GP1

As long as we are talking history, this brings to mind one of my all time favorite Zips. In 2004, the Zips struggled at the beginning of the year. They started the season with a running back who ran soft and turned the ball over too much. This player was benched for a little known running back out of Florida, B. Biggs and the offense turned itself around quickly. The team finished 6-6 that season. The following season, the Zips won the MAC with this player playing a key role in the success. I don't think the Zips need wholesale changes. Hell, they probably don't have the players on the bench to make meaningful wholesale changes. However, the RB situation is an area that can quickly spark a team.

Article Maybe not the start he wanted, but still in a good place...still in a better place than he was. Reading the article above, it shows that college football has leveled out and teams that are good remain good, teams that are bad remain bad and teams that are average remain average. Long term, Purdue is a solid Big Ten program and Can't is a MAC bottom feeder. He needed to get out of Can't before they revert to being bottom feeder again. Coaches don't leave MAC schools for premier programs. They leave for average programs and if things play out right for them in 2-3 years, but they make the big leap. Between those points, they maximize their earnings potential in an effort to really break the bank.

The Zips need to do a better job on first and second downs. From my quick calculations, the Zips had seven third down plays in the first half last night. In those seven plays, the Zips were in a situation of 6 yards or less for the first down twice. Very difficult to make first downs at those distances and build some confidence and momentum. Plenty of opportunities for improvement for the Zips.

Not a single word about the fact that everyone who bought a ticket for the game tomorrow has had their money stolen from them. People having to spend their hard earned money on crap is the real crime.

ESPN 3 It was better than I expected.

I'm not going to complain about playing ucf or when we play them. They are one game out of cusa so it is a program a mac school should be able to compete against. If you want to get somewhere, you first have to know where you are. We learned a lot last night. It is incredibly difficult for any team to go to a city in FL and play in August. If Columbia, SC is "The Screen Door to Hell", Florida is Hell. Those people live in such heat and humidity during the summer that anyone with any money flees to the North Carolina mountains for a few months to get away from it. Truly a horrible place...with the exception of Miami Beach and Key West. One stat that sticks out to me is turnovers. The Zips were -2 in turnovers (Zips 2, UCF 0). I know this isn't the nfl, but I would bet the numbers are similar...In the NFL, if a team is -2 in turnovers, there is an approximately 20% chance that team will win the game. Momentum and Confidence...If a team creates turnovers, they have a lot of it. Without turnovers, a team spins it's wheels. Compound that with being deficient in the talent column, and a blowout happens. If Vegas knew it was going to happen, we should have as well. The bottom line for me is this. The Zips have much more talent than last year. I think once they get back in their element, things will change for the better. Go Zips!

You should diagram some plays and send them to the offensive coordinator.

Look no further than last year to see how a MAC team can go from a terrible start (sort of) to a GREAT year. I don't think we will have a great year, but this team has 4-5 wins in them. NIU won the MAC last year after losing to a horrible Iowa 18-17 in their opener. I believe the UCF team the Zips played tonight would beat Iowa under the same conditions handily. NIU almost lost to Army, but won 41-40...Army is a horrible football program. NIU beat a horrible Kansas team 30-23 last year. UCF would have beaten any of those teams. Tonight was bad, but no reason to give up the ship.

I'm more concerned about how long it will take them to gel. 1-2-3-9-10 games? Who knows? The bottom line is this. UCF has access to better talent and they play in a much better conference than the MAC. Also, UCF has an excellent coach who won a GA Tech which is a difficult place to win. Therefore, they have a much better team across the board. It shouldn't be unexpected we took/are taking this type of a beat down. The talent will become more equal in the MAC. The team needs to come together quickly though or it could snowball out of control.

The bad news is there is a big talent disparity between UofA and UCF. The good news is, UofA looks a lot like the rest of the MAC teams playing tonight. UofA can win some games in the MAC. I'll say it again....Football is a lot about confidence and momentum. The Zips let UCF score right away and all confidence was removed. The offense doesn't move the ball and there was no confidence. I don't believe the team is going to be this bad all year, but they sure did start off on the wrong foot tonight. My biggest complaint is we have zero points. It's 2013 for crying out loud. The rules are set up for teams to score by accident and we can't even get a field goal yet?

George, Are you willing to go on record, right now, and say that if any renovations are made to the bathrooms, each stall will have a door? Zips Nation wants to know. Go Zips!

Go Zips!

I can never find the right words when I see an article like this, so I'll just stick with "Congratulations".

I wonder if the prosecution will feel the need to establish Hernandez has a history of this type of behavior, which would prove he could in fact have committed this crime he is obviously guilty of because he is the worst criminal in the world and subpoena Meyer.?.? If so, it will be interesting to see what comes out. Everything becomes very, very, very real when real lawyers get involved.

I took in this article today as well DrZ. It's a great read. A little bit too much blame on people other than Aaron Hernandez for Aaron Hernandez's problems, but a good article in general.

I agree. However, in order for them to get fans, they need to make it worth the fans time and win some games. Some have touched on the Rubber Bowl issue. The Big Dialer wasn't built because the school wanted a new stadium. It was built because the RB was in jeopardy of being condemned. Had it been condemned, the outcome would have been worse than the hiring of Ianello.

You are doing a good job of cutting through the crap zestycoyote. Bad ideas are bad ideas regardless of where they come from. Don't let Dave, and the rest of the lifelong institutional defenders, dissuade you from expressing good points. Also, don't let Dave talk down to you the way he just did. From what I know of him, he spent his life hiding in corporate America. I spent a long time in corporate America and I know a survivor when I hear or read one. They say a lot, but of little value and know less. Some of my best friends are corporate survivors. One can't swing a dead cat in a corporate office without hitting a survivor. Anyhow...This really isn't about him only having a Masters Degree to me. The crap some are trying to shovel down our throats is somehow a guy with extremely limited experience in university administration is qualified to run our University and the mountain of responsibility that goes along with it. There is almost no history showing a football coach has the ability to run a major university. There is also little measurable evidence the candidate in question is performing his job either well or poorly. Tressel may in fact be doing his job very well. Even if he is, I fail to see a wide range of experiences that would lead me to think he would be qualified to be President. When the next President is hired, folks should have the feeling that the person is well qualified for the position upon hearing their background. We shouldn't have the feeling the person will need some time to adjust to the new responsibilities. If Tressel never adjusted to the position, it would be a monumental task to get those who thought it was a good idea to hire him to admit they were wrong and change course. There is far more downside to hiring Tressel than upside. I find it hard to believe the Board of Trustees is so full of incompetents that they would promote Tressel.

Article Bashes ADs, the belief in a savior for a program and the "building process". A pretty good article if you ask me.

I have a Masters Degree from UofA and that gives me zero qualifications to teach a class at UofA even tough I was a section leader while in graduate school. You are right about him being qualified to be an AD. If TW is qualified to be an AD, then he is as well....and so is Huck Finn. There is no difference between being a research university and a top quality teaching institution. One can't happen without the other and are both equally important.

Good points. Let's create a hypothetical situration to see what Tressel's past behavior would say about his future behavior. Here is what we know. Tressel was involved in an incident at tosu where he was contacted by a lawyer about his players involvement with a guy who owned a business that was also a being investigated by the FBI for selling drugs. What did he do about it?....Nothing meaningful. He passed it off as "protecting" his players. Everyone outside of Ohio believes that to be a load of crap and find the guy to be laughable. However, citizens of Ohio buy it hook, line and sinker. Let's say Tressel is president of UofA and, hypothetically, he discovers an athlete-student is involved in selling drugs. Does his past behavior suggest he would be more prone to: A. Try to protect the kid and do nothing hoping to cover it up so the kids team can continue to win? or B. Take direct action to discover the truth and remove the player from the team and University? The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, so if you picked "A", you would be correct. I hope everyone has heard the saying, "Getting grin fu*%ed". Living in the south allows me very good insight into when this is happening. I think the insiders at UofA who think hiring Tressel is a good idea are getting a professional grinning if you know what I mean....

The discussion is already a national embarrassment and everyone outside of Ohio knows it. The news of this has gotten out and everyone I know from outside of Ohio who has heard of it thinks it is an absolute joke. Why? Because it is. The guy is an f-ing football coach for crying out loud and he has no experience in running a major university. But GP1, the employees at UofA don't like academics. Who give a crap? A university is a place for academics. It's where they go to work for crying out loud. If people don't like working around academics, they should find employment somewhere other than a university or learn to stop crying like a bunch of bitches. "A good experience for the students."? From all I can tell, this means building large playgrounds for students to play and watch sports. I'd like the good experience to be one where the students exceeded what they thought was their intellectual capacity prior to entering UofA and then going on to do something great. If Tressel gets the job and is horrible at it, what then? How long would it take to clean the mess up? How bad would it have to get before the Board of Trustees would have the guts to dismiss him? Not long ago, UofA hired a guy in a high profile position without the experience to hold down the job he had and it turned into a disaster. That person was Rob Ianello. Tressel would be able to hold on a lot longer than Ianello and do far more damage to UofA than Ianello ever could have if Ianello held the job for 10 years. UofA doesn't even have the common sense to fire the AD who hired Ianello. Can anyone name me a major university who has hired a former college football coach to be president and then took that school to greatness? (deafening silence for a good reason)..... The only college coach I know of ever to be a university president was Harry Byrd. Byrd was coach of the Maryland football team in 1911 (he also coached the baseball team later) and was president between 1936 and 1954. He built up the university in an era when the government was throwing money at public projects left an right because of the Depression. Lastly, I hope everyone starts to lay off the comments about people from "inside the University" think he is doing a great job. These insiders are the ones who have given our beloved University a $25 million debt and a decline in enrollment after telling us the University would blossom after the glutenous "building process". Sounds like we need more change to the "insiders" other than just the President. These clowns on the inside are just trying to put a good spin on a horrible idea.

Didn't we have a discussion not long ago about Akron keeping negativity out of the spotlight? Maybe they can bring Faust in as a guest lecturer.

I took the liberty of inserting some words in bold and caps above.

Article The "building process" is #1 on the list of culprits driving this crisis. No surprise here... An out of control government spending bubble causes an financial crisis. Go figure.

I'm going on record and giving a firm prediction. The Zips will win between 1 and 11 games this year. Take it to the bank.