GP1

I only wish our model of hiring coaches without head coaching experiece turned out as good as theirs did. The following Miami coaches had their first head coaching experience at Miami (source) 1. Joe Novak 2. Bo Schembeckler 3. Bill Mallory 4. Ara Parseghian 5. Randy Walker 6. Terry Hoepner Being a good head coach has more to do with being able to get talented players to come to your school and then do something with them than it does laboring for years in the lower ranks of college football as you move your way up.

I think you hit the nail on the head. All this guy did is bring in better players and then do what every other school does in terms of following kids to class, etc. Babysitting has become a big part of college coaching and that's too bad, but it is what it is and it needs to be done. Good coaches end up getting fired because they treat adults like adults instead of like children.

This is a good point. I think the biggest days of the Tea Party are behind them. Only 33% of the candidates won and they are all now part of the Republican Party. 200+ years ago, the Tea Party was a one time rebellion...we will see the same thing with this "Tea Party" again. It will go away. Look how quickly Republican cast aside that nutty Bachman (sp?) woman from Minnesota when she ran for a leadership position. Palin is getting cast aside as well. If the liberals at FOX News would just stop putting Palin on TV, she would quickly be forgotten because she really doesn't have much interesting to say and is really not that bright. The Tea Party will change into a group of people who use the name to get attention in order to continue their life as media whores.

I've really been trying to forget the long line of average to bad QBs the Steelers had between Bradshaw and Big Ben. Thanks for the horrible trip down memory lane. It's no coincidence the Steelers didn't win a Super Bowl in that time period. Great running games, great defenses and a average/poor QB play....It was great at winning the horrible division they were it, but typically it fell short in the playoffs. Big Ben comes along and the win again...go figure.

Rand Paul was elected because he was a Republican with a well known father. The Republicans could have run a goat named Billy Paul and he would have won.

VA Tech has a long tradition of winning, players who are accustomed to winning, a stable head coach and a stable coaching staff in general. We are not VA Tech. Do I need to go on?

There are very few elite QBs in college football (see how few start on Sundays their first year or even get drafted). In terms of elite college QBs, these guys were elite for college with the exception of Krenzel and Flynn. You can't win with an average college QB...I take that back....You can win some games with an average college QB. The Zips are never going to get to where I would like them to be with an average QB. If you guys want 4-6 wins a year, stick with average. I want more.

I think Wagner misses one of the most critical points of the season. None of us are on the team, but the loss to GW had to be an emotional back breaker for the team. The loss of confidence must have been huge...it would only be natural. When you lose to a I-AA team, you don't believe you can win games like Ball State and you don't believe you can compete against the first and second place finishers in the MAC. They are humans and not robots. Emotion matters. Confidence matters. Maybe the Zips did get better at the end of the season. They still lost 11 games and there is a difference between getting better and winning. We need a winning program. If you win and the MAC is good...great. If you win and the MAC is bad...great. Marshall fans loved the MAC because whether the league was good or bad, they were still the best team in the league. That is where I would like the Zips to be.

Retire rich and consult. I'll let him know your thoughts the next time I talk with him...

What if they all stink? That was our problem this year. I too hold out hope for Nicely. This was the year he needed to produce and he fell short of expectations regardless of what was going on around him. I believe the biggest growth spurt happens to a QB between his first and second years. Nicely is past that point. I hope he immproves next year, but if they can find someone better, they should take him. Any advice for Coach Meyer pertaining to his panic attacks?

You beat me to it. Good find. I'll keep it as it for a laugh. The Great GP1 has always been a terrible speller. I'm much better with my Word Perfect program.

Yeah, right after I shelled out $6 for 2 cups for my kids. Things like this are little issues though. You probably waste more money than that a week buying soda out of a machine. It's the big things he gets wrong that scares me. What I listed are only football related issues. There are a lot of other sports where I'm sure fans have some issue with a big decision.

I always say that good teams start with good players. Especially the QB. Coaches all know about the same thing so I think they largely get too much credit when things are going well and too much blame when things are going poorly. Let me ask Urban Meyer how important a good QB is. The Great GP1: "Coach Meyer, how important is it for a coach to surround himself with a great QB at the college level?" Urban Meyer: "Excellent question. I'm not surprised that a man with your enormous intellectual ablility would see the ultimate question in football in modern times has a lot to do with the quality of QB. If you have a good one, you are a genious. If you don't, you are an idiot. Just ask any Gator fan...they all think I'm an idiot after this season. I'm the same guy, just with a less talented kid at QB." The Great GP1: "Thank you for your kind words Coach Meyer. I'm probably even smarter than you may think as you don't know me very well. Can you elaborate on your previous answer." Urban Meyer: "For such a gracious host, I'd be glad to. I started my head coaching career in 2001 at BGSU and coached there for two years. During my time, I had a really good QB named Josh Harris. You may remember him...he was one of the all time greats at BGSU. His ability allowed me to move on to Utah where Alex Smith was the QB. You may remember him as a guy good enough to play in the NFL and was one of the top college football players during my time at Utah. When I moved on to Florida, I had Chris Leak as my starting QB. He was a solid player who won us a national championship, but there were better players to follow. You may remember a guy named Tim Tebow. He followed Leak and the rest is history. I became a genious. This season, I have John Brantley. Around this time last season, I started to think about Brantley as my starting QB in 2010 and that is about when I started having panic attacks. As you have seen this year, the panic attacks were warranted. The kid is terrible and every time I look at him I can feel my chest tightening. God I wish I had retired last year when I wanted. Now I look like just another coach." The Great GP1: "Coach Meyer, what will it take for people to think you are a genious again?" Urban Meyer: "Another great QB."

Great post! What people don't understand is "corruption" in college athletics used to be far worse than what it is today.

Care to elaborate? I'd love to and feel free to add your own: 1. Reno non-issue 2. Hiring of CoachI 3. Upsetting loyal fan base prior to football season with parking policy 4. No golf outing 5. Discounting reserved seats is a landmine in my book These are just some of my problems. There are others, but I think these are pretty big missteps for a guy who has had the job for only one year.

Is there a rating system that tells us how accurate these ratings are?

Everything you see here is going on at other programs. It is out of control and there aren't enough babysitters at the big schools to keep track of the players 24/7. It's so bad the NCAA is considering amnesty to any school that comes clean with all of their violations and reports fully on what they know to be true and what rumors are under the surface. The NCAA would not have come down as hard as they did on USC had USC just confessed what they knew and punished themselves somehow. The NCAA needs to allow for payment of players either through the schools or via agents "retainers" paid to players in order to secure that player for when he is a professional. For example, Newton could sign with an agent for whatever money he wants to and he is required to pay back the money out of his professional earnings. A player can only sign with one agent during his time in college. If a player never earns a dime professionally, then the agent is out of money and he took a rish he should not have taken. Any player not signing with an agent receives $200 per month until he signs with an agent. Let the market decide. If a player is worth the money, an agent will sign him, if not, the school can pay them. If hidden money is the problem, get the money out in the open so everyone understands what is going on. Sunlight is the best antiseptic.

Good summary. Your last sentence explains exactly why the NCAA will never issue the "Death Penalty" again. SMU has yet to recover from it. Therer isn't a school in America that could recover from it.

Congrats on a good start to the season. I looked up YSU's schedule and it has been solid with two wins against MAC schools and a heartbreaking loss to the Zips. Can they keep it up is the question....

The Zips are now 1-2 against teams I've actually heard of. They could easily be 0-3 with two L's at home against in state teams. Some of you like to either hide your heads in the sand or create an illusion for yourselves that things aren't that bad and KD will turn it around. Time will tell. This schedule is not the usual cupcake schedule the Zips create for the BB program. They now have four road games in a row and two of those games are against good programs. They need to get some W's or they will be in big trouble going into the MAC season. KD rightly gave the boot to guys at the end of last season and upgraded his roster. I don't care if they are not used to playing together or not, they need to win games and the expectations of the OOC "building process" should be higher. They have a high school All American in his second season. KD has been here for a long time now. They brought in better talent. They should not be losing like they did the other night and teams like YSU should not be allowed to hang around. It's time to turn the heat up on this program.

I heard this comment as it was spoken. At the time of the remark Ian (sp?) was behind me, Jodi Kest was to my left and Keith Dambrot was across the table from me. iCoach was standing behind KD when he uttered that blunt, painful remark. It was a stupid thing to say. There is a bigger point here though. I always say that if there is a landmine out there, TW will step on it. It looks as if the one person in the Athletic Department most closely connected to TW has the same ability to step on landmines. I'll say this again as well. It has been one misstep after another since TW became AD. He's just not up for the job. It is painfully obvious that CoachI is not up for the job as well. Interesting these two are connected so closely. A good thread would be to predict what circumstances will explode the next landmine and what will TW do to blow it up.

That's fine...explain the other 200+ pieces of crap.

Do you use worms or artificial? Normally when I hold my breath back in anticipation, I'm holding it in bated breath. Please tell me you don't have a degree from my university....

When I saw the Zips won yesterday, I had an huge sense of relief come upon me. While I was happy too, there was more relief than happy. I can't tell you guys how big of a disaster going 0-12 would have been for the program. The mental attitude of players, coaches, administrators and fans are crushed after a winless season and it would have been hard to overcome the record. Try recruiting to an 0-12 program. I know 1-11 is terrible and by no means do I think the win yesterday was part of any "building process" the program is going through. We avoided a disaster and should be happy for that today. In reality, they Zips should have never lost to Ball State and GW, but they did and we are what we are. Every other team can turn themselves around quickly and the Zips could do the same thing. Everyone needs to get to work and get this program headed to a winning season next year. Miami did it, we can too.

I don't think it us unreasonable to expect between 4-6 wins out of the team next season. It's the MAC for crying out loud. We should have won at least three this season.