GP1

The Big Ten commissioner was caught not just with his pants down, but completely off, by this stupidity and isn't sure what to say so he unleashed one of the most dreaded statements in college athletics. In the last paragraph of the link DrZ provided, he says something along the lines of "we are trying to build a fan base". Are you freaking kidding me? It's a BCS level conference and they are trying to "build a fan base". Attention Big Ten commissioner....your teams play in front of sold out stadiums every weekend and you have some of the largest alumni associations in the United States. THE FAN BASE IS THERE YOU MORON. Whenever you hear someone in college athletics bring up "building and growing" it should make you cringe because it is a sign that person has no idea what to do and is buying time until his next job. He may be able to slip that nonsense by the limited intellects of Big Ten graduates, but he isn't getting it by the intellect of this University of Akron graduate (twice). The second thing the Big Ten should stay away from is marketing the past. I mentioned this on this board when I first saw the stupid division names and I was right. The way they named their divisions tells me they don't have much in the present to market and they know it. Major League Baseball markets the past and did anyone see the TV ratings for the World Series this year? Terrible. Market the present. If what you have in the present is not good, make what you have better. Americans like to look forward, not backward. The one idea I like about the way the Big Ten is organizing the divisions is they are trying to make each division equally competitive. If they were really smart and creative, they would rearrange these divisions every 4-5 years. You can't make a decision in 2010 expecting to know what the conference is going to be like in 2020 or even 2015.

If a guy is a good coach, it doesn't matter if he was a head coach or not prior to getting a MAC job. A good coach is a good coach regardless. The funny thing about this hiring is it can prove the people who think you should hire a coach with lower level head coaching experience both wrong and right. The guy was successful at Miamioh contrary to this opinion. If he goes on to Pitt and wins, it will prove the opinion to be correct because he had experience coaching at a lower level school. It's funny how things can turn out.

He also has a hot girlfriend who is an expert auto mechanic. She traveled with him down to Mississippi. I believe her name was Miss Vito. Herman Munster was the judge too.

Fans should get to see one Saturday morning practice and the spring game. There are things that need to take place during spring practice that don't reflect very well but are necessary. There is a lot of fighting, cursing and vomiting......and that's just the coaches. Fans, and especially grade school kids, shouldn't be party to that. I'm not sure why the average fan would want to go to a practice. College football practices are like watching paint dry. It's boring for the players too. All the players can think about during spring practice is the day when it will all be over. The best party of the year didn't take place after the last regular season game, it took place after the spring game when the feelings of dread come to an end. All fans deserve is what they see during the regular season. That's all that matters anyhoww.

OK...That's probably the most creative thing I've ever seen a band do. It was so simple, why hasn't anyone done something like that before?

Maybe the people shooting the guns should do a better job of doing what the coach tells them to do.

Rumor has it he even got a relative out of legal trouble in Mississippi.

IMNHO, what Akron lacks, and has lacked for as long as I can remember, is a guy you can bring off the bench and he is automatic offense. Maybe there were some, but I just can't remember. When you put a guy like this in the game, you have to accept he is going to play defense poorly so you have to figure out a way to keep him from being too big of a liability on defense. KD won't put up with a guy who plays defense poorly so he doesn't have guys like this on his team. I think a guy like this is needed for the times when everyone else is having difficulty putting the ball in the basket, because you have to keep pace with the point pace of good teams until you figure out what adjustments you want to make.

I wonder if Faust said, "By golly, anyone who coached at Notre Dame is a good coach as far as I'm concerned."

You just described the majority of coaching hires. He knows the same as everyone else. If he can get good players, he will win.....if not, then we all know what happens.

I think there was more to his getting hired at Pitt than his race. Pitt has had off the field problems and the school wants them fixed. He had problems like that at Miami and fixed them. Secondly, I don't think there were many people interested in the job at Pitt. It is a third place school in a BCS conference in name only. The program is not impressive and has rarely lived up to expectations regardless of the coach. Haywood won't live up to expectations and will be out sooner than later. Thirdly, Haywood won when it mattered...in the league championship game. Pitt has shown an ability in recent years to poop their pants late in the season with the conference championship on the line. In the glory days of Pitt football (Majors and Sherrill) Pitt had, let's just say, laxed standards for a player ever seeing the inside of a classroom. Pitt won't put up with that any longer. Haywood won at a school with good standards and that is probably attractive to Pitt. Sure, Haywood backed into the championship game by Can't beating OU, but he got there and won. JD did the same thing (OK, neither backed into anything). The big difference between the two is JD only won six regular season games. Haywood won eight regular season games, which is a good bit for a MAC school.

My hand isn't in the air, but a lot of Miami fans had the same opinion of Haywood last year at this time. Quick turnarounds happen all the time in the MAC with coaches nobody has heard of. Why not us?

I think you are being a little too harsh. Minnesota is a very good team with a very good coach. The Zips really hung in with them just days after getting waxed by an A-10 team. We have big guys, just not as big or as many as they have. That's the real difference between a MAC school and a Top 20 school. For every one good big guy we get, they get three. It's just a numbers game. Over a 40 minute game, the numbers catch up with you. The Zips have good enough big guys to win the MAC and then see what happens in the NCAA. I feel good about their chances after watching the game last night. Let's just hope MN's check doesn't bounce.

So let me get this straight. Since Chad Johnson wanted to play soccer, all American soccer players are as good of athletes as Chad Johnson. Kansas City (over half of their players are not from the United States) beats Manchester United in a "friendly contest". I'm sure this game was more like a preseason baseball game than a real game. If being able to run a long way makes one in great shape and better shape than people who play other sports, then marathon runners must be the greatest athletes in the world and not NBA players? Sorry bobbyake, your facts are weak at best and prove little. Here is how I see it. Chad Johnson is a world class athlete and probably ran circles around the little kids on the pitch (what a stupid name). At some point there was no challenge to it so he challenged himself with better athletes. Those athletes were playing football and not soccer. See preseason game analogy for KC vs ManU. Running and bouncing a ball off of your head while collapsing in pain after nobody touches you doesn't make one a great athlete. In Europe, great athletes are playing soccer...In the US, great athletes like Chad Johnson are playing football, basketball and some play baseball.

There are a lot of reasons why soccer is more popular in Europe than the US. The culture is different, but I think a big reason why it is so popular in Europe is when you go see a Europen soccer match, you are watching the best athletes in those countries. Let's be honest. In the US, you play soccer if you can't play football, basketball or baseball. In Europe, you play basketball and whatever other sports they play because you could not play soccer. The next time you get a chance to watch the US play a team from Europe, look at the size difference between the US and European players. The European players are much larger than the US players because the best athletes play soccer in Europe. They are bigger, faster and stronger than the US players, because our big, fast and strong players are playing football, basketball and baseball. I think it is really that simple. Good athletes can make a boring sport like soccer exciting and that is what you get in Europe. The rule they should get rid of in soccer is bouncing the ball off of their heads. I had a friend who played soccer in college and he was against heading the ball because he said it didn't allow for "control of the ball" and heading outcomes were too random. Makes sense to me.

The Big Ten is already a second tier conference like the Big East and ACC. No reason to join them, they are already one of them.

The Big Ten is obsessed with the past and this is an example of it. In terms of football, the best days are behind it and increasingly moving into the distance. This type of stunt strokes the egos of the blue hairs that remember those days. Basically, the names of the divisions embody how the rest of the country views the Big Ten. The fans of the Big Ten see it as a great conference with great tradition (best days in the past). The rest of the country sees it as a joke. What I'm trying to say is the names they selected for the divisions are actually perfect.

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?