GP1

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?

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.