GP1

Losing drives people away more than anything. I can take the losing too, but the poor play is what I cannot take. At some point it has to be entertaining and it just is not.

Well put. I don't think TW is up for the job. He has made one bad decision after another starting with the Reno issue, which should have been a big red flag for everyone. Other than the soccer program, I'm concerned about the general direction (or lack of direction) of all the athletic programs. We can and should be better than what we are in all sports. This is not a good time for Akron sports. That football stadium cannot continue to sit empty and we need to start winning. If not, it will become unforgiveable to the people of Akron and it will take years to recover. There was a hiring committee that hired him. I wonder what they were thinking when they hired him. Who was on that committee?

It is if you look at a bigger trend. Fans follow winners and people like new things. CSU has become a winner and people want to see that thing which is different and positively new. Everyone has seen what the Zips offer so there is nothing new to attract fans. My bet is this season ends up like all of the other seasons we have had in recent years. Nothing new or interesting in Zipsland for the average fan.

My wife and I always talk about what we would do if we were still living in Akron. We lived in the city around Stan Hewitt. We talked about it Saturday in fact. Going to BW3, the game and Crave for a snack after the game (because the "food" at the JAR is terrible) was the answer. I know we joke about the benches, but it is no laughing matter. The benches were the #1 reason we did not attend many games the last couple of years we lived there. Even if it means fewer potential spectators, they need to eliminate the benches and put in seats....with rows of steps leading a fan up to their row. I also like order so every fan could be assigned a seat. It cannot be that expensive.

Were there really so few people there? If so, shame on Akron. The Blue Jays are a name program and the game should have been close to sold out. For the last decade+ the Zips have played 3rd fiddle to K.e.n.t. State and Ohio State in NE Ohio hoops. The Zips have maintained a consistent level for the past 7 years, and K.e.n.t. has now regressed to our level. We've now slipped 1/2 a spot, to "3rd-and-1/2 fiddle," below CSU and Ohio State and tied with K.e.n.t. It is tough the Zips, tied for 3rd NE Ohio Fiddle, to draw more than 2,800 for Creighton. There simply isn't the interest or incentive. Especially if all you do to market the event is place a poorly ripped-off .jpg flyer on your web site promoting a whopping 20% off tickets. You reap what you sew, Marketing-wise. You are who you are, basketball-wise. 2,800 is exactly what should have been expected. If Marketing really pushed the event, and the hoops team hadn't experience such a bad Jan/Feb stretch, and the game was televised...then you approach a sell-out. I understand what you are saying, it's just a shame. What else is there to do in Akron on a Saturday in February? I used to live there and the answer is nothing. Heck, I live in Charlotte and there is nothing to do on a Saturday in February and it was in the 70s last weekend. I would have gladly paid full price to go to a UNCC game just to have some entertainment.

Were there really so few people there? If so, shame on Akron. The Blue Jays are a name program and the game should have been close to sold out.

Rebuilding? How about a quick turnaround? Everyone else does it.

I do not know if all crimes are related to Can't< but the ones where the criminal is found asleep in the get away car usually are. That is a stupid school full of stupid people.

Youtube Tom won Akron a Div I team national title. Like I said, doing well under him, not because of him.

Nobody in the mac has depth. Replacing a starter with a bad junior is the same as replacing him with a green freshman. Either way you are up poop creek.

Coastal Carolina Chanticleer doing well under Hunter. I realize the programs were established when he got there, but things continue to go well. 1. College World Series with #4 natioanal seed. 2. Basketball team having a great year and looks to win conference while hosting conference championships. 3. Football team was in I-AA playoffs. In all the sports that matter in SC, things are going well for him.

Right after we build our new downtown basketball arena.

We never stop building all over again.

Most career college football assistant coaches fall into the retread category. Most are a bunch of miserable guys who aren't really smart so they do this for a living. It is unnatural to have a job where you spend your life locked in an office 24/7 watching film of football games. If guys who run Fortune 500 companies can do it while going home every night to sleep, football coaches don't need to be working 24/7. They become manic and lose touch with reality. Abnormality becomes normal. Try to carry on a conversation with some of them. There isn't anything there.

The Zips would have to finish higher in the standings for this to happen. A very helter skelter season. They could continue to get better or they could play like they did in January. Time will tell.

Good points. Here is how I see it. With the past performance, we should have better players on the team. There are reasons we may not have better players right now, but I don't want to go into them as it may throw the board into a frenzy.

That would be interesting reading. Here is a study I would like to see. In the past ten years in the MAC, following a coaching change, how many coaches won the MAC in their first two years? Of those coaches, how many frosh, sophs, jrs and srs were starting on the team (lump juco players recruited by that coach in with frosh and soph numbers). Miami won last year with frosh and sphs on the field. We talk about it all the time. The MAC is the kind of league the Zips could win in the next couple of years if they just get some good players and don't shoot themselves in the foot. That's all Miami did last year. I don't follow it closely enough, but I believe Miami didn't have what were looked at as great recruiting classes. If they can do it, we can do it.

Want to understand how good a recruiting class is? Watch to see how many games they win. Today, we don't really know how good the class is. In four years, we will. I'm more interested in why fans get so caught up in recruiting more than I am the players themselves. There is an old saying. Garbage in....garbage out. If these recruiting rating services are indeed highly flawed, then why do we care about what they say? I don't care where they come from, who coaches them, who recruited them or anything else other than winning.

Haven't even started year two and the rats are abandoning ship. Try hiring someone good after a 1-11 season.....

I like the AAU comparison. Something always smelled funny to me about AAU basketball.

Innocent people get killed everyday. If we can kill thousands in the War on Terror and call it collateral damage (I have no sympathy for them BTW), why can't an abortion be described as collateral damage in a free country? I'm sure a construction worker unemployed for the past 12 months cares much more about getting a job than getting an abortion. Millions male/female couples sodomize each other every day. Don't be a closed minded fool like the idiots on FOX. People who are offended by gay marriage are the kind of people the Republican Party has created. It is an us againt them mentality even if what "they" are doing has nothing to do with you everyday life. We have a +50% divorce rate in this country....maybe the gays could do better.....the straight folks aren't doing that great of a job right now.

It won't happen. They are more worried about same sex marriage and abortion to worry about fiscal issues important to 99% of Americans.

How did they screw up?

I'm not. I'm a real conservative who is desperately concerned the conservative message has been hijacked by a group of complete fools who have sixteenth century ideas about science and childish religious views (Evangelicals).

Article and Video Thanks to FOX News, this idiot is one of the faces of the Republican Party. The Mount Rushmore of the Republican Party used to have Abe Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower and Teddy Roosevelt on it. Today, it is Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sarah Palin and Sean Hannity. If you are a Republican and this doesn't scare you, you are as stupid as Limbaugh, et al.