GP1

I respectfully disagree by 1/2. Winning is both a marketing tool and the goal of sporting competitions. Any winning program can use the fact that they win in their ads. I would. You can do lots of things with winning. You can sell shirts with how may conference championships you have won, bowl game appearances, etc. People wear these items around town and remind everyone who isn't participating they should and those who do, why they do. You can have ads with the team holding a championship trophy. You can have ads with your team playing in a bowl game. I could go on all day. You can't do much with losing. Winning also drives season ticket sales as fans want to get their tickets early so they get a good seat so you can say in an ad, "Get good seats while they last." Nobody wants to watch a winning team from the 20 yard line if they can get better seats by buying early. Minor league baseball comes to mind. I saw a study once of ticket sales in minor league baseball. The vast majority of tickets sold for minor league baseball are season tickets. I'm sure that holds true for Akron football as well. If a team is waiting until the middle of the year to sell tickets, they won't succeed. If you have a losing season, nobody wants season tickets. If you have a winning season, fans want season tickets. Winning is also a factor in recruiting. Recruiting is a form of advertising. Teams that win tend to get players that help them continue to win if they play their cards right. Winning is a good product. I like to sell good products. Losing year after year after year is a crappy product. Tough to sell.

The losing is the real problem. If they start winning, players stay, better players come to school, coaching looks better and the reporting picks up. In a general sense, I'm excited for football season, but I love college football and it bleeds into my opinions of UofA/olutlook for the season. I'm going to hold back until the Temple game. I'll have a better sense then. If we get destroyed or look bad at home, my interest will fall off greatly. Until then, I'll remain positive.

I like they have Coach I giving these interviews. Maybe doing some interviews with the team capts. would add some flavor to these videos. The same guy doing the video each day makes it a little tedious.

Not everything is about you and what happens to you. I realize there are good and bad employees with every group. I also know that every job site I go to the Mexicans are working their asses off, and they are good at what they do. They do the work that Americans won't even apply for a job to do. If we have a group of people in this country who have come here and are working hard, why would we want to deny their children a college education if they can get into college? Many of those children are Americans because they were born here...are we going to deny American citizens a college education because of their parents? I'm the racist? These kids see their parents working hard every day. That's how a work ethic starts. In a few years, the children of these illegals will be working circles around the groups of Americans who have been here for a long time. Blaming a "different" group was popular in Germany at one time too. Remember the Nazis and their obsession with Jews? All the Jews in Germany were doing was out-working the non-Jews and they became successful during difficult economic times in Germany, so the Germans got upset and blamed them for their problems. Sound similar to the "wet-backs"?

If you are trying to be funny, this isn't funny. I assume you are talking about Mexicans. I work in the construction industry. If it wasn't for the Mexicans, nothing would get done. There are basically three type of people working on a job site: whites, blacks and Mexicans. Let's say there is a reroofing project on a home. This is how it goes down with these three groups and then you will understand why Mexicans are on every job site. I was told this by a guy who is president of a roofing company in Charleston so everyone knows where it is coming from. The white guy shows up hungover, turns his boom box up as loud as it will go and uses profanity every other word. At the end of the day, he asks for an advance on his pay so he can go get drunk again. The white guy is bad for business because the housewife who had to listen to the boom box and profanity all day tells the owner and all of her neighbors about what happened. The black guy drinks like the white guy only instead of the boom box and profanity, he spends half of his day arguing with his boss about everything under the sun as if a job site is a civil rights debate. He's bad for business too because he only does half a days work and gets paid for a full day. The Mexican guy shows up for work on time, keeps his mouth shut and does his job well as hard and as fast as he can until the job is done. No boom box, he might be using profanity, but nobody would understand it because they don't speak English and they don't talk to each other because they are too busy working. At the end of the day, he goes home to his wife and kid and shows up for work on time again the next morning without a hangover. Accepts he gets paid on a certain day and doesn't ask for advances. We are lucky to have Mexicans here. The immigrant groups in this country know more about what the American dream is than the groups who have been here a long time. We have become a lazy and entitled society. If you are worried about people sucking up resources, you should worry about the legions of white Baby Boomers who have not saved a dime for retirement and will be asking the government to suport them as they get old. They will become a huge voting block and will get everything they ask for like they have their entire spoiled and entitled lives. The Boomers could not, nor would they do what the Mexicans do.

I do drink red, white and blue. The Labatt Blue packaging has a blue background, white lettering and a red maple leaf. Canadian ehhhh? I like Canada. Some of the things they do there make it almost like another country.

Anyone watch any nfl last night? Notice the number of touchbacks since they kick from the 35 now? It's what the nfl wants. Less excitement and less injuries. No thanks. This is how we are going to be "entertained" by the drama of the nfl this season.... 30 yard fieldgoal followed by a commercial followed by a touchback followed by a commercial followed by guys actually playing the game. No thanks. Want to make the nfl more exciting? 1. Eliminate the extra point and make a TD worth seven points. 95%+ extra points are successful. There is no excitement. Allow a team to try for an extra point by running a non-kicking play from the 3. 2. Make the goal posts half as wide. More than 50% of 50 yard+ fieldgoals were successful last season. It isn't impressive to make one now so make it more difficult. Make coaches make hard decisions instead of easy decisions. It's more exciting to watch a team go for it on fourth down than watching a fieldgoal. 3. No fair catches. Create a halo around the returner like they do on the cfl (5 yard) and require returns. 4. 20 seconds between plays after the ball is set. I don't need to watch Peyton Manning point at every player on the defense and call out what position they play for 35 seconds. After watching that act a couple of hundred times a season, it gets tiresome. 5. Only one non-injury substitution per play. Player replaced for injury may not return for 8 clock minutes after the injury. Let's get rid of the third down backs, etc and get guys who can play every down. The nfl needs to get back to guys playing the game in lieu of trying to create drama where it doesn't exist. Look, here comes another touchback.

Mediocrity? You're being too kind.

That's a terrible article. Firing Tressel is not getting hammered. Nobody knows if Tressel can win without cheating because he has never done it before. Everyone worried when Cowher left the Steelers that they couldn't get as good of a coach and they got a better coach. The same can happen at tosu. Lack of reputation? In the ncaa? What goes on in college athletics is some of the most disreputable behavior in the country. Fans don't care about their favorite school's reputation. They want to win at all costs, espeically at the bcs level. They'll probably get off light. I'll say it again, USC got hammered because they basically told ncaa investigators to stick it up their butts when they showed up. What osu has done is demonstrated how to use the rules to your advantage. tosu smartly followed the ncaa rules as they relate to lack of control and demonstrated to the rest of the ncaa how to cheat and basically not get hurt. The ncaa wants to make sure individuals and not institutions get punished when things go bad. The institutions run the ncaa, not the coaches and players so it is better to punish coaches and players than those who pay your salary. osu punished the guys involved and fired their coach. The school won't be punished bacause when the poop hit the fan, they properly filled out all of the ncaa's forms. $800K is a huge amount for Akron. That same amount of money can be made by osu coming out with a new t-shirt for fans to buy. Having to give up wins, conference championships, bowl wins, etc. is meaningless because the money was already collected through ticket sales and merchandizing, etc. I doubt almost all Sugar Bowl clothing that could be sold has been sold. The same goes for any merchandizing from 2010. Hell, this could open up an opportunity to sell additional merchandizing this season and easily make up the fines if they play their cards right.

We are a "right now" culture, but there is a bigger picture with the mac that doesn't play into that. The mas has been around since 1946. It can't seem to get it right. The goal should be to have the best mac we can possible have with the expectation being it will never catch up, because history shows it isn't capable of catching up to the bcs conferences. We are in the mac. That's where we belong until we are forced elsewhere, or the mac's member schools wake up and take control of their future.

Let's ask our resident numbers man. Dave in Green, what say you?

Excellent post. Akron is not a good place to build a retail fan base, but the surrounding area is. The Aeros do a good job of drawing fans to baseball games from all around Akron, so it can be done. They need to try harder. If the mac/UofA want to be taken seriously, they need to draw fans to the games. Selling corporate suites is very important, but when America turns on ESPN and there are 5,000 people, it is laughable and recruits aren't going to take it seriously. Lastly, the Big East. I lived in Connecticut for a year after college and I went to a lot of Big East basketball games. We would get absolutely destroyed in the Big East. Within five years, it wouldn't be worth having a program. Look at schools like Providence and that's what we would be like.

Article The hearing is a required event by the committee who hands down punishment. No act of desperation. Tressel must attend if he ever wants to coach again in college.

I do drink red, white and blue. The Labatt Blue packaging has a blue background, white lettering and a red maple leaf.

Win the mac and no ncaa tournament win. I also have an expectation this team comes out of the gate in a good way. Lots of early season wins.

Are you kidding me? This guy has stolen enough money in his coaching career that he probably never has to work again. Honestly, I didn't even know he was still the coach. I just figured they would have fired him long ago.

This is a good move for MT and for Illinois. Opportunism is rampant in college athletics and MT has always showed good timing. He had access to the right football coach at the right time at Cincy and the program/Athletic Department did really well. The future isn't as bright for Cincy football now so it's time to get out. Six years is enough at a school anyhow. It isn't a knock, it's just the way things are in college athletics. Illinois has underachieved in football in recent years. It's one of those schools that can do better and maybe they see MT as the guy to do that. I think he'll make an impact there sooner rather than later.

If we do get a call.......the president of the Big East misdialed his phone.

I do more thinking when I'm drinking. I think Rodin's The Thinker has a beer in his hand. Was GP1 a model for this? Not muscular enough.

I do more thinking when I'm drinking.

The Big 12s days are numbered. Those schools are going to break up and go to other conferences and the Big 12 will go away.

Typical. You keep the booze for yourself and share nothing with the rest of us but words. This must be how GP1 maintains His greatness. Actually, I maintain my greatness through a regular diet of Labatt Blue and hot dogs.

Link to blog that links. I don't remember a time in my life when John Steigerwald was not involved in the Pittsburgh media. Always a good read and interesting, in your face opinions (Hint...that's how you stay in the media for as long as he has). I agree with his idea on what should happen to the ncaa....it should go away. College athletics will get along just fine without it. There were college athletics before the ncaa and there will be college athletics without the ncaa. There were bowl games before the ncaa and there will be bowl games after the ncaa. There was a national championship in basketball before the ncaa and there will be one after (it might even be better). There was corruption before the ncaa and there is corruption with the ncaa, and that will all exist after the ncaa. Universities will find ways to play one another in sports without the ncaa and their encyclopedia of rules that nobody could possibly follow to the letter because they can't possible know every rule. So, the ncaa is going to reform. An do what? Instead of getting mad when a big name school breaks a rule, they are going to get REALLY mad. Then if they do it again they will get REALLY, REALLY mad. The ncaa is an ineffective, over bloated bureaucracy so they are going to have more rules and make it an even bigger ineffective, over bloated bureaucracy. More forms and rules is not what we need. It's just silly at this point. If you are a Zips fan, you should want the ncaa to go away. Why? Because the ncaa is only looking out for the BCS level schools at the expense of the non-bcs schools. It would be the best thing to ever happen to us. Right now, we are on the Titanic and it is going down. We have a chance to get on a lifeboat or wait for help to come sailing by in the form of new ncaa rules. Who wants to stay on the boat and who wants to get in the lifeboat with me (I stole a bottle of booze from the mini-bar. Men who cannot balance themselves while peeing over the side of a boat need not apply)?

Go to hell, you Suckeye-loving butt munch. Market must be down again today.....

It is important on gameday to establish some physical play prior to the game starting. I don't know about this drill, but the hitting before a game is much harder than most fans might imagine. The players are excited and they need to establish a physical mentality and the feeling of it in their bodies because the game is the most physical environment they play in. It would be hard to flip the switch once the game started.