GP1

Harrah's will be involved in the Cleveland casino. Thanks for the link! Since I don't live around, I had no idea they were seriously looking at. A word of warning though. Some of those riverboat dumps are owned by Harrah's as well. You can see from this link that all of their brands are not top of the line. If they do it right, it could be great. If they do it poorly, it could be just another failed white elephant in Cleveland. Here's to doing it right. Cherokee has been under construction for a long time. They built the hotel and lower gaming area first and then have expanded around that in a smart way. Cleveland should take their time as well and do it right. Expand it little by little and you are always offering people something new to visit. The entertainment room at Cherokee is the newest reason to go visit. Paula Dean is opening a restaurant soon so there will be another reason to go down the road. They really seem to be doing this right.

I've never said Frye sucks. He just isn't a winner. Facts are facts. And like I said before, you can't really blame a QB who's throwing for 300 yards a game and losing. We had some of the worst defenses in the history of college football. Facts are facts. And Frye still managed to win more games in his 4 years than any other 4 year span in our D1 history. The bottom line is, Nicely has more talent on this team than Frye ever thought about. If he's half as good as Cap claims he is, he should double Frye's victory total. I know if we'd had the defense in those days that the team does now, we'd have won a lot more games. 3 more in my senior year alone. But you didn't. Excuses....always excuses. Was there poor defenese? Yes. However, how many times after driving down the field fail to convert short fourth down plays? It happened time and again. Choke artists. Lots of teams move the ball well between the 20s...look at what Navy did today and they lost because they couldn't execute when it mattered. It isn't really a slap in the face of the player of that era so it is unfair for me to generalize for that era only. It has been going on for 20+ years now. Only once in the past 20+ years have we got the job done when it mattered and Frye wasn't on the field.

I've never said Frye sucks. He just isn't a winner. Facts are facts.

Since you asked - "Yes." In fact, wasn't it JD Brookhart's 1st season? Box Score I believe the immortal Charlie Frye threw for all of 78 yards (w/ a44% completion percentage), and a gaudy -38 yards on the ground? And with a hell of a lot better receivers than Nicely had on Saturday night, and with a veteran offensive line. The Frye & Nicely UVA/Syracuse games are eerily similar, in both circumstance and results: BCS game...first season under a new coach and system...beatdown It looks like Nicely actually performed better, since he threw the ball away (-4 rushing yards) instead of eating it like Charlie (-38 rushing yards). Oh, and Nicely - True Soph. Frye - 5th year Senior. They say "The only thing new is the history you don't know." You are all welcome for the hyperbole-free perspective, and the history lesson. People see what they want to see. I tend to see what actually happened. The book on Nicely is far from it's completion. This week he should throw for 300+ yards, and everyone will marvel at his arm strength, and his growth from game #1 to game #2. Then we'll lose at K.entucky, and everyone will clamor to see the hobbled, banjo-armed Matt Rodgers save the season. Which ain't gonna happen. Stick with Nicely, and you shall be rewarded. You want to compare 2004 Virginia, one of the BEST DEFENSES IN THE NATION, led by Ahmad Brooks and Chris Canty, to Syracuse???? There were about 8 draft picks on that Virginia defense. The Syracuse team we played yesterday would be lucky to have one!!! Apples to oranges Cap, you know better!! Here's a better comparison. Charlie Frye's sophomore year season opener. On the road. Against a GOOD Iowa team. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/scores102/1...WA------0nr.htm 21-29 for 230 yards. If Patrick Nicely had done that Saturday, I would like where we're going. Instead he laid an egg against a team that's a lot more akin to upper level MAC than a good BCS team. The best QB on the field that day only had nine pass attempts.

Normally, I just recommend books in this section of the board. However, today I have to throw my full weight behind Harrah's Cherokee Resort & Casino. I love going to Las Vegas or Atlantic City because I like to gamble. Specifically, I like to shoot craps and the interaction with all of the other players. My wife planned a trip to this casino this weekend so we could see a show Saturday night and I was floored by what a nice place it was. My expectations were low because I have been to the shit hole casinos on riverboats and I expected it to be like that. It was closer to a Las Vegas casino than one of the riverboat dumps. It was my first experience in a casino with really great video gambling games. I always looked at video gambling as slot machines and man was I wrong. There are video table gaming machines with a small tv screen in front of you and a large plasma screen tv with an animated dealer looking at you and it talks. They have both blackjack and craps. There is no humanoid dealer at the craps table. The animation is incredibly lifelike. The female blackjack dealers are beautiful and have perfectly sculpted breast implants. It's unbelieveable. My biggest criticism would be food selection, but they are working on improving that. The drive is also difficult as it is a narrow road for about 8 miles as you drive through a Smokey Mountain pass. Cleveland always talked about getting a casino. I never like the idea as I was scared they would end up with one of the riverboat dumps. If Cleveland could do a casino on Lake Erie like the one in North Carolina, they should do it. It isn't going to solve the overall economic problem in Cleveland, but it would be a nice place for the locals to spend some time and money if they did it right. If a beautiful casino can be built like Cherokee in the middle of nowhere, Cleveland could do just as good with one on the Burke Airport site. Great music acts, boxing, etc could be part of the lakefront.

I agree completely. Losing programs find ways to lose. It is up to the players to start playing. The coaches can't continually be blamed for the lack of execution from an adult with a full scholarship to play football. Tough shit to anyone who thinks I'm being too harsh on a "college kid". They are grown men for crying out loud. It's time to break the cycle and that is up to the players themselves. They need to get off of their asses and get it done. Did I say something about a snack?

They can laugh all they want. Anything less than $18 is selling at a loss, and won't be made up through concessions or merchandise. They're killing themselves financially (even more than usual) in an attempt to keep within the NCAA attendance rules. huh? By your logic, selling at $54 will be 3x less of a loss! It really doesn't make sense if demand isn't there to sell at $54, and the same is true for $18. Example of reducing price to make more money below. It's called optimizing volume versus price. 4000 tickets at $18 yields $72,000 6500 tickets at $12 yields $78,000 By lowering prices significantly, you drew more fans and offset price with volume. Not only could you make more money, but you create a real event experience which increases future demand. You assume a demand for tickets. What if there are no more people who wanted to go to the game Saturday than those who showed up? Exactly. No more fans would have shown up even if we lowered the price to $5 a ticket. And Can't's pricing structure simply lowers the value of their product. If people pay $5 to see them, they see that it's worth less than a high school game, and so must not be as important as one or as exciting, or worth the trip. I fully disagree...I know six people personally who planned to attend then changed their mind when they saw the price...SIX! If I know that many alone, imagine how many total. Then they really did not want to go and were looking for an excuse for not going. Akron can't build its future on this fan.

Historical evidence shows we would be more likely to draw 15,000 than 30,000. See previous post. Now let's go eat a God damn snack....

They can laugh all they want. Anything less than $18 is selling at a loss, and won't be made up through concessions or merchandise. They're killing themselves financially (even more than usual) in an attempt to keep within the NCAA attendance rules. huh? By your logic, selling at $54 will be 3x less of a loss! It really doesn't make sense if demand isn't there to sell at $54, and the same is true for $18. Example of reducing price to make more money below. It's called optimizing volume versus price. 4000 tickets at $18 yields $72,000 6500 tickets at $12 yields $78,000 By lowering prices significantly, you drew more fans and offset price with volume. Not only could you make more money, but you create a real event experience which increases future demand. You assume a demand for tickets. What if there are no more people who wanted to go to the game Saturday than those who showed up? quite true. However, since we aren't even coming close to selling to capacity, an attempt to drop prices to see what increase in volume would occur seems sensible. The worst thing that could happen is that you don't sell significantly more tickets, and you have found out where you stand. Without knowing if there is a demand or not, lowering ticket prices sets a bad precedent. It is easy to lower prices. It is difficult to raise prices. There is no evidence lowering prices would have created a bigger crowd. Years ago, the Zips brought VaTech to the RB and had about the same number of people at the game at much lower prices. This tells me the demand is set for watching a bad football team play. In fact, there are 16,000 people around Akron who will pay to watch the Zips play an early season game against a BCS level team regardless of the price and quality of the product Akron puts on the field and regardless of where the game is being played. It happened over 10 years ago and it happened yesterday. The trick now is to hold pricing and put a better team on the field. Lowering ticket prices is not the answer.

They can laugh all they want. Anything less than $18 is selling at a loss, and won't be made up through concessions or merchandise. They're killing themselves financially (even more than usual) in an attempt to keep within the NCAA attendance rules. huh? By your logic, selling at $54 will be 3x less of a loss! It really doesn't make sense if demand isn't there to sell at $54, and the same is true for $18. Example of reducing price to make more money below. It's called optimizing volume versus price. 4000 tickets at $18 yields $72,000 6500 tickets at $12 yields $78,000 By lowering prices significantly, you drew more fans and offset price with volume. Not only could you make more money, but you create a real event experience which increases future demand. You assume a demand for tickets. What if there are no more people who wanted to go to the game Saturday than those who showed up?

It's 2010....Go to ticketmaster before you leave your house, buy tickets so and then you won't have to stand in line. There is no line on the internet. You completely missed the point. This is not the way a professional organization should operate. How about a little customer service. Besides, not that it should make a difference, but my son didn't decide to go until that day. Ticketmaster runs 24/7. You could have spent five minutes on it before leaving for the game. It's 2010.....those who had to stand in line have nobody to blame but themselves. So you are making excuses for poor customer service...besides being a jerk. You have options as to where and how to purchase your tickets. You selected the option that would have you wait for a long time in line. That's not me being a jerk, that's you either not knowing the options or being cheap. Don't blame me.

It's 2010....Go to ticketmaster before you leave your house, buy tickets so and then you won't have to stand in line. There is no line on the internet. You completely missed the point. This is not the way a professional organization should operate. How about a little customer service. Besides, not that it should make a difference, but my son didn't decide to go until that day. Ticketmaster runs 24/7. You could have spent five minutes on it before leaving for the game. It's 2010.....those who had to stand in line have nobody to blame but themselves. Please don't listen to this advice. This is 2010 where people don't like to get ripped off. Ticketmaster charges a $5 processing fee per ticket. You did the right thing and saved $10 by not buying tickets from them. If you know in advance how many tickets you need, you can always buy them in the JAR for gameday prices. It seems like this wasn't the case for you. You have every right to complain about the University not doing something efficiently. When I was walking into the game, I noticed the long lines. It's a good thing this probably wont be a problem again as no one will show up for the games. This is going to be an ugly year to follow Zips football and you're going to see a lot of arguing on this forums. I don't see why there's a need to blame a person for not using Ticketmaster. The University does offer efficiency with Ticketmaster. Use the service, pay a little extra and avoid standing in line. If not, enjoy the wait. The University is not going to hire people to come in to work for one hour so there is better customer service. Who in in the heck could you get to come in for one hour?

Since you asked - "Yes." In fact, wasn't it JD Brookhart's 1st season? Box Score I believe the immortal Charlie Frye threw for all of 78 yards (w/ a44% completion percentage), and a gaudy -38 yards on the ground? And with a hell of a lot better receivers than Nicely had on Saturday night, and with a veteran offensive line. The Frye & Nicely UVA/Syracuse games are eerily similar, in both circumstance and results: BCS game...first season under a new coach and system...beatdown It looks like Nicely actually performed better, since he threw the ball away (-4 rushing yards) instead of eating it like Charlie (-38 rushing yards). Oh, and Nicely - True Soph. Frye - 5th year Senior. They say "The only thing new is the history you don't know." You are all welcome for the hyperbole-free perspective, and the history lesson. People see what they want to see. I tend to see what actually happened. The book on Nicely is far from it's completion. This week he should throw for 300+ yards, and everyone will marvel at his arm strength, and his growth from game #1 to game #2. Then we'll lose at K.entucky, and everyone will clamor to see the hobbled, banjo-armed Matt Rodgers save the season. Which ain't gonna happen. Stick with Nicely, and you shall be rewarded. Great post. As a point of fact, I didn't need the history lesson to know what I knew years ago. I do think we should hang in with PN. With that said, his performance needs to improve. He is a Soph and between his fresh and soph years he should make the biggest improvement. We need more than 33% completions and 111 yards. He calls himself the leader of the team....that's great....now lead and compete some passes under very difficult circumstances. Now let's go eat a damn snack!

As someone who has been accused of focusing too much on statistics, I believe I am eminently qualified to address the issue of Nicely's 12 of 35 (34%) pass completion percentage. Unless you actually witnessed the game, you wouldn't know that Nicely put more than 50% of the passes that he threw to his receivers into or near their hands, i.e. catchable. About a third of his statistical pass attempts were not actual pass attempts. They were passes deliberately thrown out of bounds to avoid a sack because all of the receivers were well covered and the Syracuse defensive line was pouring through the Zips offensive line. Since intended incompletions (deliberately throwing the ball away) do not have their own statistical category, they get lumped in with unintended incompletions under pass completion percentage. Without knowing that a large percentage of the incompletions were deliberate, one cannot fairly and accurately judge the QB's actual pass accuracy performance. The fact that Nicely threw no interceptions indicates that he was smart enough not to try to force the ball into a tight Syracuse secondary when his receivers were smothered, which was most of the time. Nicely's performance was obviously not that good, but it was far from the Zips biggest problem last night. The QB did not have a lot of support, and he's not good enough to win games by himself. That's all well and good. However, great QBs thread the needle with or without support. If you can thread the needle, the rush backs off. 40% completion, maybe I back off. 33%, no way. It's terrible regardless of how you look at it. Your last statement may be the most profound of all. If he isn't enough to win games in the MAC, we have a problem. The MAC is a QB driven league and there are times he will have to be enough to win.

When they hire a real athletic director. They can hire new ADs until the cows come home. Akron does not have the fan base, alumni base, corporate support, national interest necessary to act like a D1 school. Stop pretending. There is always a reason to say no. Ticket prices too high. Parking too expensive. Etc.

It's 2010....Go to ticketmaster before you leave your house, buy tickets so and then you won't have to stand in line. There is no line on the internet. You completely missed the point. This is not the way a professional organization should operate. How about a little customer service. Besides, not that it should make a difference, but my son didn't decide to go until that day. Ticketmaster runs 24/7. You could have spent five minutes on it before leaving for the game. It's 2010.....those who had to stand in line have nobody to blame but themselves.

Nice Job GP1. You've probably found the only thing about Nicely that reminds us of Charlie. Charlie took a way worse beat down his first game against a BCS team as a Senior with a new coach than PN took yesterday as a sophomore. I know you like to bash Charlie, but are you really seriously trying to equate Charlie's 29 of 36 performance for well over 200 yards against Penn State with what we saw from our QB last night against a low-level BCS team? Wow! Less than six yards per attempt. Excuse me while I swoon at the greatness.

19 D-1A wins in four seasons. Enough said....

It's 2010....Go to ticketmaster before you leave your house, buy tickets so and then you won't have to stand in line. There is no line on the internet.

Nice Job GP1. You've probably found the only thing about Nicely that reminds us of Charlie. Charlie took a way worse beat down his first game against a BCS team as a Senior with a new coach than PN took yesterday as a sophomore.

Patch up the Rubber Bowl? With what? The place was literally on the verge of being condemned. They would have spent tens of millions of dollars, which they dont' have, to fix up something they were only going to use for a few more years. I understand the frustration with losing. Please do all of us, and most importantly....me, a favor of not bitching about prices at the new stadium. They can't base their prices upon how good they think the team is going to be and low ball everything jsut in case they suck. Somebody has to pay for Proenza's building spree and football fans are some of those people. If you don't like it, don't go, but please stop bitching about it....that goes for everyone else too.

Agreed. I had my three teenage boys waiting for me in the car, when I found out not only were tickets going to be $20 a piece, but I was also going to be charged for parking. That's $70 before we got in the door (I'm a student). Who do they think they are, the New England Patriots? $10 is not too much to charge to attend a college football game. If you want to park for free, drive up and down the side streets looking for a spot in front of a house. $20 is a reasonable price to pay to attend a college football game and watch a BCS team play. When is the last time you paid to attend an NFL game? GA seats at the Big Dialer are similar to a club level seat at an NFL stadium. Those run in excess of $100ea plus parking. You saved around $400 by going to the Zips game. Like I've said here many times now..... We are a I-AA school for many reasons. Fan attitudes about what prices should be paid to watch a D-1A game are strange at best. When I see a fan say $70 is too much to watch a D-1A football game with four other humans, I know we can never make it in D-1A.

What is his vision? We would have been better off keeping Hunter around. I know people who support CCU and Hunter is well like. He isn't just a Mack 2.0. Mike Waddell hasn't been here for over five years. Since leaving, he has been turned down for several jobs..what do those people know we don't know? All we know is he is really good at playing second fiddle to Mike Thomas. Some of you need to get over him coming back.

Again, I didn't see the game yesterday. When I see this many excuses being made for a QB, it takes me back to the Frye days. Four years of waiting to win something, then nothing happened.

Not an exact quote, but watch Hard Knocks from last week.