GP1

Just build a new stadium and you will be good.....It worked for us.......

Or, creating their own division between I-AA and I-A. That's the key.

I love the baseball reference. The Zips/MAC are the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Sun Belt/pick a team are the Cleveland Indians. There is no hope for these teams in the current economic climate of baseball. There is no hope for the Zips, etc. in the current climate of college football. One can go to a Pirates/Indians game and pretend they are watching big league play, but they aren't. One can go to a MAC game and pretend they are watching big time college football, but they aren't. It's all about how much reality you want to live in.

It isn't all about money. They can get away with losing more money. There is no end in sight to the amount of money the taxpayers in Ohio (5th most taxed population in America) will flush down the drain on stupid ideas. Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame.....The Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron...(insert name of the many white elephants erected in Ohio over the past decade here) the list could go on and on. I'm sure they can find some money somewhere to keep the Zips ship sailing. Pass it off as an "Economic Growth Plan". They'll pay for anything that sounds like that. Listen carefully everyone....They need to create a division with their peers between I-A and I-AA. Montana and the rest of the WAC can join them. OK, if there is increased loss of money, add it up for me. Assume we could still whore ourselves out once a year to tOSU, then assume we couldn't. $1.0 million isn't that much to make up and is a drop in the bucket compared to what they spend at the University yearly.

Up until Saturday, the QB of Alabama had not lost a game since 7th grade. It must have been one Hell of a lesson. I doubt you can teach a 7th grader a lesson that lasts that long. Some players just win. Some programs just win. Some coaches just win. Our players, coaches and overall program don't win. It's not all on the players of course, but there is plenty of blame to go around beyond the coaches.

I agree with everything....basically....and I've been posting it for a while. At this point, they shouldn't do it alone. The non-bcs schools/conferences need to find a way out of the mess the vast majority of them are in. They all need to get together and form their own division. How much more does everyone need to see? The game is over. 20 more years? Please..... IF the non-bcs schools/conferences can't do something in the next two years, then UofA needs to act unilaterally. OR, the MAC needs to act with the membership to make a move to I-AA. Two more years after this year is all they get. Enough is enough. Another division or I-AA are the choices. +1 Anyone who comes on here and says any of us three don't care, save it. We've put our time in.....and plenty of it. Right now, somewhere in the world, a doctor is cutting off the leg of a patient in order to save the life of the patient. We are just trying the save the life of this program. The program is dying right in front of us. We might even thrive at another level. What 20 years has taught us is we can't survive at this level.

I agree with everything....basically....and I've been posting it for a while. At this point, they shouldn't do it alone. The non-bcs schools/conferences need to find a way out of the mess the vast majority of them are in. They all need to get together and form their own division. How much more does everyone need to see? The game is over. 20 more years? Please..... IF the non-bcs schools/conferences can't do something in the next two years, then UofA needs to act unilaterally. OR, the MAC needs to act with the membership to make a move to I-AA. Two more years after this year is all they get. Enough is enough. Another division or I-AA are the choices.

While reading CK's post, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Myron Cope used to call him Clipboard Cliff because he played something like his first six years in the NFL without ever getting into a game.

Good post as usual. Are you saying that the 1.8 yards per carry rushing game we have isn't going to fool anyone in play action passes? In terms of finding a pro style QB, you are correct as well. They are going to have to look west to find a pro style QB. Mike Johnson was that QB years ago and he was the last one the school had. Getsy was a solid pro style QB, but we really didn't run a true pro style with JD. I make fun of the fact that half of the NFL QBs starting on Sundays aren't any good. How could many of them? The current landscape of high school and college football is full of spread offenses and the players are not prepared for the NFL. It's neither right nor wrong, it just is. A lot of HS QBs are prepared for college because they are prepared in HS for college spread offenses. NFL GMs need to do a better job of finding talented college QBs who may not come from a pro style offense. You really should contact the NFL and tell them about this. I think they already know and aren't certain what they can really do about it. Well, actually, there is something they can do. They should start a minor league system for the NFL and stop using college football as their minor league, but that will never happen.

Umm..You may have forgotten about Auburn. Thought they were in Mississippi. Ever hear of the Egg Bowl? That some kind of omelet? No, it's the yearly clash of SEC West midgets..... Miss vs. Miss State. Let's not forget So. Miss.

Good post as usual. Are you saying that the 1.8 yards per carry rushing game we have isn't going to fool anyone in play action passes? In terms of finding a pro style QB, you are correct as well. They are going to have to look west to find a pro style QB. Mike Johnson was that QB years ago and he was the last one the school had. Getsy was a solid pro style QB, but we really didn't run a true pro style with JD. I make fun of the fact that half of the NFL QBs starting on Sundays aren't any good. How could many of them? The current landscape of high school and college football is full of spread offenses and the players are not prepared for the NFL. It's neither right nor wrong, it just is. A lot of HS QBs are prepared for college because they are prepared in HS for college spread offenses. NFL GMs need to do a better job of finding talented college QBs who may not come from a pro style offense.

Umm..You may have forgotten about Auburn. Thought they were in Mississippi. Ever hear of the Egg Bowl?

Two points: 1. I could really care less about what happened in Can't however long ago that was now. It is not a news story. 2. If Bohner and Co. are elected, it will be only a change in stupidity. We are going to trade one for another. Rub one out while it's still legal. I'm suspect Z.I.P. will agree when I say the truth is out there for everyone to see. The problem with crazy people like Palin, the nut woman from Nevada running for Senate and the nut woman from DE running for Senate is they are caught on camera saying some really strange things. When asked about it, the say they never said it, when in fact there is a video of them saying it. They are all just a bunch of crazies telling lies. Andrew Sullivan has an interesting series on his blog titled, "The Strange Lies of Sarah Palin"...or something like that. If you read her history, you would see how crazy and dishonest she in fact is. The woman is absolutely a crazy person. I find it hard to believe any of them can get elected to office. The one with the best chance is the nut from Nevada. Las Vegas has been severely hurt by the economic downturn. Conventions are how they survive and Obama, because he really knows not much about anything especially as it relates to business, said companies should stop going to Vegas It is one of the more stupid things he believes. If this nut woman has a decent ad person at all, there will be an ad about this issue making Reid the guy who stands behind the guy who helped destroy their convention business....there would be some truth in that. Run it non stop the last three days before the election.

I really don't know what Nicely does when he is not playing football and I really don't care because what someone does in his personal life is his business. The following concerns me. Less than 200 yards in a game in 2010 is unacceptable. Less than 50% completion percentage is unacceptable. Not knowing a game situation when being sacked in the endzone is unacceptable. Three ints is unacceptable. Statistics aside, can anyone tell me what his win/loss record is as a starting QB? That's all you need to know. I realize it isn't all on the QB, but it is the most important position in football and the job isn't getting done. InTheZone is right....at the end of this season, they need to find a replacement for him.

I agree. The game last night matched up OK State against LaLaf. LaLaf looks like a MAC school and the games would be good because the equal level of player talent would create better competition. State had better players, especially #81, and was able to win on talent alone....How hard was it for the State Ocoordinator to call that game...."Tell #81 to run as fast as he can and just throw the ball in the air in his general direction." We can't compete at the BCS level, but we can compete against CUSA and SunBelt teams. I'll say it again. One BCS money game (25% of ooc schedule) Two non-BCS D-1A teams (50% of ooc schedule) One I-AA team (25% of ooc schedule). The loss this year was a fluke. There are sports programs at UofA who wouldn't dare to play an ooc schedule as difficult as the one I just described, let alone the level of difficulty the football team is playing this season. Let another program help pay for Title IX for a while and give the football team a break. That't the type of ooc schedule we should be playing. Three BCS schools a year (75% of ooc schedule) are killing the program. Starting out every year 1-3 or 0-4 is not helpful. Poor starts could still happen in my schedule, but much less likely. The Zips are set up for failure every year with our scheduling. We've been scheduling like this for too long and it isn't helping...it has to change.

Where is a broke college student to get beer money these days?

Respect is earned, not given. We are getting exactly the amount of respect we deserve.

Thanks for posting my thoughts from earlier this year, only with more detail added. There is no Brett Biggs on this team. Everyone is from this program and used to the losing. It was Biggs first year at UofA and the chronic losing had not taken hold yet. So GP1, by your logic, all the Freshmen and first-year starters are already used to losing because the Zips have not won yet? Don't we have something like 16 or 17 returning starters from last year. If two kids are playing on a playground, one good and one bad. Is the good kid more likely to become bad or the bad kid more likely to become good. In almost every case, the good kid becomes bad because it is easy to be bad. Losing is the bad kid. Good kids get around it and it is difficult to keep the good kid from becoming a loser. It happens very quickly.

Thanks for posting my thoughts from earlier this year, only with more detail added. There is no Brett Biggs on this team. Everyone is from this program and used to the losing. It was Biggs first year at UofA and the chronic losing had not taken hold yet.

Generally a very good post with thought provoking questions. With the current leadership, nothing will be built. Unless there are drastic changes at the end of this season, we are in for years of trouble. Does anyone have a plan for the program? Good question. The answer to that is yes. The plan was and is to build a new stadium and we would be good. Unfortunately, that plan appears to ill conceived because nobody has yet to figure out that stadiums and fieldhouses don't tackle anyone. I also think the plan was to hire a good coach by using our new facilities to attract a great candidate, so we make ours....I believe.....the third or fourth lowest paid coach (someone please check this, I could be wildly off) in the MAC. There was a plan, just not a good one. This is a name that never comes up, but it should. Dr. Proenza...he got us into this mess and he needs to get us out of it or he can go also. I'll give him this one mistake, but he needs to act quickly. There is an old business saying, "Fire quickly and hire slowly". I think it is a good fit for where we are right now. It isn't always a fit, but now it is. Anyone who has ever hired people makes a mistake hiring now and then...you just can't do it very often or you look like a bad manager.

Are you saying the ABJ jock sniffer would be in the best position to know if someone was scratching their balls?

No. I hate the idea of firing a coach after one year. I have no idea what his buyout would be though. If it is only one year and we are absolutely horrible at the end of the year, we should do it. iCoach is a pro style coach. That's fine, but it isn't what is needed at UofA. I don't think a coach can change his spots. A coach does what he does. iCoach doesn't do spread offense. He comes from ND and Wisconsin where they run pro style offenses. It's all he knows. He isn't going to change and we shouldn't ask him to change. We don't have time to wait and see if he can change. Time is not on the side of the Zips right now.

Is it OK if we just call you "smart". The types of fans you describe are actually the best type of fans because they won't support a bad product. If you pay money to go to one of these games, you are actually encouraging the University to continue along the path they are on. It's no different than someone in Pittsburgh paying to go see a Pirates game...it only encourages the team to continue to lose.

If the basketball team was in private business, would they get money for a new manufacturing facility? The answer to this question is no. Their existing factory is enough to support their manufacturing needs. When they prove they can sell out the JAR on a regular basis, they can have a new factory with more and better seats. Until then, enjoy the back pains that come with the JAR. In a sane and adult world, this is how it should be treated. If they Zips go off and sell out the JAR over and over again, by all means they should get a new arena. At the end of the day, I don't think TW has clue one as to how to start moving the ball forward on a new arena even if the Zips were selling out every game.