zipsbandman

Obviously not Akron related but this says a lot about the conference we are stuck in. I can't help but shake my head on this one. Brady Hoke leaves Ball State for SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY. SDSU is terrible and has always been bad and plays in an empty nfl stadium every week yet BSU administration still fails to hold on to an alumnus after earning them unprecedented exposure. All he wanted was 400k and a raise for his assistants and the BSU administration pissed him off by being cheap. They thought they would save a whopping 50k and offer him 350k. SDU offered 700k but the cost of living in California makes it comparable to the 400k in Indiana. I feel bad for BSU fans. They have the season of a century and before they can blink it's back to mediocracy. It's pretty bad that the MAC is a stepping stone to every 1-A conference in the country. I sure hope an exodus from this conference is on Proenza's radar for the future. None of the schools in this conference seem to want to raise the bar.BSU message board (they're not happy):http://bsufans.com/modules.php?op=modload&...0&start=100

Can't's formula is better. They have the rings to prove it. There is no such thing as a rebuilding year over there btw. They just bring in more talent.

I can see where Elton is getting at here. We have the best coaching staff in this conference but it takes players to win too. The zips need to find a way to get over the hump and do something. I really think our athleticism has limited us from winning championships. It's how we lost to Dayton. We only have one scholarship to give and that goes to Zeke but when he is here, why not go for one or two talented JUCO's in classes after and really try to build a formidable team around him that can get to the NCAA tourney and win games? I like humpty but we need more players like him that can bring some offense and create something. Look at Ham n' cheese at Can't (probably the most talent in the conference last year). The guy plays two years there and helps them to another championship. We need a win now philosophy during Zeke's time here because a player of his caliber does not come around very often.

BS Biomedical Engineering '08Current UA master's student

Hahahaha after this is all said and done members of zipstnation will be experts at stadium building.

Ummmmm.....wow

ummmmmm.......driving to class today I saw picket signs along exchange by the stadium and workers standing there. Nobody is working on the press box or the blue stands which seems kind of odd. I'm thinking some sort of strike??

He better be gone with anything less than 7-5 next year.

Can you believe this? Second half, ten shots for Akron, one for Northwestern. One goal for NWU, none (yet) for UA. Twenty minutes + to go.This is why I can't watch soccer. It's such a crap shoot of a sport. And it's getting harder and harder to watch the zips these days.

I know exactly who that is She still teaches. She's good.

You will notice from my question -- I suspect -- that I have no experience in bio-medical engineering, but here goes. Is there any actual academic or experiential connection between BME and the "engineering" that is taught in university engineering departments? I thought this was connected completely to natural science, medicine and possibly genetics. Or are we talking about engineering of medical devices? Help me out. There must be others wondering this too. Thanks.The bme program emphasizes the design of medical devices (prosthetics, orthopedics, instrumentation and imaging). The philosophy is to train bme's to be engineers first at akron. Little if none is really covered in genetics. In fact, some bme graduates accept positions in other areas in industry (energy, automotive, controls applications).

Here is some good news. Northwestern is a joke of a BCS school. Ever see a football game there? Maybe half of the fans in the stands are Northwestern fans. The rest are the visiting team's. A handful of Rowdies can probably easily take over their place. If UA soccer fans in the Rowdies are that upset then go to the game and make sure we win. That's how you give it to the NCAA.

Honestly the MAC is a joke. It is a dead-end conference. National championship in any sport is a pipe dream. MAC = bush league..MAC schools = bush league. Any 1-A conference in the country is better than the MAC, but it really should not have come down to this. We can't even get a soccer field in playing condition so we have to go play at a local high school in the NCAA TOURNAMENT? Disgraceful... Sounds like the fields in Chicago are fine. I bet MSU's field was fine. This is soccer for crying out loud. You play it in anything. I'm not even a soccer fan and never attended any of the games but this whole fiasco is pretty disturbing, and it reminds me of the bowl snub and the NIT snub. Only at Akron we would lose home field.

Ummmm....winter has not treated us very kindly so far. Heck, it isn't even winter yet! Are they really going to finish this thing? You can't really pour any concrete in this. Progress looks good so far but there seems like a considerable amount of exterior work to do.

JD needs to go. Will he go? Can we afford to let him go? I don't think so. We're not in a good spot right now. Just about every MAC school will be looking for a coach and where do we fit in the picture? I don't want to trade a mediocre coach for another mediocre coach. Also, what are the financial implications? Can JD leave and find a job somewhere else and possibly we don't have to pay him? At the very least I hope our AD is looking at every possible scenario. I'm looking at that Indiana game and the first game that comes to mind is the Cincy game. The zips will play a beatable Indiana close in front of 30k fans and will commit just enough mistakes to lose it. How can you take the same coaches and same players and expect a different result?

KD said it in his press conference. We got to think bigger than the MAC. Screw the MAC. It's a joke conference that's taking us nowhere. We have a huge huge opportunity to grow our fan base and generate some buzz around this program, and we are blowing it. I'm looking at the excitement being generated by our soccer team and I'm amazed. We sent three buses of students down to Columbus to cheer AGAINST the Buckeyes. Thank goodness for our soccer team. And now I'm thinking, man what if our football team....? Look at what Caleb Porter, Keith Dambrot, Dennis Mitchell, and some other UA coaches are doing around here while the guy who gets paid more than all of them continues to field a team that can barely beat fellow MAC schools. This team makes fundamental mistakes. They have the consistency of a high school squad. We need to stop accepting mediocracy. If the next coach can't get it done you fire his butt too. This is a business. We need to sell tickets to remain a viable 1-A school and pay off a stadium.

It's sour grapes because his boy Swiech is not playing. It's not Dambrot's fault he's slow. So you're saying if Swiech was in there we would have handled the #6 team inside? I see you're done with grammar too.

I've seen enough, and I don't give a crap who wins the meaningless Temple game. I'm tired of getting let down. I'm tired of losing. Why the hell are we looking up at stinkin Buffalo in the standings? It's time to pull the plug.

BME grad here too! I wish CSU would keep it's nose out of Akron. They probably get drowned out by Case and want to get some footing somewhere. From my conversations with faculty, CSU is looked down upon. They wanted to know why in the world I would apply there for grad school. Of course it was for $$$, but Neoucom and summa need to keep it here in Akron. With our world class polymer program, well respected engineering program, and biomedical engineering department there is no reason to look to a school that has a very limited bioengineering program (they offer a phD program I believe and it's only in a couple of areas of the field). Look at the relationship between the cleveland clinic, university hospitals, and case.

With the rebounding, I think 6'8 andrew parrish is a big shot blocker and rebounder, and I also think he is being redshirted. With him and Zeke in the mix next year we should improve greatly in that area. This year...we don't have the guys, but against the much smaller MAC we should hold our own with Bardo and the McKnight brothers.

QuestionIf we go 5-7 do you let this coach open up the new stadium and hope JD gets a position as an assistant with an NFL team so you don't have to pay him? This is a mediocre / borderline bad football team, and we are worse than our record. If zip fans get to watch this same garbage again at the new stadium the novelty will quickly wear off and we go back to square one. This is the MAC. Get a coach that can win in this joke of a conference. What more is there to see? We are OU's second MAC victory with the other coming against Can't.

No surprises with the outcome. We are very undersized at guard. We still lack athleticism. Pitt has the best of all worlds. We just do not have the experience this year to compete for the win against a team of Pitt's caliber. Zeke will certainly be an upgrade in both categories and will definitely help us on the boards. But remember that one of the MAC contenders this season, Miami, completely folded against this team so it seems we can be capable of putting on a respectable showing in the MAC this year. Right now, I do not see any issues with our progress thus far.

I visited bobcatattack to see what they are thinking about the upcoming game, and wow they despise us. I knew they didn't like us but I really think they hate us more than their "rival" Miami. One fan called us "uppity" and I thought that was hilarious. So now they are openly admitting their inferiority complex? But why do they have one?? "The team up north"? So now we're their Michigan? We have been far from dominant in either football or hoops. It's not like we're the Yankees of the MAC. I don't care either way, but if anything, I think it's kind of funny and it sure makes things more interesting in conference play. Maybe it bugs them that we're not the community college doormat that they can beat up on anymore, and maybe they're worried that we'll start drawing more of their potential students. I don't know but I can't stand Ohio anyway so there's no love lost.

Hahaha I'd say Cincy is a stepping stone for sure. They can't even hold onto a coach. When you look at their stadium and their football history, they're really not that much higher than a MAC school other than their BCS label.

Heck, when I was a freshman in Blue and Gold Brass we WERE the student section at basketball games. How far we've come...