GP1

Sort of my point. Work in the fresh QB behind an experienced line and don't write off everyone. TB is making games close. To look at only the won/loss record ignores any improvement. We lost by six yesterday. Ianello would have lost by much more. I don't know who said better coaching would have won three games this year, but that is just crazy talk. Better talent....and a lot more talent, maybe.

Some are discussing benching starters. I'm all for it, but we can't do it in a way the leads to 30 point loses. It's one thing to try to sell a winning program, but it is even more difficult to sell a losing program that loses by 30 points per game down the stretch. I believe we need to work in the freshman QB behind an experienced line. Experience is good for an individual player. Cohesion is important for offensive linemen and that needs to be worked on in the off season. Working in Pohl behind a young line under siege isn't the best way to develop a young QB.

As do I. The biggest problem the team has is talent. We have to attract kids with the idea of playing quickly and thats not the ideal position. "Winners" want to play for a winning team. They also want to compete to be the best and for playing time. They want to compete in practice and in games. Competition makes the team better. Bringing in kids with the promise of getting on the field quickly is the easy way. Not a competitive mindset. Our task is hard and there is a disconnect between the kind of kid we need and the kind of kid who would be attracted to signing with Akron. Our problems aren't impossible to fix, but they are extremely difficult. It's shocking how completely wrecked this program is and I say that as a person who believes they are better than last year. Randy Travis once wrote a song called, "I'm going back to a better class of loser" and I think that's where we are right now. We are still losing, only in less spectacular ways

Get log on from someone who has cable service that carries 3.

I think Carl Albright was thrown under the bus and well deserved. When the next guy who takes over that company finishes cleaning out his incompetent buddies, they are going to have a difficult time finding a job overpaying them the way Carl did. Any of them with a customer facing position will be in big trouble when they hit the streets.

A down year? It's been a downward trending decade. All the Big Ten needs to do is add Rutgers and UCONN and it will be right up there with the SEC....Just ask any Big Ten fan.

Link Maybe a couple of weeks ago, we discussed pass rushers vs. run stoppers. I like run stoppers with athletic talent to disrupt the QB. I think and have posted this as far back as the JD days, most teams should play a type of 4-2-5 defense on most plays. Rushing really good QBs in 2012 with upwards of 5 guys when the offense is using 5 WRs can be suicide. The link above shows in two of the three cases a defense rushing only four and defending with seven. There are no passing lanes and the entire field is covered behind the line. Houston has the type of DLinemen we need to develop. They are great at stopping the run and can block passes at the line. Good pass defense starts with QB disruption. It doesn't always have to equal a sack. A ball batted at the line can be just as good, if not better, than a sack as it can lead to an INT. I hope as the Zips look at what kind of DLine they want in coming years. I hope this type of DLineman is exactly the type of player they are looking at. If we had more guys like him against Miami, we could have defended their QB better. It's 2012. Rush four and cover. Many will say it is "playing not to lose" or a "prevent defense" or whatever cliche they want to bring out of the 20th Century. It isn't. It's responding to the innovation in the game over the past 5-10 years. The innovation of the passing game must be countered with innovation at every level of the defense and this type of player playing for Houston is the future.

Actually, this wouldn't be a bad idea. Win or lose, every game would have a happy ending.

InfoCision works on a "break even guarantee" meaning they get all of the money up to the point the program is paid off. The non-profit doesn't make a dime until that point. Since they bill per completed call and not by caller hour, they make double the rate of every other telemarketing company. InfoCision is in the business of raising money for itself. My guess is the non profits would care if they actually knew how much InfoCision was making per hour compared to their other vendors. But then again, if they knew, the people who run the big non profits wouldn't get to have the the IC executives fly to their towns and take them out to extravagant meals on a regular basis.

Sounds like Z-P might have fallen in love Saturday.....or at least a man crush.

Good post. Chisholm, even if you take out his longest run, averaged over five yards a carry. In the second half, the Zips only ran roughly 1/3 of the plays they ran the entire game and kept the ball for roughly 10 minutes. My guess is the first two possessions of the second half for BG crushed the Zips defense. They scored one TD and one FG. They ran the ball 13 of 16 plays on those two scoring drives with some rather long runs. Those two drives alone lasted roughly 7:30. They completely exploited the lack of depth the Zips have. After BG scored their first TD, the Zips needed to respond with a balanced offense, but instead, they were flagged for five yards on their first play and had to go straight to the pass. The penalty forced a short series and put a tired defense back on the field. It snowballed out of control from there. Confidence and momentum my friends....confidence and momentum.

There is nothing wrong with dreaming in the first season of a new coach, or being positive for that matter. At this point, no loss should be stunning. We all knew what could happen this season based upon the talent level. Like you though, I was hoping it wouldn't happen. It isn't hard to stop an offense if only one RB is running well. Stop the plays they run with that guy and as Lee Adams mentioned, drop seven back in coverage. Makes me even more convinced that having a DLine with four very good run stoppers is better than one with a bunch of pass rusher or a mix of both. Stop the run with as few players as possible (4) and force the pass. With offenses running so many WRs out on patterns and given the rules of the game that don't allow a WR to be touched without a penalty, the logical defense is to out number the WRs with defenders with a combination zone/man defense. If a player hits the QB these days, he gets a head to head penalty, so blitzing opens the door for penalty yards and something I hate even more...big plays. Give the QB nothing to throw to. Turn the ship around? Given the ship was sinking last year, I'm just happy we are no longer taking on water and the ship is actually turning. Brings me to another point. When teams like UB and Akron win the league, it is during a period when the league is down or on a downward trend. The league is much better now than in recent past, but that never lasts. I expect a downturn in the league the next few years while we are on the rise. It will play in our favor.

If we had that many yards in the first half and only scored 10 points, it sounds like they were slowly figuring us out before half. Take 20 minutes to finalize how to shut down what little talent we have against a good defense and you only get 36 yards in the second half. 36 yards means you were badly out played and not so much out coached. I hope nobody takes this personally but when a fan says a team lost because they were out coached, it normally means they really don't know why the team lost in a bad way. Players win games. We don't have enough players yet.

My experience in managing managers is the bad ones overreact when something goes wrong and they start making erratic decisions that create more problems than solve the original problem. Expecting an offensive lineman to get plugged into the DLine mid season will do nothing to solve the problems this team has. This is D-1A football and not high school football. Talent isn't solved in the middle of the season. The talent issue is a huge problem and needs to be addressed off season. Bowden didn't have much time to bring in may players last recruiting season. Until the talent is better, the coaches have to coach what they have better and the players have to do a better job at executing the game plan.

Talent is everything. It should be no surprise they lose games in the second half when the other team figures out how to exploit the lack of talent. I see a staff that starts games with great game plans. Once the talent is fixed, we will see more second half success. Lastly, I don't knew who said it and I don't care. Better coaching wouldn't have given us four more wins with the talent we have.

I appreciate the young man's honesty. He is right on spot. Players at prominent BCS schools are there to play football. They major in majors that are a complete joke so they can meet their ncaa requirements. Major college athletics are in almost complete opposition to the mission of universities. They are about making money and expanding the "experience" (having a good time) of students. Universities are there to educate people and expand the understanding of the world we live in through science. I don't see how college athletics at the BCS level do that. With that said, screw the physics majors! Lets get some guys in here to get C's in Exercise Science and win some damn football games so Zips fans can have some fun tailgating and enjoying The Big Dialer. Have a great weekend everyone. Go Zips!

Better something like this happens now and not three months from now. Now the coaches know what they are facing and can adjust. Actually, better it never happens at all than now, but you know...

If it's kangaroo vs. volunteer, the volunteer wins because he has a gun.

There you go again....Faulting a guy for using his great defense to improve field position.

I'm going to come at this from a different angle. There are times an offense needs to outscore the other team and look no further than WVU. That can mean more touchdowns than fieldgoals, making key plays on third and fourth downs, etc. To me, the offense did everything it did Saturday to win except getting the ball with enough time on the clock to go on a scoring drive. TB rightly took the blame for that one. Other than that, 49 points is a lot of touchdowns and no FGs, which is an awesome use of scoring opportunities. However, they did not go on as many scoring drives (drives resulting in one score or another) as Miami did. Miami had nine scoring drives and Akron had seven. If Akron goes on one more scoring drive making one more TD, it is an OT game. All in all, Akron's offense did enough to win a normal game against a MAC school without an NFL prospect at QB...They fell short on Saturday. The number of TDs we scored should make everyone happy. We actually have a kicker who can make extra points. We have had explosive offenses in years past, and they always fell short on key third downs and fourth downs. These teams also had poor defenses. Frequently, pooping their pants or not pooping their pants was the difference between winning the MAC East and second place. We have a team now that scores a lot of TDs and gets key first downs. We were 45% on third down last week (1 for 1 on fourth down but the number is too small to really matter)...that is a good number....good enough to win a lot of games in the MAC. The elimination of pants pooping alone can result in a win or two this season. I can see the following equation winning a lot of games in the near future....near future meaning next year: Good offense + good coaching + improved defense + better players + unsoiled pants = WINS

If my memory is correct, IMG came to Akron right around the end of the Mike Thomas era...beginning of the Mack era. Not exactly sure when. I want to say Mike Thomas brought it to town because I knew a guy who was considering going to work with people he met at IMG while working for UofA. Can't use the Force to remember that far back as I get older. My guess is the success of the Fear the Roo campaign and winning the MAC/Motor City Bowl Game had a lot to do with each other. Back then, if we had a t-shirt that said, "We Beat Can't, Won The MAC and Are Going To A Bowl Game Bitches", half of the Akron crowd at Ford Field would have had one on that day. My guess is, half of that half would still be wearing the same shirt to various games today, but that is why they need to freshen up the campaign or better yet, challenge themselves to come up with a better campaign. The next time we win the MAC in any sport, we should print up t-shirts that say, "Take That Bitches" and then put the sport and date of the championship on the t-shirt. It couldn't be any worse than what we currently do.

I think the marketing department takes their guidance from IMG. Is the slogan a great slogan? At one time, when we stole the idea from Maryland, yes. Watch enough college football and you are going to see a lot of students at games sporting shirts that say "Fear the Whatever". Time to rebrand. If you want to know what the next one will look like, find a really creative marketing program out there in college athletics and within three years, everyone will be doing it. That's why marketing departments are ineffective and irrelevant....in addition to IMG making their decisions for them, because they were so ineffective and irrelevant. IMG dominates college marketing. Whatever they decide to do, we will do. Ben Sutton started IMG. You can read his attached bio. How much of an influence do they have and how much money does it make? Ben Sutton just donated a student recreation center to Wake Forest. Fear IMG, but Fear the Marketing Departments Actually Getting Their Power Back more.

It sure is. InfoCision should settle out of court asap and use their phone center to pray their customers stick with them.

Link Do you guys think Carl Albright wears small, or extra small handcuffs? We may find out here in the near future. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't InfoCision still owe money on the Big Dialer? If so, we have to hope they don't go under before they pay it off.

Never bet against the home dog. BGSU is averaging 12.5 points per game against D-1A teams this year. The Zips are averaging 31.75 points per game against D-1A teams in 2012. I think the Zips continue to score points and BGSU's offensive woes against D-1A teams continues. If the Zips can put up 26 points against Tennessee, they can score 35 against BG. I don't see BG keeping up. People shouldn't be looking at this as a "must win" as much as they should look at it as a "should win" game. Have some confidence guys. We should win this game.