GP1

Those bowls are now called "The Also Rans". There is no more BCS. If by a couple of NIU/Boise seasons you mean 20 in a row, I would agree. The selection committee will NEVER allow a team from outside of the "power conferences" to make the playoffs.

I'd rather focus on the now. What does it mean today? Today, it will mean nothing because there is a committee in charge of who makes the playoffs. Thanks to NIU's performance two years ago, I doubt going undefeated will mean much today for a MAC-like conference school.

Good post g-mann17. It used to be that a transfer could only avoid sitting out if they went to DIII. My only caution would be using computer rankings to determine that one division or another is getting better. The same IAA teams that make the playoffs every year are probably attracting better transfers. The vast majority that don't, probably aren't. Another way to look at it is, a guy can transfer to a IAA school and if that school is good have a chance to play for a national championship in a playoff system. The guy who transfers to a MAC school has to sit out a year and then have a chance to play for a birth in the Motor City Bowl the day after Christmas. Driving to Detroit in December to watch UofA play isn't that appealing to me. Driving to Akron to watch the Zips play in a national playoff does appeal to me. This is another reason among many to get out of the same class designation as the BCS-like conferences and rewrite some of our own rules to make our level of football better. Better players = better entertainment. Screw the bowls. Start our own division with our own chance of winning some sort of national championship.

I thought I was the only person who found it unwatchable. Three hours is a bit much for a college football pre game show is a bit much. The only thing that was awesome about it was watching/listening to Desmond Howard rip apart the "redemption" story about Everett Golson (Redemption stories and kids with cancer stories are common stories thrown into ESPN programming when the programs are too long. I know kids get cancer. It's an awful thing and makes me sad. I don't want to see stories about it before college football games so I always turn them off). For those of you who don't know, Everett Golson is the ND QB who was kicked out of school. As part of his redemption story, we learned that he spent 15 weeks in San Diego practicing football (all the while, dramatic music is pumped into the story to make the hardship seem harder)....Not the Arctic Circle or even his home town of Myrtle Beach, but probably the most beautiful city in the US....San Freaking Diego. We should all be so lucky to get a punishment that results in us spending 15 weeks in San Diego playing football on the beach. Then he spent a few weeks freeloading off of his uncle in Chicago. Most kids have a more difficult time taking a year off and traveling Europe.

Won't ttake either lightly, but I expect us to win .

There is nothing special about Toledo or Buffalo. In fact, Buffalo is terrible. Our toughest remaining games are OU and BG. OU is difficult to beat there and I'd like to reserve judgement on them until after their game today against Marshall. We beat Toledo at our place last year, we can beat BG at our place this year. Absolutely CK, we can win the MAC East. Need a better running game to complement a good passing game and things can really go our way.

It would go a lot quicker if we would just fire him.

Does anyone know the difference between his current salary and what he was making at UofA?

I agree. The field is well kept. It is a beautiful field. Nothing brown should land on the field.

As long as you don't use the pitch forks on the field bobby, you should be OK.

A decision to bring the Browns to Akron would require high level involvement on the part of the powers that be at UofA, meaning the President and those ranking officers most close to him including the bumbling boob who runs our Athletic Department who could screw up a two car funeral procession. There are only so many balls one can juggle in the air at once. We have a new President who has accepted a job at a University swimming in red ink. This would be a distraction from the important issues facing the University like the millions of dollars in red ink they are now swimming in and providing a top notch education for the students. I know it's hard for sports fans to understand, but they have bigger fish to fry than whether or not the Browns practice at UofA. The soccer field is safe.

Are you saying soccer fans can stop pitching a fit about their field?

Wofford was a dump before the Panthers. Now it is a dump with three grass fields with NFL goal posts. Let's focus on education for a while.

They could just tie it in to the ongoing "building process".

A curve ball is a nice pitch to throw when you are talking about a soccer field.

There isn't even a place for the Browns to change their clothes. The soccer field is safe. Crisis averted.

I used to think that the ACC was the worst of the two when compared to the Big Ten. It's still a bad league, but not compared to the Big Ten. Wake is the worst team of all and I thank God for sending a thunder storm Winston-Salem's way Saturday night to give me a reason to leave the game after the first quarter ($700 down the drain on those season tickets and parking passes). A 3:00 lunch at Mozelle's and some tailgating were the only things worth going for. Anyhow, other than Wake's loss to ULM, there are no embarrassing results. NC State struggled but won against GA Southern and Old Dominion. UNC struggled and won against SDSU.

The NCAA doesn't move that quickly. My guess is the quality of the league has something to do with it, but that was apparent before last weekend. The decision was probably made long ago, but they didn't want to announce it before the season started when news is slow. After the second or third weekend was probably a good calculation on their part. The got lucky with this Ray Rice issue taking up almost all of the "sports" discussion right now. They didn't want the announcement to be front page news and they got their wish.

I think you are right. In fact, long term it can eat away at a program. 20+ win seasons look great on recruits' marketing pieces. The attraction of winners is the most important thing a program can do. With that said, DiG is correct in that one game like that a year wouldn't be overly detrimental to the program and might add a little flavor to recruitment. Some names that come to mind are WVU, Cincy, Michigan, Georgetown, Marquette, Maryland, Boston College....why not some ACC schools...Wake, NC State, UVA, GA Tech, Miami (always a nice trip in December), etc. The one thing I hope is this is the last year for Penn State because there is nothing attractive about that game.

Next year always looks like it could be "history making" until it isn't. It's why we always feel so good on opening day of baseball. A few key injuries can make a "history making" season a catastrophic disaster in a few seconds. It happened to OU last year. That's why winning now is most important. We can't get too far ahead of ourselves. First things first. Beat Marshall. Win the MAC this year. Then win a bowl game. Worry about next year, next year. It's interesting that Marshall is coming in this week. I think when they were in the MAC, they had the perfect philosophy...Win Championships! All they wanted to do was win the MAC and then win their bowl. Great philosophy. The big OOC wins will happen over time because you win Championships. Winning championships attracts winners to your program. The more winners you get, the better chance of winning all of your games you have. A culture of winning was developed and they won. It was very simple, the more you win, the more you can win if you are smart about it.

Completely agree. It is a short sighted way of looking at college athletics and happens far too often at the non BCS level. In fact, it is the kind of thinking that leads high school coaches to start ninth graders at QB thinking in four years they will have some sort of great team. In addition to winning now, we should be thinking about setting this program up to win for the next 30 years. We should be talking about the vision for the program over at least the next ten years. Vision is partly the "building process". That part is over. It is mostly a question of what the University wants the football program culture to be like over the next ten years that will lead to success long term. Bowden is a God send for this program because he is changing the culture of the program, but he is no spring chicken. If we are successful, what will the next coach be like if Bowden is hugely successful. We don't want to do what Vandy did after Franklin which is hire someone without experience and with different philosophies. Now the program is in free fall. The leadership of the University should be thinking at that point about protecting the school against any present or future Athletic Director who wants to put "his guy" in place at the expense of proven success.

Yes. You said it better than I did. The running game shouldn't be designed to make one player better. It should be an integrated part of the offense and make the entire offense better.

These are difficult questions to answer. Some teams say they want to have a commitment to the running game. So far, I don't see that. At least I didn't see it in the part of the game I saw Saturday. I don't see the running game and our passing game fully integrated to complement each other. I'm not looking for the running game complement the passing game or to make Pohl better. I'm looking for the entire offense to work in a manner that everyone on the offense can be successful. I'd like to see the offense in better sync. Do I think some of this is on the OLine? Yes, but if you don't commit to the running game, you can't fully develop the offensive line. A good running game is important in the midwest because of late season weather. If the Zips are in the running for a divisional championship, they will have to do the work now to have a good running game later. Our offensive line isn't great right now, but there is some talent to work with and they need to get better by testing them in game action.

I agree JZ84.