GP1

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.

It depends on how they are being asked to administer the game. Going back to another post I made.... Refs are charged by their leagues to administer the head to head rule in a way that sometimes does not include actually seeing the penalty take place. When refs are asked to throw flags to change the culture of the game because of what they might have seen, it cuts to the integrity of the game. Safety will increase and integrity will decrease. Basically, it is this. If you aren't sure whether or not you saw holding, don't call it. If you aren't sure whether or not you saw head to head contact, throw a flag because we have to get control of the game. There is a huge difference in the two. There is no guarantee that with the current administration guidelines of the h2h rule, a replay would overturn it. What they are doing is going to work long term. It will change the game. In a few years, there will be many fewer head to head hits. Coaches will find better ways to coach players in this aspect of the game and the players will get better as well. Between now and then though, we are going to have to watch a lot of crap. Zips fans saw a big pile of crap last Saturday.

I guess the question then becomes, How? The spread presents a lot of 5 WR sets. Defenses now use a combination of two man zone and man-to-man to defend. A team could blitz, but a QB like Miami's would easily pick apart a blitz after seeing it once or twice. Zone blitz? Everyone does it now so QBs aren't shocked when they see it. It's hard to find DLinemen who are both good at run stopping and pass rushing. When one materializes, he is playing at the BCS level. The old saying has always been, "Stop a good pass rusher by running at him." Most college players are only really good at one thing (look at how many offensive linemen are almost completely unable to run block). The guys who get good at multiple skills play on Sundays. I really like the idea of having a good run stopping DLine (I posted when JD was coach about the future advantage of a 4-2-5 defense given the changes in football). It helps make the offense one dimensional. Once you get them to one dimensional, then you can maximize what remains. Would I like to have both? Of course, but I don't see how that works. The game has become about QBs, coaches and WRs. Teams can try to disrupt the QB, but the coaches will find a way to take advantage of the disruption. If teams take away the WRs, the way to counter that is running the ball. Have a good run stopping line to clean up after taking the WRs out of the game. Everything comes full circle. Force teams to pass too much. Take away the pass and big plays with a good secondary. Force them into something you do well. The Zips made Miami be a one dimensional team by holding their offense to 11% of their total being production from running backs and only 26% of their offense coming from running in general. Against most MAC teams, this will work. Against a team with an NFL prospect at QB, it doesn't. It sort of reminds me of the movie Moneyball. At one point, Brad Pitt makes some trades and says to the team something like, "You may not look like a winner right now, but you are." I think that's were the Zips are. The philosophy is there to win. I'm all in with this team right now. I believe the philosophy is there and that's where it starts. Now it is a matter of getting players who can execute on the philosophy. Without the players, the philosophy does't work. TB needs to get himself some players.

I sort of agree and I sort of don't. The Zips only gave up roughly 75 yards rushing to the running backs on Saturday in a game that had 705 totals yards for Miami (11% of total). Miami's total rushing was 185, which is only 26% of the total. While 185 yards seems shocking at first blush, it is nothing in relation to the overall yards. I don't think we have a rushing defense problem so I don't know how much better we could do in that manner. QBs on good teams get rid of the ball so quickly these days it is hard to get a sack unless the coverage is outstanding. I guess if I had to decide on an either/or decision, I'd take good run stopping DLineman athletic enough to jump up and block passes, or at least congest the passing lanes some. These spread offenses are about rhythm as much as anything. Disrupt the rhythm...disrupt the offense and try to take advantage of mistakes. It appears to me all roads lead to improvements in the secondary as the #1 priority. In 2012, it seems as if you have to concede giving up a lot of yards will happen against good teams. The question then is ability of the guys in the secondary to limit damage after a reception by reducing the yards after catch. I'd like to see some solid tackling coverage guys myself. After rereading my post above, I would like to channel my inner Dave in Green here, so I'll say the following. Things never appear as they seem. Sometimes they are as bad as they seem. Sometimes they are not as bad as they seem. There are no right answers. There are no wrong answers. Sometimes puppies have accidents on the living room floor. Go Zips!

It's the beauty of the spread offense. Even though we lost, we still put up 49 points, so there must have been some confusion on Miami's end as well. Miami and Akron are perfect examples of how a well executed spread offense can change a team for the better. The ability of a QB to get yards running has always been something I watch and enjoy with the spread offense. I'm not interested in watching the QB run a lot, but when the opportunity presents itself, I'd like the Zips to be able to take advantage of it. Our QB rushed for zero yards Saturday. Miami's QB rushed for 100+ yards. The running QB is the "X Factor" in this offense and the teams that really do it well have that. That's the only criticism I can push TB's way with this offense. It could be the difference between just making a bowl and winning the MAC in years to come. It may not seem like it now, but Akron is better. We have an improved offense and kicking game. Over half of our problems are solved. The defense can be fixed enough to win six games next year with improvements this off season.

It's interesting and timely that you bring this up. Lou Holtz, when he can be understood, makes some really good points on ESPN. He made a point about team over thinking defending the spread offense. Particularly, the three wide sets we see. It isn't just resulting in completions, but it is resulting in a huge amount of yards gained after the catch. Holtz believes teams are over thinking these plays at the start of the play and coverage assignments are being botched at alarming rates because of the complications. The botched coverage is resulting in poor tackling and the poor tackling is resulting in 50+ point games on a regular basis.

@skip-zip Is it a problem or a "step back"? I see it as a problem that will continue through the year. You are right about our problem to tackle and cover. The question is, why? The answer is simple...talent...and you sort of mention it in your post above. I've been saying it for months. Talent is still a huge problem with this team. I heard a former NFL player say again yesterday, "Coaches don't win games, players win games." An inability to tackle is one of the major ways a lack of talent reveals itself in a football team. It takes a lot more than just being close to a ball carrier to bring the guy down. The defender has to be fast enough to get his head in the proper position, get his arms around the ball carrier strongly enough to control the other person, use his hips to explode through the ball carrier and move his feet to drive the ball carrier back. It sounds like a lot and it is. In D-1A football, it isn't enough to get close and grab at the guy. They are grown men out there. I just don't buy into the notion the Zips took a "step back" on Saturday. 49 points against a fellow MAC team is a huge step forward. Being in a position to win against a MAC team with a pulse is a huge step forward. Coaches who are able to take a group of players who are lacking in talent compared to the other team and compete well is a huge step forward. The Zips have nothing to hang their heads about.