GP1

ND would sell out. The cost would be too high. There are plenty of non-BCS level teams that would produce a great crowd if the Zips were good enough for people to spend their money on.

Call me crazy, but I have an idea for getting more PD coverage. If the Zips win more games and put a better team on the field, the PD will be forced to cover them. Let's win more games. When the Zips are 4-8, there is little more interest in Cleveland for the Zips vs. MAC Team than there is for BW vs. Case. The local media did a really good job of covering the Zips when we went to the MCB. It can happen again if the Zips would start winning. The local media is not the enemy. They are mostly stupid, but they are not the enemy. We have met the enemy and we are us. If we keep losing, there will be no coverage. If we win, there will be coverage. It's very simple. We really need to start winning.

Once again....nobody is excited to go watch Marshall. These home and homes need to be against fairly significant teams in order to gain the local interest. If we cant get it from Syracuse and Indiana, we surely wont get it from Marshall. What if the Zips put such a good product on the field, that it doesn't matter who they play? It seems to me that the "savior complex" of people in NE Ohio shows itself when talking about future OOC home games. Instead of bringing in a team to save the match-up and produce a good crowd, how about if we make the Zips the team people want to go see? If the Zips suck, nobody is going to the games regardless of who they play. I see it like this. Indiana and Syracuse are bottom feeder teams that never play in bowl games and have little interest in their own fan base. On the other hand, Marshall has become kind of good again and made a bowl game last year. People know Marshall as a good team really worth going to see if the Zips are good as well. They see them on TV playing in bowl games. People know Syracuse and Indiana suck and will find something else to do with their time and money other than going to watch them play.

Sorry, I forgot to mention that moderates are more subtle than extremists. I think you confuse being a moderate with being open minded. An extremist can be open minded as well. William F. Buckley was a solid conservative, but was open minded enough to discuss his ideas with those he didn't agree with. Byron York is a modern day Buckley. By definition, a political moderate is generally open to a wider range of ideas from both the left and the right than a political extremist, who typically follows primarily far left or far right beliefs. William F. Buckley Jr. was an intellectual conservative who evolved away from his early extremism (support of segregation and McCarthyism, for example). He was more moderate and less extreme in his later years, becoming an eloquent spokesman for mainstream conservative principles that are accepted by many moderates. By whose definition?

Top to bottom, RI has better players awaiting him. JD had Frye...IMNHO he was a joke. Frye is a long line of piss poor QBs who masquerade as NFL qbs these days. Had a career losing record at a MAC school. Blackburn...solid player. Much better pro than college player. Hixon....was on defense and JD turned him into an NFL player. Brookhart should get the credit for Hixon. I don't remember number four. Corner? BG transfer. Without the guys JD brought with him (Biggs, Getsy, AA), the team is a joke his second year. Besides these four players, there was garbage left behind by Owens. Owens pissed all over the program on the way out.....JD didn't.

Can the Zips beat all three? No. Can the Zips beat two? No. Can the Zips beat one? Maybe, but I'll lean to no. If they lose all three, it is not the end of the season or even something to be concerned about. The Zips have enough talent to compete well in the MAC. I don't know what the final record will be, but I am pretty certain we will not be run off the field against any MAC team.

Sorry, I forgot to mention that moderates are more subtle than extremists. I think you confuse being a moderate with being open minded. An extremist can be open minded as well. William F. Buckley was a solid conservative, but was open minded enough to discuss his ideas with those he didn't agree with. Byron York is a modern day Buckley.

But, he didn't score a point in a high school playoff game. Not to get off the Zips, but DA took a team that Charlie Frye shipwrecked in the first game of the season and went 10-5 the remainder of the season and had the Browns within a hair of making the playoffs. DA wasn't great, but he was a decent qb on a really bad team. Back to the Zips.....

What if ND fans, Illinois fans and Rasor are all morons? Let's face it, time passed ND by years ago. I'm not sure what their fans expect. At this point, neither do they. Illinois? Well, they are used to watching Illinois, which is a mid to low level Big Ten team. Zook is a bigger problem than their dc. Rasor? Nice guy, but kind of caught up in the neo-conservative politics of the Republican Party. Most are mentally unstable. Only in towns like Stow could he get elected. Probably made a good intramural volleyball player, but that is about it. I don't take his opinions on football too seriously. He is a liberal waiting to happen. However, since he is a UofA graduate, I wish him luck as he progresses towards being a liberal like all neo-conservatives become. Actually, neo-conservatives are in fact former liberals....sort of comes full circle. Be careful of what you read on the internet.

I'm sorry, but this is not the direction the University is going. Nor should it go this direction. UofA can look like UofA and still be a good research institution. We don't need to do what they do in California or anywhere else. The direction is good. A branch in Stark Co makes no sense when you are trying to attract students to live on your campus. If they want to do refining technology and chemicals research, fine. Send graduate students to the companies to collect samples and bring them back. Better yet, have the students/professors do the research and then use this thing called "e-mail" to send the results to Akron for study. UofA does not need another "building" 20 miles from campus to pay for and maintain. They have plenty of room in Akron and if they need more, they can take over another vacated building downtown.

Like most of your posts, I'm not sure what you are getting at here. Moderates have no opinions, that's why they are moderates. Let's see. Like so many, kid has sex in high school. Sperm finds it way to egg and fertilizes the egg. Nine months later, girl has child. How many of us could that have happened to? How many on this board looking down their nose at this kid could that have happend to in high school? That's my point. It has nothing to do with the kid in question. I'm not sure about the gray area in science or the probability/outcome factor.

What makes Rasor's opinion or the players valid? The players are college kids who aren't exactly experts at the big picture. Rasor is a law student who writes a blog and has limited access to the program these days. I could get posts from the AD and Coach I saying they expect to win next year. That doesn't sound like "writing off this season as a rebuilding year" to me. I'm sure that in this age of the internet, there is a certain desire to start searching for any quote by anyone in the program that may have used the word "rebuild". Save yourself the time. High school debate club does not interest me. None of us really know what they are thinking because they have been so closed mouthed. I have no problem with that. Patience. Let's see how they do on the field.

You list 31 examples (and Barry Alvarez twice). 26 of those (Miles, Saban, Peterson, Walker, Alvarez, Smith, Petrino, Tiller, Leach, Mangino, Bob Stoops, Friedgen, Pinckel, Pelini, Tuberville, Jones, Schiano, Dantonio, Golden, Mike Stoops, Erickson, Tedford, Richt, Hill, Davis, Edsall) were at least offensive or defensive coordinators before becoming a HC. Something Ianello has never done. 9 of them (Miles, Saban, Petrino, Friedgen, Pelini, Schiano, Hill, Davis, Edsall) coached something in the NFL along with having coordinator experience. 2 of them (Barnett at Fort Lewis College, Davis at Tulsa Rodgers High School) coached as a HC at a lower level first. Out of your list, only Shembechler, Fry, and Neuheisel started off going from a college position coach to a FBS head coach. If you go back and look at the threads that were around during the coaching search, you would find that I was not opposed to hiring someone with coordinator experience but believed that head coaching experience would be the preferred option. At least coordinators deal with half of roster (40 or more players) and call plays in game situations instead of just coaching 8 or 9 guys as a position coach. Ianello has never been more than a position coach. He can recruit for easy-to-recruit schools and he can sort of coach WRs. What he can't do is call plays or recruit for a school that doesn't sell itself. I agree with you. This has to at least concern people that, not only has he not been a head coach, but also has not been a coordinator. But the thing that really bothers me is that Akron, one of only 120 or so D-1A schools, SHOULD be able to get a guy with HC experience, if they wanted one. And someone else tried to make the "well...everyone needs to start somewhere" point. And that's fine, IF they are "starting somewhere" much earlier in their career. With the length of time he has been in coaching, you have to at least wonder why he has not at least been a OC or DC by this point. If he's been offered such jobs, and just has not taken them, then that would explain it for me. But, it just seems odd that he has not reached at least coordinator level with his lengthy tenure in coaching. Time will tell. He's coaching football at a MAC school, not running General Electric. I'm sure that for every success story you could point to where a guy with HC experiece did well, you could find 10 where he failed. Failure and getting fired is the nature of coaching. Coach I has done nothing wrong (with the exception of the texting mishap, but that seems to be working out and was really a small thing). Most of what he has done seems to be good. He ran a difficult and spirited spring program and he seems to be working hard at getting ready for fall camp. His players, especially PN, seem to be buying into his program. You guys may not like not having a golf outing, but he put on a program to support breast cancer research...that's a good thing. He had a good recruiting class for his limited time and staffing at UofA. With all "coachers", there is a search for points of reaffirmation about their idea. If a player fumbles, then we hear, "See, if the coach had HC experience, he wouldn't fumble." If an INT is thrown, same thing. And so on. It is the nature of being a "coacher". I say the PLAYERS need to get their asses in gear this season. There are enough returning starters (70%) to make a huge difference. They need to start playing. At the end of this year we will know more. I expect some bumps with any new coach, but as long as we don't fly off of the tracks, we should be OK. I expect the team to win 4-6 games this season. Anything above six and below four would be shocking to me.

You'd be surprised how many student-athletes have kids. Not if you think it is still the 1950s. ??????? Since you ask........ I sometimes get the feeling that we have a group of Puritans posting on this board who believe that any sign of what they see as immoral behavior should be cause for stoning. They live in a world where if a kid gets a girl pregnant in high school, then that is a sign of bad character. I'm sure that if the sex odds had turned out different for a lot of us, we might have been in the same position as Mr. Howard in high school.

Maybe they weren't being reported. I find it hard to believe that a guy with his money and fame wasn't doing these things years ago. Personally, I would be doing the same thing if I was in his position so I'm not looking down on his behavior. There is a big difference between what people want to believe about professional athletes and what they actually do.

You'd be surprised how many student-athletes have kids. Not if you think it is still the 1950s.

You'd be surprised how many student-athletes have kids. I'm sure your right about that. I just don't understand why this kid is making things difficult for himself. A baby is just one more obstacle and distraction. He has talent, but I question his work ethic and priorities. If he backs up the girl and kid the way he needs to, and never sees a D1 FB game, seems to me his priorities are fine. Isn't backing up the girl what got him into this trouble in the first place?.?.......

The only undies worth savoring belong to libertarian politicians, right? It depends on what she looks like......

Dear LeBron, Step 1: Fire the clowns you have around you. Step 2: Talk with Nike about replacing the clowns around you. Please call with questions....you know the number. Sincerely, The Great GP1

This is just a bunch of nothing. Seriously, this means absolutely nothing and these people should have better things to do with their time than passing resolutions like this.

The Zips are making me neither sad nor angry or happy or any other emotion. I'm starting to have a problem with my lack of emotion about the whole thing. I hope they do something to make me happy this season because I don't like to be mad or sad about anything. I'd rather feel nothing which is exactly where I am right now. If they stink, I will not be mad or sad. I really don't know what kind of a coach RI is going to be and I am completely open minded about him. He has the one of the best, if not the best QB in the league, this season. That makes me feel good about the upcoming season. Let's be clear again about JD's championship season. No Biggs (JD player) no championship. No Getsy (JD player) no championship. No Hixon (A guy JD took off of LO's scrapheap of a defense and turned into an NFL player in two years) no championship. JD gets all of the credit for the championship. If RI wins this season, he should get all of the credit as well. Why are the "fans" laughing stock? That's silly. The fans aren't the laughing stock, teams are or aren't. Does UofA deserve to be a laughing stock? I really don't know. My experience in life is you deserve what you get. UofA has mistaken building buildings as the key to winning. I don't think that is the case. A focus on winning and not building is the problem. I think Coach I has come here to win and get the Hell out. I say good luck with that and God's speed. If some of your feelings are hurt because you don't get to talk to him at a golf outing, tough crap. If he wins sooner rather than later, you will have a new coach's to sniff the jock of in three years. Give your olfactory nerves a break for the fall sports season. Most of your olfactory nerves are in full bloom during basketball season anyhow.....I'm surprised some of you can take fawning over another grown man more than one sports season a year anyhow.

Here's another way to look at it. Instead of everyone in Cleveland waiting for the next savior, they make it a business friendly city where people want to move their companies to Cleveland. Then, they can make it advantageous for people to live in Cleveland by improving the schools and communities. It wouldn't take much to draw 6,000 people into Cleveland to LIVE instead of going to basketball games. 6,000 x 42 home games a year = 250,000. You are correct about that. 6,000 x 365 days a year = 2,190,000. That would be the same as having 156.4 MORE home games a year with 14,000 people in attendance. The answer is not having good basketball teams. Is New York City a great place because of the Knicks? Hell no, the Knicks stink. New York City is great because there are tons of people working and living there and those people contribute to all sorts of businesses, not just the Knicks. Cleveland has just as good of an orchestra as NYC. Cleveland has the second largest theater district in the US next to NYC. With the exception of hockey, Cleveland has all of the same pro sports teams. Cleveland has great museums just like NYC. Cleveland has a better hospital in the Cleveland Clinic than anything NYC has to offer. Cleveland is a hub for medical research around the world with the CC and University Hospital. In less than an hour from downtown Cleveland, you can go sailing, get drunk on South Bass Island, Cedar Point, fishing, Cuyahoga National Park, ski, D-1A MAC football, visit historic homes such as Stan Hewitt Hall in Akron, Don Drumm Studio, hunting, visit farm country, etc. Cleveland needs to stop feeling sorry for itself. The answer is having a business friendly city that people would want to live in. It is not unreasonable to think that increasing the population of downtown Cleveland by 6,000 people would be that great of a stretch. What LBJ leaving Cleveland has done is provide cover for the government of Cleveland for the next few years. Anything that goes wrong they can throw blame on LBJ. It isn't LBJ's fault Cleveland is in the shape it is and it isn't his fault if they can't get their act together.

I know it is rude to answer a question with a question, but there is no malice in the following question. Why does a dog lick his balls? BCS schools know you have to take at risk kids to compete at that level. If you are going to take at risk kids, you had better put a bunch of money into supporting their difficulties in the classroom. BCS schools have a ton of money to throw around. Fans at MAC schools are immature and think at risk kids have poor character; therefore, they should not be recruited leaving the MAC in the pathetic state it is today. If we had the academic support we needed, we could hold onto better players. Instead, they come here for a year or two and flunk out because of the lack of help. Then the coach gets fired...then they start the "rebuilding" process. Fans of BCS schools understand they need to take at risk players. These fans are willing to look the other way at minor offenses off the field as long as their team is winning. Hell, they are willing to look the other way on major offenses as long as they are winning. Talent is hugely important. If it wasn't, people wouldn't focus on recruiting the way they do. You need talent to win. If you can't hold onto your talent, you lose. It's very simple. Yes -- but I was referring to non-athletes (see original post). Oh, well. Got it. They have bigger endowments at BCS schools so they can afford to spend a lot of money on students. Maybe someone could do a study on the level of endowments MAC vs. BCS and see what they come up with.

Awesome. Is there anyone out there who would like to continue to defend LeJackass?

I know it is rude to answer a question with a question, but there is no malice in the following question. Why does a dog lick his balls? BCS schools know you have to take at risk kids to compete at that level. If you are going to take at risk kids, you had better put a bunch of money into supporting their difficulties in the classroom. BCS schools have a ton of money to throw around. Fans at MAC schools are immature and think at risk kids have poor character; therefore, they should not be recruited leaving the MAC in the pathetic state it is today. If we had the academic support we needed, we could hold onto better players. Instead, they come here for a year or two and flunk out because of the lack of help. Then the coach gets fired...then they start the "rebuilding" process. Fans of BCS schools understand they need to take at risk players. These fans are willing to look the other way at minor offenses off the field as long as their team is winning. Hell, they are willing to look the other way on major offenses as long as they are winning. Talent is hugely important. If it wasn't, people wouldn't focus on recruiting the way they do. You need talent to win. If you can't hold onto your talent, you lose. It's very simple.