GP1

Weren't the zips winning 10-0 at one point?

From where I sit, the game is still being played.

Need to play with better poise on offensive end.

Fox Detroit analyst just made a point I agree with. 34 should be getting more minutes.

As sharp as the zips were the first ten minutes of the game, Detroit is that sharp now. Need to get momentum back. Three should help.

Direct tv 663

Good summary page. What I am always shocked by is the number of names that just move from place to place and fail. How does Skip Holtz keep getting coaching jobs? The best part of that guy ran down his dad's leg and somehow he keeps getting hired. Then again, he had some good years at ECU so maybe LA Tech is a good fit for him since it is CUSA.

Makes me happy I don't watch ESPN in the afternoon. This guy thinks he needs to get to the bottom of something. Of what? I read a statistic once that over 50% of people in Mississippi are against inter racial dating/marriage. 50% is such a large number that a large number of people of all races in that state are against it. Maybe Rob Parker needs to find a home and Jackson and live in the pre-modern world with everyone there. Seems like he may really like it. What I like about George's post is he doesn't shy away from this type of thinking. Racists and the likes of Parker should not be placed somewhere where people can't see them or hear them. They should be put in public view and ridiculed for the fools they are. Well done George.

I heard rumors earlier this year about Wake leaving the ACC. I don't know how much of that is true or not. Lots of fans talked about it at games. I don't see how those two schools can compete in football in the future. What the other ACC schools have going for them is they are public institutions and can play games with public money in order to build stadiums, etc. Duke and Wake are private schools. Duke has a religious affiliation to Methodists and Quakers. Wake is a Baptist school....not exactly a fit for the all Catholic league. Wake recently spent millions in renovations to their off campus stadium and it is still inadequate compared to what the bigger schools can build with public/private money. Duke is a lost cause...their stadium is a hole in the ground with a concrete "U" shaped stadium poured in to it...remember the Rubber Bowl? I was listening to Coach K talk about the ACC not long ago and he said he was "worried" about the league. My guess is he is worried about Duke and their future. He built that program and is nearing retirement. Duke will fall apart like UCONN is going to fall apart after JC. They are going to be mighty happy they only have that little basketball arena to fill and didn't spend tens of millions on a "building process" for a 20,000 seat arena because there will be a lot of lost interest in their program. Duke, Wake and UCONN are in big trouble. I think Cincy is in much less trouble than these schools; CUSA would take them back in a second.

Lew Perkins I'm sure ZW remembers this guy. He put the wheels in motion to bankrupt UCONN with sports programs and nobody had the guts to stop him. Remember guys, the ADs are the problem in college athletics right now. In the early 90s, UCONN was in the Yankee Conference for football and it was a great league to go watch. RI, UMASS, Maine, Boston U, Richmond, Villanova, UCONN and NH made up much of the league. The games were competitive and UCONN had a great little I-AA stadium right behind their basketball arena. I don't know how they would do it, but they need to find a league like that again. Lew Perkins shouldn't have been given awards for his time as AD, he should have been taken away in handcuffs. Speaking of handcuffs, he had to resign from Kansas because five of his hand picked guys were stealing money from the University. Rumors were always around UCONN that Perkins was on the take from various contractors associated with the new stadium in Hartford. Lots of money leads to lots of corruption. In our lives, maybe in the next ten years, we will start to see athletic directors arrested for corruption. It's only a matter of time. If anyone thinks the off season stories of players taking money are something, wait till these stories get going.

You are correct in that they are on a different plane. The problem is they are on a downward trajectory. In my opinion, uconn is primed to become umass with a better football program. uconn has had one great year in football. Other than that, they have gone to some pretty bad bowls. Before Jim Calhoun, uconn was a doormat. I predict after Calhoun, they will return to being a doormat. The glory days of uconn basketball may be in the rear view mirror. The reason everyone is not looking at uconn is because they know these things already. uconn will become a CUSA team unless the Big Ten feels the need to include another doormat in the Leaders or Legends Division (whichever OSU plays in). UCONN has HUGE problems right now. I lived in Connecticut my first year out of school and really enjoyed UCONN sports. This makes me sad what is happening to them.

After the display Cincy put on in the Sugar Bowl a few years ago, they should keep quiet.

Long term, I think you are correct. However, I used the word "meaningful" changes in my post. UC, UCONN, UCF and USF are not meaningful changes to any conference. I'm not interested in five super conferences. I'm interested in four. In fact, I'm interested in a division of about 65 teams functioning outside of the NCAA. The way things are going, I don't see it as a crazy notion. A lot of what is driving this is television revenue. Big Ten Network, ACC Network, SEC Network, Pac Whatever Network, etc. Scrap all of those rinky dink networks and bid out the division to the highest bidder. There is a mountain of money out there for this super division to make if they could just get their act together. Business Week measured the amount of money the NFL brings in with NBC, ESPN, CBS and Direct TV at $6 Billion. It is currently estimated the Big Ten members will make $40 million per year with BTN. 65 teams at $6 billion is $92.3 million per school. How much then to show college basketball, etc. in addition to the $92.3 million? Don't think for a second, I'm the first person to run a calculator on those numbers. Don't think for a second either that university presidents and athletic directors have any shame or would stop this money train from backing up to their bank accounts.

Or, no value in football vs some value in football. There is an opportunity here for some schools in the A-10 partnering with these BE Catholic schools to have their own league for basketball, and a solid league at that. I'm not going to name all of them, but there are some current A-10 members that are Catholic schools without football. Maybe something could happen between them. This would leave Nova and Georgetown with interesting decisions. What to do about football? Nova has had good I-AA teams in recent years. Would that Catholic league be a good fit for them or would it allow them to just play basketball and play football in another league? Nova and Georgetown would have some interesting decisions to make. For the non-football schools, it is a no brainer and I think they could find a way to easily work this out. The changes to the "big" conferences have seemed to settle out. I'm not sure if there are any more meaningful changes to be made to them. What about the "mid major" conferences with D-1 basketball and I-AA football. Could be some interesting changes at that level.

A dirty city or a dirty girl....You can have a lot of fun with both. Keep it dirty Akron!

They didn't, but they should have. At one time, the BE had Miami, BC, VA Tech, Pitt, Syracuse, Rutgers and WVU in it. It was a very good football conference and grossly underrated. Up until WVU left, it was a better conference than the ACC. Was it part of the old guard SEC, Big Ten, Pac Whatever? No, but it was just as good as at least one of those conferences.

It's funny. I was thinking about this very issue the other night watching Nova vs. St. Joe's (great game buy the way). Anyhow, Nova and G'town stand a chance, but they shouldn't look to other Catholic schools as the saving grace (no pun intended). Nova and G'town have I-AA football programs. They should find their way to some sort of Missouri Valley Conference that has quality I-AA football and quality basketball. They aren't going to find anything as good as the BE is right now for basketball and they need to find the best place possible to land. Then again, the Big Ten did add Rutgers and Maryland so I guess if the addition of crap is good for a conference, then maybe they will add G'Town and Nova. Right or wrong, Seton Hall, Providence and St. Johns are doomed to the trash heap of basketball history and should save themselves the time by going straight to DIII like the great women's program of Immaculata did years ago. I don't see how those schools compete in the future climate.

Do I have to buy a vowel for the clue below as well? If so, I'd like to buy an "a" then solve. _SS B_G

This is a great idea. BC, Harvard, BU and Northeastern play the Beanpot Hockey Tournament every year in Boston. It is a great tournament. Play the games in Cleveland at the Cavs arena. Play it between Christmas and New Years. As often as possible, play the games on the weekend during that period. Require the teams to play a third place game as well. Have a named traveling trophy. Fight off the idiots who believe it would be a better tournament if it was a 16 team championship including Case Western and Mt. Union. I don't understand why we need an ESPN manufactured event to do something eventful. This is so easy. Another tournament is the CIAA played in Charlotte, late February. Although this is a Conference it draws huge crowds and is a boom for the city. ESPN has nothing to do with it yet somehow, they are able to pack hotels, restaurants and get good crowds at the games. Down with ESPN! Down with the NCAA!

Call me crazy, but my guess is if there was no ESPN, college basketball teams would find a way to play each other. Too much of what goes on in college athletics is a brand name by ESPN: Bracket Buster, Rivalry Week, etc. I have an idea. How about if these conferences get together and put together a format where they can play each other mid season? The could call it "Crossover Weekend" and find a way to use the money in a beneficial way like the ACC/Big Ten Challenge benefits the V Foundation and cancer research (one of the few altruistic things ESPN does...maybe the only one). Do something that is so good in nature, ESPN has to cover it. In fact, I think this the Bracket Buster going away is a whole lot of nothing and if played properly by the conferences, could be one of the best things that could happened to them.

Why not be a member of various conferences depending on our ability? For example, we should be in the MAC for football. However, our basketball team is good enough to play in a better conference like the A10. We should be exploring these opportunities.

To you and all the +1ers, I can only say....There isn't going to be a Big East you fools. That's the whole point. For years, we had to read about joining a conference we had no business in. Recently, there have still been posters who believe it would be a good idea. Please let this be the end of the Akron joining the BE discussion. It isn't going to happen because the BE is about to call Dr. Kevorkian. The league has been on life support for a couple of years now and was not an attractive candidate for an AD with half a brain.

Agree. Further, I'm surprised the number is that high...although, some might say they are surprised the number is that low. It's kind of in the glass half full area without it being at 50%.

I wonder how these will adjust for coaches salaries. My guess is the change wouldn't have much of an impact.

Are you sure?