GP1

There was also one on Saturday afternoon on ABC Charlotte that was about Marcus DuPree (sp?). Great segment. Those films are really well done. The best point I heard about it was E. Dickerson talking about why the NCAA selected SMU and why nobody else was selected for the Death Penalty. SMU had the nerve to beat Texas and that is when the NCAA gets upset because part of the good old boys club was beaten. The investigation of SMU started the next day. The NCAA was going to test the Death Penalty out on a small school to see how it worked. Had SMU bounced back in 4-5 years, more schools would have gotten it. Since it took them 25 years, the NCAA is not going to destroy another program or even close to destroying one in the good old boys club. I've never understood why after all of these years, a good lawyer didn't sue the NCAA for damages against SMU. The NCAA clearly acted in a discriminatory manner and SMU was harmed by their actions. I think there is a case there and it should have been filed years ago. The NCAA really can't do anything at this point to SMU so why not. The best thing about these 30 for 30 shows when they do one on college athletics is shine light on how corrupt the NCAA and how dirty college athletics have always been. People created a fantasy for themselves years ago that big time college football and basketball was all about the "student athlete". Sort of the 1950s mentality I always make fun of. That's all a bunch of crap and it always has been. The NCAA and big time sports are about money. If a sports fan can just accept that, it makes watching college sports easier.

Some of us already knew, but you couldn't mention it without being shouted down on the board. He couldn't hide forever.

Great job Zips!!!!!!

Coach I's bio Those of you who think Coach I has only served as a recruiter are grossly misinformed. The guy has experience as a position coach.

This is probably a good fit for JD if it is true. He is a west coast offense guy going back to his college days. Colorado is his home state. Some of you think JD was a terrible coach. He may not have worked out as our head coach, but before that he was a very good coach at Pitt and turned a couple of WRs into Pro Bowl receivers. In two years, he turned Hixon into a professional WR. The guy knows football and especially his style of football. I wish him well.

GO ZIPS!!!!!

First of all, welcome. The one thing I would really like to see recruits say is, "I am coming to Akron for two reasons. First, I want to be part of a great turnaround. Second, I believe I can start right away and contribute to the winning." I want to see players talk about winning and not facilities or playing right away. Those are important, but winning is the most important of all.

I'm with you. Any predictions on the combined number of times players will lay on the ground writhing in pain after not being touched by a member of the other team? About 7-10 as usual for a soccer match. But this isn't just any soccer match....it's the final four.....a shot at the national championship game....a lot is on the line. Care to redo your prediction?

I'm with you. Any predictions on the combined number of times players will lay on the ground writhing in pain after not being touched by a member of the other team?

IMNHO, this is a real good home schedule next year on both an entertaining/interesting level and importance of winning the MAC East (If Miami can do it, we can do it) level. Some think getting our butts kicked by BCS teams is an indication of where the program is...maybe. I believe a better indication is how we do against other non-BCS D-1A teams. Playing FIU at home will allow us to better measure our program in the world of reality. Please tell me that you are joking. Nobody cares about FIU or VMI. That is a joke of a home non conference schedule. A gauge of our program needs to be against the Indiana's of the world. We already play garbage in the MAC. Measures against other garbage teams does nothing to get fans interested. The VMI game should be a win and we should guarantee one win a year against I-AA teams. FIU is a game we can win. If we don't, it tells us we are not as good as a whatever league they are in team. It is a bad sign if we get run by these guys....far worse than getting destroyed by a Big Ten team when half of the player on their team really aren't interested. We are playing an Indiana next year in Cincy. Do you really think a BCS team is going to come to The Big Dialer when we draw about 5,000? I don't want guaranteed wins, but I do want to see how the Zips compete against a like-level school with a realistic shot at winning. Losing against BCS level teams time and again does nothing to get fans interested either.

If we were a BCS level school that went to the Sugar Bowl the year before and we played in the Big Dialer is it is now, I'd be pissed if we ONLY sold 80% of the seats. That stadium should have been 100% sold out for the year.

If there is a playoff, the bowls will come to an end within 10 years of the playoff system starting. There will be no interest in them. Neutral site games are not realistic for a football playoff system because most of the alumni of any school can't afford to travel to more than one bowl game a year, let along 2-4 playoff games. The stadiums would have a lot of empty seats as it is hard to find 85,000 fans in any city willing to go watch a game they have no interest in. Speaking of neutral site games, I see the PAC 10 is going to play their championship game at one of the schools in the championship. I think this is a great idea and something the MAC should look at doing again. Nothing says "small time" like the thousands and thousands of empty seats in Detroit. Play at a smaller stadium and the empty seats won't look so bad. If the PAC 10 can do it, the MAC can do it.In the above brackets, there are only three games there that would be worth the time watching. The first round wouldn't be much different than the first round of the NCAA basketball tournament. I agree, the game last weekend was fairly entertaining. If they had played before 20K at a 30K seat stadium that would have made it even better. I don't know if it would have made for a better game, but I do know it wouldn't have looked like a high school championship game being played at Ford Field.

IMNHO, this is a real good home schedule next year on both an entertaining/interesting level and importance of winning the MAC East (If Miami can do it, we can do it) level. Some think getting our butts kicked by BCS teams is an indication of where the program is...maybe. I believe a better indication is how we do against other non-BCS D-1A teams. Playing FIU at home will allow us to better measure our program in the world of reality.

That place is a dump. InfoCision is a far better stadium. Keep it on a campus.

If there is a playoff, the bowls will come to an end within 10 years of the playoff system starting. There will be no interest in them. Neutral site games are not realistic for a football playoff system because most of the alumni of any school can't afford to travel to more than one bowl game a year, let along 2-4 playoff games. The stadiums would have a lot of empty seats as it is hard to find 85,000 fans in any city willing to go watch a game they have no interest in. Speaking of neutral site games, I see the PAC 10 is going to play their championship game at one of the schools in the championship. I think this is a great idea and something the MAC should look at doing again. Nothing says "small time" like the thousands and thousands of empty seats in Detroit. Play at a smaller stadium and the empty seats won't look so bad. If the PAC 10 can do it, the MAC can do it. In the above brackets, there are only three games there that would be worth the time watching. The first round wouldn't be much different than the first round of the NCAA basketball tournament.

No. There was that many there, or very close to it, during the first half. In the second half, it did start to resemble Infocision. They had a nice crowd at the start....I really don't think there were 27,000 in the stands though. ESPN does a good job of avoiding showing empty seats when they can. Even if there were 27,000 that's not very good for a BCS level team regardless of record. The snowstorm had to have killed them. My point is this. People love to follow a winner. Cincy won last year and was not very good this season. If Cincy didn't sell out their season tickets after a BCS game, that is terrible. I know 27,000 looks impressive compared to Akron, but it is terrible for a BCS team. I actually find it hard to believe they didn't sell out their season tickets, because there aren't that many to sell when you figure a few thousand students would show up. Getting destroyed by Florida probably didn't help either...when people get to see behind the curtain, they frequently realize things may not be what they thought they were. My guess is there will be a decline in season tickets because of the losing, not because ISP isn't doing their job. The guys at ISP don't recruit players and they don't coach them.

Describe "playing"?.?.?............ I'd like to be more clear about this. If Z.I.P., or any other Vuvuzela lover out there, can play "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy" better than a high school trumpet player, then taking one to a game is OK. If Vuvuzela player takes said Vuvuzela to a game to be an annoying a-hole like the tens of thousands of people who went to South Africa last year, then the Vuvuzela should stay home. Owning a Vuvuzela is like owning a gun. Just because you own one doesn't mean you should take it out and use it in large groups. I curse the day the plastic injection molding company who mass produced the Vuvuzela formed their first "instrument".

Describe "playing"?.?.?............

I think the MAC is a better league this year than it has been in recent past years. The lower level teams are still unwatchable, but the upper level teams have had a good quality of play when I saw them play on TV. For example, most MAC teams are more likely to blow a game than win a game. Miami won that game against a good NIU team. If you look at the stats, NIU had the only two turnovers of the game and there were only three penalties the entire game. It was well played. Miami just made one more play than NIU and they won. NIU did not blow the game. The MAC needs to have more than one good year and then four horrible years. This season was a good year. The MAC could easily go at least 2-2 in their bowl games.

There was already a thread about Mike going to a school nobody knows. Snow storm + bad record = low attendance. I'm not sure what Waddell could have done about either of those. In fact, their best marketer, Coach Kelly, is at ND now. I'm interested to see what Mike will be able to do when he is driving the bus. From all I can tell, he is really good at changing one word from Turtle to Roo and selling tickets for an undefeated BCS level team. I don't think those things make for a marketing genious. Time will tell.

Should give the guy an award for participating in the most exciting thing to happen during the Pitt vs. Cincy game today.

Not sure about the crowd, but is NIU choking once again? Edit: Maybe their D will save them. MAYBE NOT!!!! Another run focused offense loses a big game....go figure

An Amish reference about LBJ in an ABJ story. That's my kind of story. I guess a big difference between LBJ and a shunned Amishman is LBJ went on to Miami making millions living in a beautiful city. A shunned Amishman moves on to making bad furniture and quilts for easily duped people in a backwoods town in Pennsylvania. Who would have thought LBJ would have so much in common with the Amish. Can you imagine the media storm in Amish country when Eli Yoder decides to move his quilt and woodworking shop from Holmes Co. to Tuscarawas Co.? The media circus could be called "Tidsexpondering".

The only genious around here is the Great GP1. You guys got that?

The Dr Z rating system says they are 100 percent BS. Always were, always will be. Is there a rating system that tells us how accurate the DrZ rating system is?