GP1

This story has interested me since I saw it reported. I'm not sure what BYU is doing. Three outcomes seem possible. First, BYU is committing suicide as it relates to their football program. Being independent has been killing Notre Dame for over a decade now and has turned them into a solid 6-6 team against the weakest schedules they have ever played. It's much more for ND, but not being in a conference is not helping at all. I'm not sure if BYU takes this direction long term if it will come to any good for them. In fact, I predict disaster if this direction is taken for any more than four years. Second, they see the future and know there is another division of college football about to happen and they don't think they can compete at the BCS level. In my brilliant scenario I posted about a new division in college football, I had BYU as one of the top 40 teams of the past 40 years (I think). If not, they should at least be considered in the mix. BYU could be waiting out the conference shake ups and make a move to a division just below the BCS level. BYU has a long history of good football. I don't see this as a possibility, but everything is up in the air. Maybe BYU doesn't agree with my assessment of their ability to compete at the BCS level. Third, BYU wants to get into a BCS conference, but isn't quite sure how to do it yet or which one to jump to. They do know the ship they are on is taking on water fast and they will need to get off sooner rather than later. This move buys them some time and keeps their national exposure up with an ESPN contract. BYU is dictating the terms of their move with this decision. I like the move for BYU as long as it is temporary. I don't think anyone knows what the outcome of the conference shake up is going to be over the next few year. BYU has the name and is keeping their name in front of everyone with the ESPN deal. It is also a very conservative school so they are not going to make changes without really putting some thought into it, but they know changes are coming. Whatever decision BYU makes they will have to live with it for the next 40 years...maybe they don't see a reason to jump into something they aren't certain they are ready for. On the surface, this move by BYU may not seem like a big dea, but it is. Here is a name program in college football making an unusual move during a period when everyone is positioning themselves for the future. This is a bigger move than Colorado going to the PAC10. Just because their move is unusual, doesn't make it wrong. This unique direction may be what schools like Nebraska and Colorado wish they would have done five years from now. It says a lot about the future of college football and upcoming change. Hold on, a lot of changes will be coming this off season and over the next three years. College football is changing rapidly. In no way should UofA do what BYU is doing.

Don't you guys understand?........This is a freaking building process for crying out loud. Get with the freaking program already. Miliken is a freaking great addition...they will try to cover us with denim, but we will prevail with our table cloths.

ITZ....Did you graduate from the GP1 School of Spelling?

You don't know unless you try. It's like asking a good looking girl out for a date. If she says yes, you win. If she says no, you've lost nothing.

Guest Coach Experience (Men's Soccer) Join two-time National Head Coach of the Year Jay Vidovich as the men's soccer guest coach for the Virginia Tech game on Friday, October 1. Take advantage of this great opportunity for you and a guest to get an up-close and personal look at Wake Forest soccer! I received the above marketing e-mail from Wake Forest. It is something one can bid on. Marketing college athletics should be so easy and we do such a bad job of it. They have a link that allows you to submit your bid electronically. They get people to PAY to do these things. This couldn't have taken an intern more than 30 minutes to put together. Step 1: Tell the soccer coach a strange guy and probably his young son will be in the lockerroom and on the field during warm-ups and maybe during the game. Tell coach why. Step 2: Set up basic program to track bids. Web page that allows the information to flow to an Excel spreadsheet when someone presses ENTER. Step 3: Write a paragraph with a basic design (see above) and send it out to all athletic donors and season ticket holders via e-mail. Step 4: On day of bid close, call the person with the highest bid, get their money and tell them where/when to show up for the game. Give them a couple of cheap t-shirts when they get to the game or give them an autographed soccer ball. Ok, that may take 60 minutes.

I tend to agree. However, I would like to come to the defense of Jones Jr High. I'm sure that every once in a while, the administrator at JJH makes a good decision. I'm still waiting for a good decision by TW. I still have not forgotten the Reno disaster that basically ruined the career of a good guy. If Karma does exist, TW will get fired and never come close to having a good job again. A friend told me that Reno is putting his West Point Engineering degree to use, and is working in Louisiana/Alabama area (subcontracted by BP to work with them on the oil spill clean up). He's doing well. Great news! Maybe TW could go to work for him bagging tar balls.

Syracuse will win and cover the 8.5 pts.

I dont' care how many people are at the game. That number is easy to inflate with free tickets. I want to know how many people are paying to walk through the gate.

I tend to agree. However, I would like to come to the defense of Jones Jr High. I'm sure that every once in a while, the administrator at JJH makes a good decision. I'm still waiting for a good decision by TW. I still have not forgotten the Reno disaster that basically ruined the career of a good guy. If Karma does exist, TW will get fired and never come close to having a good job again.

I think three years is a good time period as well. I think during that time period, the University needs to look at all options internally, with the MAC membership and non-BCS schools. If things are not working out in the next three years, changes will need to be made. At least if they talk about a division between I-AA and I-A now, some thought will have been put into it before it actually happens. A fourth year of transition may be needed, but it could happen. My biggest concern is we do nothing and allow ourselves to become an even further victim of the BCS schools. If they create their own division on their terms, we are screwed as we will have had no say. If we create our own division on our own, we dicide what we look like and who we are going to go to bat with. Let's do things on our terms. If you can't see that there are going to be drastic changes in college football in the next 4-5 years, you either choose to ignore the change or you simply aren't paying attention. College football is changing rapidly and will continue. Nebraska decided to take the bull by the horns and decide their own fate. Colorado did the same thing. We and the rest of the non-BCS schools need to dictate our moves. Is the non-BCS component of FBS football already a division within a division of College Football? Why make it official in it is not required. Sure BCS schools have an undeniable advantage over MAC, WAC, Sunbelt, Mountain West, and C-USA teams but they spend much more as well. Your approach of “going out on our own terms” is similar to preemptively quitting when you know you are about to be fired. There is no indication that FBS plans to cut ties with the rest of FBS. In fact, they are already fighting off challenges that the organization is a monopolistic organization. BCS teams could gain a little I guess by not having to tip out the 5 lowly conferences but they would in turn not be supporting a competitive pool from which to purchase some quality games and purchase some wins. Make it official so they can't co-mingle.

Pretty flimsy evidence of "moving forward" (at least he didn't use the word "build") if you ask me.

I think three years is a good time period as well. I think during that time period, the University needs to look at all options internally, with the MAC membership and non-BCS schools. If things are not working out in the next three years, changes will need to be made. At least if they talk about a division between I-AA and I-A now, some thought will have been put into it before it actually happens. A fourth year of transition may be needed, but it could happen. My biggest concern is we do nothing and allow ourselves to become an even further victim of the BCS schools. If they create their own division on their terms, we are screwed as we will have had no say. If we create our own division on our own, we dicide what we look like and who we are going to go to bat with. Let's do things on our terms. If you can't see that there are going to be drastic changes in college football in the next 4-5 years, you either choose to ignore the change or you simply aren't paying attention. College football is changing rapidly and will continue. Nebraska decided to take the bull by the horns and decide their own fate. Colorado did the same thing. We and the rest of the non-BCS schools need to dictate our moves.

I think most of you are missing GP-1's point. Which, as I understand, is: Akron's existence as some kind of "major college" football program is nothing but a pretense. They are not now, and have virtually no chance in the future of becoming a major player in college football. Unfortunately, at this point in time, I am afraid the weight of the evidence is in GP-1's corner. But the part I don't understand personally, is all the emotion being blown off at how the University of Akron's status in college football reflects the status of the city of Akron vis-a-vis similar and familiar cities. Is Akron a better place to live than Youngstown based on its college football experience? Does it mean that Akron is a better city than Cleveland, because the Forest City/Mistake on the Lake (choose your favorite) lacks a FBS football program? There are many excellent locales -- and many great universities which provide development and pride to their areas, which have no college football at all. I knew Z.I.P. would get it. He's a smart guy who only had to use a fraction of his reading ability to understand what I am saying. Don't let emotion get in the way of doing the right thing or listening to others. UofA did the right thing by building the Big Dialer. It is still not enough to compete at the highest level. It is enough to help compete in a division between D-1A and I-AA. What UofA really needs to do is play to its strengths. Our strengths are soccer and MBB. We could have a great football team if we, the MAC and the other non-BCS schools could had a way to escape the BCS schools. It would be a great college division.

Does this guy look like a porn addict to you? Actually.....yes he does. I'm not kidding either.

I don't disagree. I only care about the football team and being competitive in the MAC and in general against like competition. We can be competitive against the MAC and other non-BCS schools in our own division somewhere between BCS and I-AA. If we don't find a way to make it happen with our conference and other like conferences, the NCAA is going to do it for us.....that will not be good for us.

Remains manageable until it isn't. I read this all the time about government spending as it relates to GDP. Anyhow, like I keep saying. It isn't droping down. It could just be a realignment of college football.

I'll ask everyone again. What evidence is there showing we are a D-IA school and the MAC is a D-1A conference in anything but saying they are?

What goes on around UofA should have nothing to do with what goes on at UofA.

Them? We haven't found one!!! It's been 20+ years. Is Moses leading the Athletic Department/MAC?

When the BCS was created, did anyone say those schools were moving up? Of course not. I realize it isn't a division of the NCAA officially, but it basically is. If the non-BCS schools created their own division, why would that be moving down?

Hangover? What hangover? I don't see any problems in our society today with our government and citizens spending like drunken sailors..... Wait a minute, we're as broke as a welfare recipient on the last day of the month.

You need to think harder. My posts have been centered around much more than money. Level competition has always been at the center of my posts. Ideas such as fans not getting ripped off for having to purchase tickets for Miami (OH) vs. Florida have also been at the center of my posts.....Florida is stealing from their fans, and Miami is whoring the football program out....How is that good for college football? If you do want to talk about money, we can do that. What are the expenses going to be to make the MAC and UofA a real D-1A school that can effectively compete with every other, and that means BCS schools out there? How much "building" can the Univeristy and taxpayers take?....We have a 25,000 seat stadium so how much woudl it be to tripple the size? Can they afford it? Can they support it if it is built. My opinion has less to do with saving money and more to do with the existing landscape of college football and a desire to watch teams in college football compete at the same level. We are a D-1A school in name only. The MAC is a D-1A conference in name only. There are going to be even more changes in college football over the next five year. The BCS schools are going to dictate the terms of those changes. Nobody is going to ask the MAC leadership what they think about BCS level changes in terms of a playoff and the size, membership and direction of their conference. The MAC is already a non-factor in those discussions. If the MAC needs to make a move on its own, it needs to do so before the BCS schools make the move for them. If that is a separate level of college football somewhere between D-1 and I-AA, then fine. There area already four divisions, would another really hurt? Would the walls of The Big Dialer really come crashing down if we played all of the same MAC schools and had a OOC schedule of Marshall, Florida Atlantic, Nevada and pick a I-AA school? That would be a Hell of a good schedule. Let the BCS schools play one another without their early season fodder and let the non-BCS schools play some games where they have a chance to win and a chance at a national championship. I-AA or another division could do that. So Akron pounding Morgan State and more than likely Gardner Webb isn't stealing from our fans? Get off the I-AA and moving down BS. It is stealing. It is also part of what is wrong with college football when intermixing of teams at vastly different capabilities is allowed. The problem is BCS teams load up on three non-bcs teams a year to pad their wins. I don't know if what I want is moving down or more of a reorganization of college football. I find it hard to believe that 130 DI teams compete at the same level. I know by the NCAA rules they do, but in reality they don't. Do some of you really not see the changes coming in the NCAA? If you don't, why not? If you do, what should we do about it is the question.... It seems as if the answer the MAC has is sit around and wait for everyone else to decide what they are going to do and just fall victim to the change. That's a terrible position to take. 300+D1 basketball teams dont compete on the same level either. I can't see college basketball ditching 3/4 of their schools to make things more competitive. You're right, they don't. D-IA basketball should downsize as well. It would breed more competition in what has become a meaningless regular season.

We love to debate this so I have a good analogy. Will the MAC suffer the same fate as Pluto. Growing up, Pluto was a planet damn it and we all knew it. After looking at it for a while, scientists have had second thoughts about Pluto being a planet. In fact, it is no longer a planet for the reasons outlined in the link. Maybe we need to look at the MAC and other non-bcs schools and ask ourselves if they are really D-1A conferences or not. If they aren't, what are they? If they are, why? Is the MAC a Dwarf D-1A conference like Pluto is a Dwarf Planet? I don't know why everyone gets so upset at these questions. Questions are part of being human and are at the core of learning...UofA is a learning institution. Being a Dwarf Conference is a heck of a lot better than being an asteroid (I-AA). We need to decide what we are and where we need to be. If it is a new division of football, then so be it.....something between D-1A and I-AA. Pluto is still going around the Sun even though it is not called a planet. Pluto still has a ton of fans. There is even a Pluto fan club. The MAC will still have college football if it is no longer a D-1A conference. There might even be more fans if the NCAA did it right. Pluto probably has more fans today than it did when it was a planet.

You need to think harder. My posts have been centered around much more than money. Level competition has always been at the center of my posts. Ideas such as fans not getting ripped off for having to purchase tickets for Miami (OH) vs. Florida have also been at the center of my posts.....Florida is stealing from their fans, and Miami is whoring the football program out....How is that good for college football? If you do want to talk about money, we can do that. What are the expenses going to be to make the MAC and UofA a real D-1A school that can effectively compete with every other, and that means BCS schools out there? How much "building" can the Univeristy and taxpayers take?....We have a 25,000 seat stadium so how much woudl it be to tripple the size? Can they afford it? Can they support it if it is built. My opinion has less to do with saving money and more to do with the existing landscape of college football and a desire to watch teams in college football compete at the same level. We are a D-1A school in name only. The MAC is a D-1A conference in name only. There are going to be even more changes in college football over the next five year. The BCS schools are going to dictate the terms of those changes. Nobody is going to ask the MAC leadership what they think about BCS level changes in terms of a playoff and the size, membership and direction of their conference. The MAC is already a non-factor in those discussions. If the MAC needs to make a move on its own, it needs to do so before the BCS schools make the move for them. If that is a separate level of college football somewhere between D-1 and I-AA, then fine. There area already four divisions, would another really hurt? Would the walls of The Big Dialer really come crashing down if we played all of the same MAC schools and had a OOC schedule of Marshall, Florida Atlantic, Nevada and pick a I-AA school? That would be a Hell of a good schedule. Let the BCS schools play one another without their early season fodder and let the non-BCS schools play some games where they have a chance to win and a chance at a national championship. I-AA or another division could do that. So Akron pounding Morgan State and more than likely Gardner Webb isn't stealing from our fans? Get off the I-AA and moving down BS. It is stealing. It is also part of what is wrong with college football when intermixing of teams at vastly different capabilities is allowed. The problem is BCS teams load up on three non-bcs teams a year to pad their wins. I don't know if what I want is moving down or more of a reorganization of college football. I find it hard to believe that 130 DI teams compete at the same level. I know by the NCAA rules they do, but in reality they don't. Do some of you really not see the changes coming in the NCAA? If you don't, why not? If you do, what should we do about it is the question.... It seems as if the answer the MAC has is sit around and wait for everyone else to decide what they are going to do and just fall victim to the change. That's a terrible position to take.

You need to think harder. My posts have been centered around much more than money. Level competition has always been at the center of my posts. Ideas such as fans not getting ripped off for having to purchase tickets for Miami (OH) vs. Florida have also been at the center of my posts.....Florida is stealing from their fans, and Miami is whoring the football program out....How is that good for college football? If you do want to talk about money, we can do that. What are the expenses going to be to make the MAC and UofA a real D-1A school that can effectively compete with every other, and that means BCS schools out there? How much "building" can the Univeristy and taxpayers take?....We have a 25,000 seat stadium so how much woudl it be to tripple the size? Can they afford it? Can they support it if it is built. My opinion has less to do with saving money and more to do with the existing landscape of college football and a desire to watch teams in college football compete at the same level. We are a D-1A school in name only. The MAC is a D-1A conference in name only. There are going to be even more changes in college football over the next five year. The BCS schools are going to dictate the terms of those changes. Nobody is going to ask the MAC leadership what they think about BCS level changes in terms of a playoff and the size, membership and direction of their conference. The MAC is already a non-factor in those discussions. If the MAC needs to make a move on its own, it needs to do so before the BCS schools make the move for them. If that is a separate level of college football somewhere between D-1 and I-AA, then fine. There area already four divisions, would another really hurt? Would the walls of The Big Dialer really come crashing down if we played all of the same MAC schools and had a OOC schedule of Marshall, Florida Atlantic, Nevada and pick a I-AA school? That would be a Hell of a good schedule. Let the BCS schools play one another without their early season fodder and let the non-BCS schools play some games where they have a chance to win and a chance at a national championship. I-AA or another division could do that.