GP1

Because you don't know who is going to be good in 10 years.

There are lots of illegal acts involving the Auburn boosters. Can anyone name the illegal acts by the players at Auburn? Not NCAA violations, but illegal acts? There is at least one illegal act, and unless the NCAA allows players to make money while in school, this illegal activity will continue.

I don't know if it will or not, but I think our defense now gives us a lot better chance to be successful than the 3-3-5. Whether it will or not depends on the guys wearing the uniform.

So now that you have an invite to this party we all should give the Athletic Department a break? I think it smacks of elitisms just as much as kicking “normal” fans out of lot 9 to clear way for the $5,000+ donor stampede. Call me when they do anything for the majority of their fan base. The biggest gesture they could make to convince me would be to win some damn games. You said/typed it yourself…We have been giving the Athletic Department and Football Coaching staff a hard time. Maybe members of this board should be careful they are not being lured into a trap. The best idea to come out of the Marketing Department in years might be to eliminate their main detractors. They may have learned something from a recent vicious murder in Florida. Just a warning. Maybe you are reading too much into a simple letter for a summer social....

I don't think it is a matter of giving them a break. They deserve credit for a good idea. I'm not certain about the elitism angle as I have no idea who is invited. Somehow, if I made the list, I don't think it will be an elite affair. I'm all for winning being the biggest gift to fans, but to say they don't do anything for the majority of fans just isn't true. They do thing everyone can participate in (ie: NCAA watch parties, setting up things for kids to play in before games, etc.), but not enough is the problem. Not enough in the way of doing things during the off season that would attract the average fan to a game. I'd take winning over face painting, blow up tents for kids to play in, golf outings or any other program they want to call marketing. Winning is the ultimate marketing campaign.

I got a nice note in the mail yesterday on Coach I's stationary. It is a save the date card for a summer social at his house. GREAT IDEA!!!!!! Remember a couple of weeks ago I got a nice note from a lady in the Athletic Department and I said there was too much information in the letter and if they spaced it out over time, it would be a better way to reach people because you are reaching out more often? A "save the date" note followed followed by a formal invitation is a great way to do that (the card I got yesterday says, "formal invitation to follow"). This is a different thing for the Department to do. I like different. A lot of us, including the Great GP1, have been hard on the Department. We need to give credit where credit is due. This is a smart thing to do. Well done TW and the entire Athletic Department. Now follow up with your mailing list by phone after the formal invitations go out to make certain you execute well on a good idea.

I've mentioned this before. My brother gets to go to tOSU practices when he wants to. He said he has never seen them look nearly as bad in the spring as they have this year. The 4-3 defense we run now will help. I like a bigger line against a big team like tOSU. The purpose of defense is to stop the other team, so you have to think about what tOSU will try to do. If I was coaching tosu, I would try to run it down our throats with a much larger offensive line. Big plays won't come from that though and you win with big plays. I don't think they will be able to get big plays against out defense running up the middle. They can set up big plays running inside though. When Bettis was in the NFL, he always said, "If you try to run outside, you'll never get there. If you run inside, you'll get outside." If tosu starts to get 5-6 yards a play running inside, they can design some bounce plays and get the ball outside because our defenders will get caught up in the wash. We aren't the best open field tackling team, so their big plays must come from running outside after setting them up running inside. If we give up big plays in the air against tosu, we are in big trouble the entire season. Three things the Zips defense has to do. Well, every defense has to do it, but these are the three most important against tosu: 1. Give up 3 or fewer yards when defending run plays between the tackles. 2. The d-line has to maintain the line to give Wagner et al space to work. 3. The LBs have to play their best game ever. Physical against runs up the middle and fast against the bounce plays. If the LBs are making tackles 6-7 yards behind the line, it doesn't matter that one or another of them is leading the team in tackles. It's were you tackle that matters. If the Zips sit back and try to slug it out with tosu, they'll get killed by the fourth quarter. They have to take some risks. Run blitzing will be important on first downs to force long down and distances on second and third downs. They have to get tosu into a passing game. The question is, who do you blitz? Blitzing is sort of a mindless thing to do if you are a player as all the thinking comes from the coaches. Wagner is a smart player, so I wouldn't blitz him. I would blitz a SS a lot and from different place into a variety of gaps. The Steelers do this a lot with Troy P. This strategy covers points 1 and 2 above. The SS can't be ignored by the o-line so it gives the LBs space to work to give up short gains or maybe make a tackle behind the line. It also covers point 3 because it gives the LBs room to move sideline to sideline to cover bounce plays.

I think you and I may be wondering about the same thing DrZ.....Doesn't anyone use a comb anymore?

I can't argue with that. OOPS! I mean basketball on the surface would seem easier than football, but that isn't the case. ZW makes a good point about a culture of winning. Akron and Can't come to mind when I think about a culture of winning in basketball. OU could be thrown in there as well. These schools tend to win a lot and have been at least good for a while now. Looking at football, I really can't think of a program that has the same culture of winning. Most football teams that get good have good players in all the right places so they win then they fall away when those players leave (CMU). Marshall was the last school in the MAC that one could say had a culture of winning. CMU was good then they went away. Miamioh is good now and when these good classes leave, will they still be good. I would respectfully agree and disagree with CK. I agree that Akron is a good example of a stable, good coach keeping a team good. Can't is not a good example of that. They continue to have a good program while coaches change, so the culture has to take over at that point. Getting back to the original point, on the surface, it would seem more difficult to get good at football because so many players play during a game. In fact, you can have a good basketball team with 3 good players with some average players around them. It only takes 4-5 good players in the right positions to be good at football, so the number of players you need isn't greatly different. As long as the rest of the guys are at least average, you can win in football with only 4-5 good players. Everyone else does it, why can't we?

Feel free to agree or disagree, but immediate success in MAC basketball seems much more difficult than basketball. The same schools have been good now for a while in basketball and it seems so nobody has been able to break into the good old boys club. I don't know why that is. Basketball, on the surface with such a small number of players, would be a good sport to get good at immediately. Just a thought...

Good post. Akron has two good QBs. All I want is the best guy under center. I don't care who it is. By game four of next year though, I want a decision as to who that will be. At some point, you have to go from the best guy on any given day to the guy who gives you the best chance to win in the last 8 games. The second guy isn't going to be perfect, but he has to be the guy I describe.

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A couple of things here. First, soccer is a bunch of guys running around a field in shorts trying to bounce a ball off of their heads. If you are lucky, one of the players will actually put the ball into this structure with a net around it called the "goal" and his team will be given one point and create an insurmountable lead. Football is a contact sport. Spring practice is development time. Some of the players are not ready to be thrown into a game yet and key players like QBs might get harmed in these games. The BCS teams would make a killing playing the non-bcs teams at their stadiums. No BCS team would risk losing to another BCS team in a game like this. It would become a joke to those with half a brain and a "great testament to the pagentry of amateur athletics" to those working at ESPN. Here's an idea for a contact sport for you: Go to the Y-bridge and jump off Too far to drive, but thanks for the recommendation.

The Great GP1 is safely tucked away in his South Carolina home on a stormy spring day. I think I'll keep the car in the garage today. Went to church last Saturday evening and my car now looks like a golfball because it was pelted by softball size hail. The only good thing about the storm was it came at the time of a sermon so you could not heat the guy talking....best sermon he ever gave. Fans want to see football. The players just want the whole spring football season to be over so they can go out and get drunk tonight.

I believe this is a form of child abuse.

A couple of things here. First, soccer is a bunch of guys running around a field in shorts trying to bounce a ball off of their heads. If you are lucky, one of the players will actually put the ball into this structure with a net around it called the "goal" and his team will be given one point and create an insurmountable lead. Football is a contact sport. Spring practice is development time. Some of the players are not ready to be thrown into a game yet and key players like QBs might get harmed in these games. The BCS teams would make a killing playing the non-bcs teams at their stadiums. No BCS team would risk losing to another BCS team in a game like this. It would become a joke to those with half a brain and a "great testament to the pagentry of amateur athletics" to those working at ESPN.

"To the line, to the lane, whistle...What?" Sort of makes me sad.

Worst fans or the smartest fans? Why would anyone go watch a team that bad?

Article This should be of no surprise to anyone who has ever been to Utah only to notice that everyone looks almost exactly the same. Salt Lake City is a very, very, very strange place.

Thanks for posting the Oline video JZ84. I thought the video on the Dline told us more about this group as it showed them coming off the ball well against defensive linemen. We see more technique drills in this video. Maybe something to do with the small numbers. The one thing I didn't like is the blocking technique where they cut the defender and continue on their hands and knees. I like cut blocking, but not by Olinemen as they always fall down and clog things up. Everyone should be on two feet as much as possible because you are hoping the RB makes the second level and you might need the Olinemen blocking downfield. The second reason I don't like this cut blocking is you can't double team high/low anymore. There are too many people in close proximity around where Olinemen live to risk this technique. Even if the contact is by accident and only for a second, it is still a 15 yard penalty. I hope to not see much of this next season. Yards are too hard to come by to risk major penalties.

I must really have nothing to do tonight, because I watched video of a spring football practice. Three encouraging things struck me watching the videos: First, in the defensive line video, a couple of offensive linemen come off the ball really well and control the line during one-on-one time. I don't know if that is a sign of improved play by the OL, or the same old play by the DL, but it at least looked good. Pro style offenses don't rack up points in college as it is more of a time and ball control theory of offense, so a good running game is needed. The negative side of that is if two highlights of the DL video involve Olinemen moving the Dline off the ball, we could be giving up a lot of points again this coming season. Second, we were really soft last year. The play appears to be more physical. Especially with the LB group. Physical play by the LBs results in tackles at the line or for very short gains. A LB can make tackles all day, but if they are 5 yards down field, it doesn't help. Getting back to point 1, the DL must do a good job of holding the line to give the LBs space to work. Third, Woody Allen must not be doing well making movies because he is coaching the RBs. I like Woody Allen....I like the fact that he is on staff for the Zips. This is a positive to me.

There is nothing new in this story.

There is one thing I remember about the HBO special that I found funny and the average fan was probably appalled by it because they don't understand how things really are. There is a player telling a story about what an assistant used to tell them after practice every day and it cuts to why these guys are actually there to play football and not get an education. The coach would say: "Remember guys (holding up two fingers), academics come first...and (holding up his index finger) football comes second." Auburn got picked on about this, but it goes on everywhere.

If the option is no bowl or a bowl against 30 of us from this board, I'd take the second option.

Finally, there is a term for it. Akron media, and this includes Mr. Rasor, needs to understand that it is OK for the Zips to do well in sports. Especially high profile sports like football and basketball. We don't need to be stuck in a Terry Pluto world. The media should be holding the Zips programs accountable for when they do poorly and demand better when they aren't living up to their potential. Give praise when it is deserved and slam them when they deserve it as well. It's D-1A sports for crying out loud. To Zips fans, it's OK if we win. I know it provides a different paradigm than the pile of crap we are normally fed, but the world won't come to an end if we get good.