. Miami slipped a bit after last night. Hopefully this gives us the confindence we'll need to beat them at their place. Ohio has fallen out of the picture a bit, and rightfully so, after their loss to BG. Can't State just keeps rolling along. I think that this makes our road to the MAC East title pretty clear. Just like last year, we'll probably have to beat at least one of these three teams on the road, just like we did @ Can't last year. If that happens, that last conference game against Can't State at home should be the game that wraps up the East title for us. It sure would be nice to get 2 East titles in a row. Especially since we are the underdog this year. Go Zips !!