GP1

For now, I know all I need to know. The guy will be on scout team next year and there are 50 other guys who will have a chance to play in 2014. I'm highly interested to see how he does where it matters, on the field and in a real game. We Zips fans have watched a lot of highly recruited guys or transfers not pan out. We've all taken a lot of shaving cream pies to the face. Some of you are still washing off the Ryan Bain (I think his name was) mess. Caution is in order. Again, I'm not down on the guy. In fact, I would put my opinion about him in the "Cautiously Optimistic" category. As you like to say Dave, there isn't enough data one way or another to have a definitive opinion of him with absolute certainty. What I do know raises more questions than provides answers.

Me too. I'm feeling strangely confident about the Zips performance in this game. Sort of the same feeling I had about the NC State game years ago now.

Yikes! Hilltopper breaks out some Faustian Logic to support some sort of case he is making on a thread about something else.

Exercising caution about a back up Big Ten player is the intelligent discussion. Everything else is an unknown because of his back up role on a bad defense doesn't provide much to evaluate. I'll get excited when there is something to get excited about on the field, which has always been my reaction to recruiting.

Fine then. You're forcing me to sound negative about the guy and I was trying to avoid that. He was a back up player on defense that gave up 34 to Cal, 30 to Northwestern, 35 to Illinois, 41 to Michigan, 34 to Michigan State and 40 to Clemson. If you are backing up a player on this terrible defense, then there MAY not be much there. Basically, tosu is a flashy Big Ten team with little substance, especially when playing outside of the Big Ten. If he was backing up an All American at a school in a better conference, then I would be more impressed. We should all be skeptical of Big Ten back up players. I'll be impressed with him when he impresses me with his play over a long season of starting in actual games against college football teams. The rest of you can be impressed with the press clippings and whatever star rating he had coming out of high school.

What's the difference? He was a back up player. I'm glad he is a Zip, but I've watched enough big name transfers turn into nothing to last me a lifetime. I think my caution about his is well founded.

Seems like a good pick up. Much needed depth on the defensive front line. He was kicked off the team for breaking team rules. That could be serious or not. If tosu wanted him gone, they could have reached into the encyclopedia sized rule book players now have to follow and found a reason to get rid of him hoping to make room for another player down the road. I know we will never know, but this is one of the things I would like to know. "Rule breaking" is one of those reasons mentioned in order to possibly cover up a lot of other reasons. Maybe he was turning into a career bench warmer at tosu. Sort of one of those 4-5 star recruits that never turn into much like so many do. A career bench warmer/special teams player at a BCS school probably isn't going to make a huge impact, but will make some impact and stands a good shot at starting and being a good MAC player. I would make him earn it though. Guys build up a big enough sense of entitlement in Columbus. Akron doesn't need to feed that monster. I'd also like to know what his development issues were that kept him from seeing much of the field. It could be as simple as the guy in front of him being much better, to a lack of desire to get better. If the guy in front of him as better, then fine. If he was holding himself back with lack of effort, that probably isn't going to change at Akron. Did he have injuries at tosu? How soon we forget, my friends, the number of players we have seen transfer to Akron from a BCS school that never pan out. Exercise caution in this case. It's a long time between today and the fall of 2015. Good luck Jamal! Become the player everyone once thought you were going to be.

I think you are correct. The Zips need to increase their stature while maintaining 20 win seasons. Scheduling could be one of those ways. Another would be winning an NCAA Tournament game. On the surface, we they well over 20 games so even if they go 1-2 in these games, they should still have 20 win seasons. If they do this, there are some things I wouldn't do. First, schedule three difficult games in a row because the risk of confidence and momentum loss could be too great. Second, schedule big names and not good programs...I'd love to see the Zips play a school like UNCC because it would be quality basketball and a school some would associate with having good basketball teams while not always having good teams. 2-3 games a year may not seem like a big risk, but it would be. These games could produce a lot of up side or a lot of down side and must be entered into carefully. It is the most risky of options for improving stature it would seem to me. However, the down side of the risk is mitigated because the MAC is such a poor conference, they could move forward with this strategy, stumble early with the strategy, make changes to it along the way and still be one of the best teams in the league. If the hit on the upside, look out!

What's wrong with a camera phone?

I guess my question would be...Is he getting a scholarship? If not, there is no harm in bringing him here. The scout team needs players too. Actually, to say there is no harm may not be true either. Nobody will be around 24 hours a day to babysit this guy and he has shown an ability to get in trouble. There is some level of risk here for others around him getting in trouble. If he is getting a scholarship, it is a risk. The guy got kicked out of one school for criminal activity and transfered out of AU shortly after being named starting QB to bet on the come at Akron. Something doesn't smell right with this guy.

I just can't drink 20 Edmund Fitzgeral beers on a South Carolina afternoon on the lake. I drink to get drunk. Coors Light does it for me.

Keith Olbermann gets it.

I don't disagree. I want winning to be his primary motivation. Again, I don't care if we have new uniforms or not as long as we win. My complaints stem mostly from my not believing these uniforms bring any substance to college football and are primarily silly.

Because they want to be part of an upcoming MAC program with a great coach and a chance to win week in and week out. In addition, the winning will give them an opportunity to win the league championship with the added benefit of an opportunity to win a bowl game. As you can see from the structure of my sentence above, winning leads to more winning. More winning attracts the type of players who want to win more than they want to look good in their uniform. I want the players who want to win. Many of you can have the guys who want to look good in a uniform....I'd like to take my team up against yours every week.

I'm not complaining about the uniforms. I don't care what they wear as long as they win. My beef is with the misguided mentality at the administrative level across the country that makes this nonsense a reality.

My wife got her MBA at UofA. She had a required marketing class and the professor always said the reason there were so many foreigners at UofA was because it was one of the first schools in the list of American universities. He was kidding of course, but every good joke has some truth to it.

Good post ME87! I like the link Hilltopper up. Went equipment manager from Arizona was asked about the NFL banning the alternative helmet, he said that sanity was prevailing. Why copy what everyone else is doing? Hard to keep your resume up to date if you can't copy at least what everyone else has done. Why can't it be unique? Being unique means not doing what everyone else is doing. Alternative uniforms are an effort, for all the wrong reasons, to keep up with the Jones. That's the complete opposite of being unique. Believe me, if anyone appreciates doing the opposite, it is me. We aren't doing the opposite here. I totally agree that what matters most is what matters on the field. I've never been able to connect the dots between alternative uniforms being a huge benefit in attracting players who want to win. I believe a school should attract players who want to win first and foremost. Somehow I think I have missed the Alabama alternative uniform, yet somehow they continue to attract kids who want to win AND they win. Attracting kids who want to wear alternative uniforms is much different than attracting kids who want to win. I want a kid who wants to play great in his uniform and really doesn't care what he looks like while he is playing. It's all about priorities. I don't know how long in the future it is going to be, but one day society will look back at the state of college athletics we are living in and between the "building process", alternative uniforms, lawsuits and all of the other stuff that doesn't really benefit anyone other than people who work in college athletics they will think our society had gone completely insane. They might in fact be correct. It's all a complete obscenity.

What if you like both craft AND macro and the only reason you don't drink more craft beer is because you drink to get drunk and you can't drink 15 craft beers on a late Saturday afternoon through the evening? Can't I like both Coors Light (CL) and Old Mecklenberg Brewery (OMB) Copper, but like CL the most because it give me more of what I really enjoy? Beer and sports go well together and it is good for this discussion. Can't someone like NFL, MLS and MLB? Let's use me for example because I'm so interesting. I'd watch an NFL game between the two worst teams in the NFL because I love the league. I'll never turn down a Coors Light. Basically, I feel the same way about D-1A football. I like MLB and will watch MLS if the entertainment value is good, but I won't watch a game between two bad teams, just like I won't drink a bad craft beer and by bad I mean anything you feel you have to chew when you take a drink. My current options for sports entertainment today are: 1. Good vs. Good MLB 2. Good vs. Bad MLB 3. Bad vs. Bad MLV 4. Good vs. Good soccer 5. Good vs. Bad soccer 5. Bad vs. Bad soccer 6. Wild Card, which is good non sports entertainment I pick 1 and 4 and I can win coming and going unless there is something about 6 I really want. For me, this is a choice between Dortmunder Gold and OMB Copper. I can't lose, but it isn't really what I want. It is also all they have at the party and on some level I enjoy it. Most of the World Cup is not being played at night like baseball is so I could watch both. Tonight, there will be better programming on than Dr. Phil reruns so I might actually choose between sports and non-sports entertainment. I like baseball, but there is a Zac Brown cover band tonight playing at Alive After Five at the Epicenter in downtown Charlotte so my wife and I will go to that. I can watch baseball on more than 170 days a year so if I miss a day, it is no big deal. In a world of greater options, someone is going to lose market share. This is a compliment for FIFA. If they were looking to expand ratings in the US, they did a great job of it by having afternoon games right after school let out when a lot of people take vacation. Great marketing strategy and even haters should take their hats off to that. They made it available to a wide audience who was somewhat receptive to the game and looking for something good on TV. The challenge will be for them to move the mark from 1% of Americans claiming soccer to be their favorite sport to a higher number. More good soccer is going to do that, not video games. The problem in the US is we are so bad at soccer compared to other places, the entertainment falls off when we have to play against ourselves when there are more than 20 players to select from. This question isn't about soccer vs NFL, MLB, NBA, etc. It is about what happens when people have more options and want better quality entertainment than what they are given when the options are limited. The current soccer option is providing an outlet for those who don't have very good options. World Cup presents the best teams in the world, for the most part. As such, a game against two good teams is going to be more entertaining than two bad teams, or one bad team and one good team. The first words in ESPN is Entertainment. It comes first for a reason. The entertainment comes before the sports. The World Cup is entertaining because the quality is good so people watch the sport.

I'll just say that some of our boys do not have accents from North America. I don't think I've been negative at all about soccer. I totally understand the flopping and it is done in every sport. Hockey actually has rules against it. Laying around for a long time after not getting a call seems a little over the top to me, and yes, unmanly. Part of the drama of sports is watching someone fight through real pain, not act like they have been shot by a cannon at close range when they were barely touched or worse yet, flopping. Other than that, in the post you responded to, I mention all of the things soccer fans should really care about. For those who like it, it is now accessible and giving those who enjoy it a fun time. It makes me happy that there are people having fun doing something. You should enjoy this time and stop searching the internet for anything that reaffirms you opinion that soccer is becoming more popular. I love hockey and have never felt the need to look up the ratings of the sport. Enjoy something for what it is, not what you want it to be.

Sometimes fans can't see the forest through the trees. What makes you think it isn't a success right now? If it isn't a success right now, what would make it a success? Hockey and soccer are very successful sports in the US. If you are looking for them to the the favorite sports in the US and somehow tie that to TV ratings, video game sales and all of the other happy horse crap some use as evidence of popularity, you are dreaming. If you want it to be accessible, entertaining and enjoyable for marginal and enthusiastic fans, the sport is extremely successful right now. Look, right now, the USMNT has some of the best European soccer players we can slap a US label on and put on the field. If that isn't good enough for some Americans, I say tough poop. Enjoy it for what it is.

I do it in style...

That was one of the reasons among others I mentioned. What most Americans really want to watch is American football. Between it being the national sport now and gambling degenerates, it gets huge ratings in the US and NFL/NCAA football is claimed to be the most popular sport in the US by at least 45% in a survey by a well respected firm (see The Fact above). It's too bad Americans only have the ability to watch college football in the fall. There is a huge audience for it and a chance for some schools out there to make a lot of money.

I wasn't just talking about one demographic. Not sure people are trading one sport for another in terms of viewership. For example, the Stanley Cup Finals were not played on the same nights as the NBA Finals. Maybe with more sports networks, people are watching more sports and less of non sports programming. Maybe people are foregoing NASCAR for Hee Haw reruns.

ESPN, NBC Sports, Fox Sports, CBS Sports, ESPNU, ESPN 2 and many other stations in need of programming in the spring would probably benefit from soccer being played in the spring. They would benefit a heck of a lot more from MAClike conferences playing real football in the spring.Going back to my facts above. Around 45% of Americans claim either nfl or NCAA football to be their favorite sport. 1% of Americans claim soccer to be their favorite sport. I'd go as far as to say if ABC televised World Cup and NBC televised MAClike conferences at the asme time, NBC would win the ratings. MAClike conferences may not do much right, but they could at least out rate a marginally popular sport. Lastly, as a former owner of the Atari Track and Field game, please be careful of siting game sales as evidence of growing popularity in a sport.

Like most soccer fans, you become hysterical with any criticism. Please retread my post. I'm not talking about actual injuries.