GP1

They don't have it anymore. Destroyed it in a comedy show disguised as a team entering a game. Wonder if that entrance will make an athletic department employees resume.

Zips had a huge let down years ago after beating NC State and never recovered. One pick six before halftime crashed the season. CMU ead much better, but the Zips still could have won.

RI only has the ability to hold a job in D1 football if hired by an incompetent. Are there more incompetent people than CW and TW? There is probably a good chance he never works in major college again.

Good post. However, I would caution against using the word "established" to describe the Zips running. They had a great game on the ground yesterday, but haven't had much success other than that. We should start to call it established if this trend continues over the next 3 weeks.

Yesterday was an awesome day for a lot of reasons. I always thought Bowden was a year behind of where he wanted to be. Now, I think he is only a half of a year behind and we are going to see a lot of winning the remainder of the year. The first half of last year was brutal. We still had a developing program and were thrown against one of the most difficult series of games I can ever remember a Zips team having to play. They were overwhelmed, but got the second half of the season turned around. Now they are 6-3 in their last 9 with a chance of being 9-3 in their last 12.

Absolutely great comment zippy5. The most favorite player on every team is the back up QB. The back up QB is always the guy who would be better if just given the chance. Well, the back up QB got his chances in the spring season the year before and the fall camp and landed as the back up QB. This notion that we should fiddle fart around with the football starting line up for the first four games is just misguided thinking. We fiddle fart and fiddle fart around with our basketball "rotation" every year during the ooc schedule and it only gives us good results, but little remarkable. If the football team could line their OOC schedule with over 50% cupcakes, this strategy might work, but they don't have that luxury so they have to make decisions and stick with them. Between spring practice and fall camp, coaches have two months to evaluate players. Six passes against Pitt is not a fair evaluation for any QB. The few hundred they threw in spring and fall camps is a fair evaluation. Pohl wins the contest. The notion that if the Zips win 6-8 games this season and go to a bowl with a JR QB, and then will replace him before his senior season is just foolish. Can anyone out there name a single QB in recent history of the MAC who has taken his team to a winning season one year and then been beaten out for his starting position the following year? If the answer is less than 3, it should give everyone an indication as to who the starting QB will be next season. It probably hasn't happened three times in the past ten years in all of FBS. KP isn't just going to start next year, he will cement himself in many of the records at UofA. The ooc schedule in football is not a time for experimentation like it is in basketball. It's a time for winning. The Zips won yesterday. Sorry if that upsets some. Maybe it's a sign of how far we have come. I've never seen some on the board get so upset over a win. Maybe losing is the most comfortable position for NE Ohio sports fans.

Elton Einstein's Theory of Relativity allows for time travel, but only in to the past. Elton apparently has found a vehicle into the future and saw a win for the Zips next week because he has them at 3-2. I guess this is good news.?.?

Is this the point where we buy an add saying, "Western Pennsylvania's Division I Football Team".

Yesterday was a great game, but a word of caution is necessary. Things are never as good or as bad as they appear. Our running game may not have been as bad as it appeared and it probably isn't as good as it was yesterday. The most positive sign about our running game is it had a huge game yesterday against a defense that spends all of the time practicing against a team that tries to have a great running game and is committed to it. A very positive sign.

I was at the USC vs. Missouri game last night and it got me thinking about this topic. (BTW, John Anderson from Sports Center and his college buddies were tailgating in the spot next to mine as he is a Missouri grad. Great guy.) Where are all of the great back up QBs fans are always calling for? Half of the starters I see stink. Surely, Missouri has someone on their team better than Mauk and SC has someone on their team better than Thompson. Those guys were terrible last night in general. Mauk though found the ability to lead his team on a couple of scoring drives late in the game by hitting a couple of big play. (The game was the perfect example of Cowher's theory about confidence and momentum.) Isn't that what it is all about? So keep this in mind. With Pohl, Akron is now 6-3 in their last nine games with wins against against a bowl team (Toledo) and Pitt (BCS level). The next three games are winnable for the Zips and they could be 9-3 over a 12 game stretch, which is the length of a season. So, before you go reaching for your stat sheets and making assumptions about the mental state of people, the only stat that really matters is wins and the team has started to win around Pohl. Pohl is a good game manager and as long as the defense continues to play good and they can keep up with the running game the Zips should win the next three and be 9-3 over their last 12.

Fair enough. I just thought you were sounding like a Browns fan and channeling that energy.

Go Browns?!?!

Go Zips!

I guess you and Bowden had to figure out what I already knew. Some people are just smarter than others. Looking forward to Pohl leading the team to a bowl. Looking forward to watching the entire team in fact. Lots of good players.

I make some of the worst predictions on the board. Everything went right today.

You deserve what you get.

Like him or not, Pohl is the starter. Not sure what wasting plays with a back up does. Badly needed to get running game going. Great job Zips.

We weren't watching but look forward to continue to be the object of your obsession.

I'm glad I was wrong. At least i have the balls to make a prediction. Looking forward to the rest of the season. And a successful one at that.

What would you have done different? Personally, I wouldn't have 5' 6" players in the game who might need to fight to get out of bounds.

Pitt 34 Akron 10

He will be magically better when the MAC season starts. He will look bad today though.

They don't need to go down the classic Browns road this early in the season. Especially after a loss that was basically fumbled away. The team has talent at WR, but only in a couple of positions which is easy to stop. None of them are particularly physical so it makes it hard for them to catch balls in traffic. With that said, they aren't the primary problem. I'm not buying for a second we have a QB problem. Our problem is the lack of a meaningful running game. Get the running game straightened out, string series of complimenting plays together and the passing game will get better. A better running game will also make us better in the red zone, goal line and third down. And for the love of God, the RBs need to do a better job of holding on to the ball the rest of the season. I'm going to break some news to everyone. This Saturday, the Zips are going to go to Pitt and lay an egg. Pitt is a BCS level program going into their fourth game and has five weeks of the season under their belts. They are going to be pissed off to no end they lost to Iowa last week and are going to be looking to take it out of our asses. We don't have the horses to keep up with them and it's too late in the season to surprise anyone. The Zips now have three games under their belts and two of them are losses. The tape will reveal how to beat the Zips. I'm sure the old fan panic of replacing the QB will be the answer to all of the Zips problems. It isn't. It's a trap MAC schools can fall in to during the OOC schedule. A much less talented KP started out the season the same way last year and was injured most of the season. That same KP was able to play well enough for the Zips to win a lot of games the second half of last year. He has better players around him this year and is a better QB. My prediction is the offense will magically improve once we are no longer playing against teams more talented than us. I still predict a 6-7 win season this year.

The bubble screen has become the off tackle play for a lot of passing teams. I neither like it nor dislike it. The successful use of this play is essential for some types of offenses to be successful. I can see how it's successful use can lead to a successful running game by forcing defenders away from the "box" and open up lanes for running, especially if the offense has a great playmaker catching the bubble screen. It's just another type of body punch. There has been some discussion on this boars about the type of defenses teams employ. A couple of years ago, I said teams would move to a 4-2-5 base defense and that has become more popular since I said it. It may not be base for some, but they go to it a lot. There has always been a "nickle" defense, but it never served as a base defense. Here is a primer on TCUs. I'm not sure Gil Brant is correct. Teams have just as many players at the line, they have just replaced small LBs with large strong safeties that give them more flexibility against both the run and the pass. Teams can run more now not because of the focus on the pass, but in my opinion, the size of defenders is declining while the offensive linemen are still huge and getting morbidly bigger. A good, patient RB like L. Bell of the Steelers can wait for a line to move the defensive line some and then make his move. Therefore, running attacks can be more successful IF a team has a patient back. Not sure if the Zips have a back patient enough or good enough to wait for holes and exploit them when they open. I don't know if the NFL is a passing league or a running league. You can't have one without the other. I do know that big plays that lead to touchdowns make the difference in teams winning or losing. A regression analysis was once done on NFL stats by the Wall Street Journal over a long period and the most significant stat in determining the Super Bowl winner was Yards Per Attempted Pass. One can determine from that stat that passing is more important than running. If that makes it a passing league, then it is a passing league.