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Miami has already beaten Bowling Green, Can't on the road, and has Akron at home. I'd say that's a pretty good position to be in right now. A win at Buffalo would definitely keep is right in the race though.

Oh gosh. I think this is getting really out of hand.I understand the frustration. We lost a game we should not have lost, and it sucks. For the record, Faust was a pretty old guy when he took the job at Akron. He had already been a head coach for 30+ years, and wanted to spend the latter part of his coaching career near his family and friends, from what I remember reading at the time.I have never heard Faust, or anyone who knows Faust, ever even mention that he was using a stop in Akron to get himself back into a higher level of coaching. He was merely finishing his career. Phootss...you are right. He still lives in Akron, and does speaking engagements in his retirement.

As fans, we have a right to demand excellence on the field. But, lets look at this clearly before we take on the typical Cleveland Browns fan mentality.This program has seen renewed hope under Brookhart. If you want to see mediocrity, look at the previous 9-year regime. In those years, we were trained to think that a 4-win season showed "promise". We've made progress since those days, and already have some things to show for it. Plus, a .500 record in your 4th year of rebuilding a program is not that bad. Sure, this is a critical year in the fact that Brookhart needs to show that he's moving in the right direction. We've played a tough schedule up to this point, and we are 2-1 in MAC play with a chance to compete for the title in what I thought would clearly be only a "rebuilding" year. I'm going to choose to cheer this team on, hope for the best, and see how the rest of the season pans out.

This is a valid point.If CJ11 was the guy that "made less mistakes", he gave Temple a chance to get back in the game tonight. So, why not go with the guy with more talent?

Temple actually showed that they could move the ball the entire game not jusdt the last quarter. Defense got tired. JD could not come up with answers to get 1st downs in the 4th.

And, We get to play Buffalo after two weeks rest, and BG is not nearly as good as we thought they were. Thinks change weekly in the MAC. I'm as stunned as anyone right now, but its still early.

timmy. I don't know man. This is a tough one.We were a play here, or a play there, away from blowing this game open. We didn't, and now we're looking to point fingers.Our defense is getting worn out.Our offensive production is flat at times.Our play calling can certainly be questioned.We need a big recovery at this point.

ok...1) It's only one loss, and Temple will win other conference games.2) BG, who I thought WAS the best team in the MAC, got drilled by Miami.3) The MAC East is still up for grabs. We win at Buffalo, we're right back in it.4) We lost to Temple, who still has Big East level talent (sorta)5) We lost to Army at home 20-0 during our MAC title season.6) We have a tired defense that REALLY needs this rest going to Buffalo. Ok..on the negative side, I'm questioning JD. And I've been refusing to go down that road.I'm just as much in shock as I was last week, but in a totally opposite way.

I've been going to the bowl since the early 80's, and I can never remember stall doors being on the stalls in the end zone bathroom. I'm not sure about the others.One thing I will miss about the Rubber Bowl??The lower grass tailgating lot is so ideal. Lots of room, comfortable, and you can put tent stakes in the ground. Lets enjoy that while we have it for the last few games at the Bowl. We'll miss some of that when we start tailgating in paved lots.

So, let me see if I got this right....Martin will be forfeiting a chance to see how well his team can compete against Ohio State? Even after he has already blown his chance to win the MAC East by taking two early losses within his own division?What is he saving his team for? They'd need to pretty much go unbeaten at this point to even have a remote chance. And even at that, they need to finish a game ahead of Akron and Miami to win the East because on the head-to-head tiebreakers.I don't get it. Martin...give your kids something to play for this year.

I made a couple of posts on the other thread, but get this....The "false start" play clearly shows that a WMU DL moves before the the snap of the ball, forcing the Akron OL to stand up early.If any penalty would have been called on this play, WMU would have been called for Offsides for forcing the Akron OL to stand up early.

Not sure why anyone thinks that CJ11 is NOT going to start this game.I want to see Akron win this one by at least 2 touchdowns, and send a statement to our MAC East opponents.

If anyone is interested, look on You Tube for the play where they said that we committed a false start. If you look closely enough, you see one of their defensive lineman on that side start to move early, which forces the Akron Offensive Lineman to stand up.So, if there would have been any penalty called on that play, it would have been offsides on the defense for forcing the Akron OL to move. Game over.

Lee Adams...your scenario gives us 8 wins, which will DEFINITELY get us into a bowl game.But, you are also assuming that we'll win two road games from here on out, AND win our season finale at home against Central Michigan, probably the best team in either division of the MAC.This is very wishful thinking. I'm going to stick with being happy if we can just get to 6 or 7 wins.

Hard for a WR to get that honor. But it would be nice.

I've been thinking about this all week.....How important would it be, both in the standings, and in the confidence of our team, if we can get out to a 4-0 start??Temple this week at home...and Buffalo after a week off. Seems to play in our favor.This would pretty much leave Can't, OU, Buffalo, and Temple in the dust, and make it a 3-team race. That would be a great start, and would go a long way towards putting us into a position to win the league, and if not, at least make us close to being bowl-eligible.

I'm actually surprised that the "pundits" are predicting a lopsided Akron win. I'll take any win in the East this year, and be glad. If it's a blowout, then that's a bonus.

1) I'm not sure at this point that anyone can say that ANY QB we have on our roster has amounted to a good replacement for Luke Getsy. It's WAY too premature to even speculate on that. 2) Sure, Jabari's performance this year seems like a good replacement for Harvey's production. But, wouldn't we rather have them both?3) Running game. Better than last year. And deeper.4) I was dissappointed with our OL last year, especially towards the end of the year, when Luke was running for his life and we couldn't run either. I can only HOPE that this unit develops into a better line.5) Kiki and Jermaine certainly gave us a better defensive line than we have now. Hands down.6) This current LB group should be better. It's basically the same guys with one more year of experience. 7) DB's?? Same as #6. But Mackey's loss hurts.8) PLEASANTLY SURPRISED with the better special teams play.

TOTAL TOTAL BULL !!!!What about all of the other calls that were missed during the course of the game??? On BOTH sides. I'm sure there were plenty, if you want to analyze every damn play.We've gotten screwed ever since we entered this conference. Probably because we were viewed as the "outsider". Is anyone else old enough to remember how, for whatever reason (I hope someone remembers the details), we had to travel to WMU for several years in a row back in the mid-90's?How about our fumble recovery on the onside kick last year at OU, where an Akron player CLEARLY came out of the pile with the ball in his hands, yet they didn't reverse the call. I don't recall anyone from Akron making a major issue out of that. In this case, it seems as if WMU wants to complain, and doesn't want to do it themselves because of possible punishment, so they start a feeding frenzy among their local media, who surely loves the opportunity to turn it into a big deal. A possible false start??? Come on !!! We should challenge WMU's staff to look at the ENTIRE GAME and find all of the missed calls. They'll find plenty. For BOTH sides.Does everyone hate losing to us that much???Take your loss, and move on. I can almost assure you, if we had lost that game, you would not have heard about missed calls by officials.

Our biggest problem defensively the last couple of weeks has been missed tackles, not where someone was lined up, or what defensive formation we were in. I'm calling this the "John Mackey Effect" because our ability to tackle seemed to disappear once he was no longer in the lineup. Speaking of the WMU game specifically, our DBs were in good coverage on a lot of those long pass plays. Their QB was hot, and their WRs made some great plays.

Thanks G-mann. There's still 11 guys on the field, no matter what way you look at it. Whether you have 3 DLs and 2 LBs blitzing, or you have 5 DLs, or you have 4 DLs and 1 LB blitzing, it really doesn't matter. If you aren't getting pressure on the QB, you likely just do not have good pass rushers. It doesn't matter much what title they hold on the field. Remember, on many plays, Brion Stokes is either lined up where a DE would line up, or comes in from his linebacker spot. So, we essentially have at least 4 guys heading towards our opponents backfield on just about every play anyway.

Dr. Z.....nice picture. I've been e-mailing that to my OSU friends.I'm not defending what JD says about DLs, and I am not meaning this to be an insult to the DLs we have, because we have some good linemen. But, I know quite a few people in the coaching profession that acknowledge that this is the case. For some reason, big and fast defensive linemen at the high school level are not very plentiful. The big schools know this, and they battle fiercly over the ones that are top notch. Could it be that good athletes just don't want to play DL in high school? Maybe so. And this could be why schools like Akron go after guys like Jason Taylor and Almondo Sewell, who were good high school linebackers that were able to be converted into DLs.

This does present a dilemma for us...If the MAC is weak, then our chances of winning the league increase.However, in the long term, our conference strength will hurt our program down the road.Tough call.

Look at it this way....To become bowl eligible, we need to do the following...1) Win the remaining home games. Temple? Shouldn't be a problem (I hope). OU? Defending MAC East Champs who do not appear to be playing defense anything like they did last year. Central Michigan? Hmm. Looking pretty good after last week. This one will be tough.2) MUST win AT Buffalo, and sneak out a road win against either Miami or Bowling Green, IF we do not end the season with a home win against Central Michigan.I'm thinking, we could very well be 6-5 going into that Central Michigan game, and HAVE to win in order to get a bowl bid. This is definitely going to be a "one week at at a time" season. We'll see how it goes.

It's not the defensive scheme that is the problem. We simply do not have any premier pass rushers. The closest thing we have to that is Brion Stokes, who certainly is not your prototype DE/LB, but gets the job done.The truth is, its very difficult for mid-majors to recruit top-notch defensive linemen.