GP1

The Great GP1 has been making this point for a few years now and it is on the money. If anyone is sensitive about hearing any criticism about the current state of Ohio high school football, please stop reading this post now.I belive the current population in Ohio is at least not expanding as rapidly as other parts of the country. It's simple demographics. As populations grow, the possibility of generating D-IA players is expanded. The Big 12, PAC 10 and SEC are great conferences because they have a larger population of high school athletes to draw from. In addition, the good teams in those conferences tend to be in warm weather states. I know nobody wants to believe it, but high school boys decisions are influenced in part by girls...I know that's hard to believe. When they can see girls in Florida in January in shorts and t-shirts, it makes for a lot better visual than girls in Columbus in parkas.tOSU is now bringing in what I consider to be "The Best of the Rest". After the tier one conferences get the majority of the best players from around the country, tOSU/Big Ten is left to select the remainder. A lot of those kids are from Ohio. The problem is not many kids from Ohio are "impact players". tOSU gets high rankings in recruiting because of players of secondary importance....linemen. If a kid from Ohio is really good and really wants to compete at the top level of college football most weeks, tOSU is not the place to go. Look no further than the kid who just won the Heisman Trophy. While not from Ohio, he is a midwest kid from Michigan who drove by a lot of Big Ten schools to play in one of the top three conferences and the competition that brings. tOSU isn't in decline because there are NO good players...they are in decline because Ohio simply isn't producing enough good players to make them competitive nationally. The other thing hurting the Big Ten is the style of football. It's just plain borring. No good player with his eyes on the NFL would go to a Big Ten school where they plough into the line time and again. tOSU is the Big Ten champion and they have a QB who throws sidearm and the nicest thing anyone can say about him would be, "He throws the ball in the general direction of the receiver". Why would a kid good enough to play on Sundays go to tOSU and play with that stiff. There is zero opportunity to showcase your talents. I know that type of thinking offends a lot on this board, but it's not 1950 anymore and high school kids do think about going to the NFL if they have the ability.I don't want to make it seem like I'm picking on tOSU too bad, because it is a midwest/Big Ten problem. They serve as a good example of the problem though. Keep in mind, tOSU lost to a 1-5 Purdue, the fifth place PAC 10 team at home in USC and they could have easily lost to NAVY. Freaking Navy for crying out loud. The bottom line is Tressel has the very best of teams in a second tier conference and they are still an average team who wouldn't compete very well in a top tier conference. The lack of talent is killing tOSU, the Big Ten and the MAC. There is no other way to slice it.One more display of the lack of ability in the midwest/Ohio will be on display at the Sugar Bowl this year. Cincy could have lot to Pitt. I saw Pitt play yesterday and they could have lost to UNC. UNC is a joke. Cincy is going to get steamrolled by UF at the Sugar Bowl. The talent level will be overwhelming.

All really good points.As far as Marshall, Leftwich's team his last year at Marshall would have kicked the crap out of that Marshall team yesterday.

I like what I see in this article. Three things stand out to me as a positive sign.1. He likes what he sees on film as far as the talent. So do a lot of us.2. He is planning new schemes with the new coaches. New scheme = good.3. Spring practice is delayed so the schemes can be better thought out and the players have more time in the weight room.Translation. The talent is there....the bodies need development before the scheme can be implemented because he knows size matters and they players aren't big enough yet. This guy expects to win sooner rather than later and sees the exising talent can deliver wins. I think he is right.To the players...get ready for a brutal winter training.To the strength and conditioning coach.....make sure the waste baskets are plenty empty because there is going to be a lot of thowing up.

I'm getting ready to go watch Pitt play UNC later this afternoon and the Marshall vs. ECU bowl game from when Leftwich played is on ESPN Classic. It was one of the all time great bowl games. I can't help but think...What in the heck has happened to the MAC? From the period when Pennington started until Roethlisberger left Miami, the MAC champion would have had a shot of beating either Pitt or UNC in the Car Care Bowl. That is not the case today.One of the worst things to happen to MAC football was the exit of Marshall to CUSA (it has been bad for Marshall also, but that's another topic). The old saying is, "A rising tide lifts all ships". Marshall was a winner before coming to the MAC and they remained a winner in the conference. Being as good as they were, the other MAC schools were forced to improve their programs talent levels to keep up. Miami, Toledo and WMU just to name a few were much better teams than they are today. Heck, Miami had a Top 10 finish Roethlisberger's final season. With the exit of Marshall, the tide was lowered and so has the quality of the MAC. A lot of MAC schools had actually caught up to Marshall in quality and were beating them. If my memory serves me correctly, UofA won 2 of the last 3 outings against Marshall.Another problem I think the MAC has is there is a loss of focus on winning in exchange for a focus on "building" things. Marshall, Miami, WMU and Toledo had worse facilities than they do today and their teams were better then than now. They had better players then than they do today with better facilities. Is the focus on "building" really the key or should be key be focusing on winning and getting winners in your program? When you focus on "building", you can more easily excuse away losing by lumping it into some odd idea that in the long run the losing will pay off because you are "building". Think about it....in 99% of the cases you can't have a child without having sex....you can't have a winner without winning. In this holiday season, I would ask for winning to be the priority of the conference and not an immaculate conception of "building" to transform it into a winner.

The first MAC bowl game is today. If the MAC is going to win one this year, this could be one of the games they pull off. I don't see that happening though. OU only put up 10 on CMU in the MAC Championship and their QB is a joke. Getting an early lead and keeping the game in their style of play, which is a running game, is their only hope. Marshall will win, but isn't impressive in doing so and the game will not be as close as the score indicates.Marshall 24OU 10

You are very close. A large part of the problem is people around Akron really aren't aware of what a really good school UofA has become so they think it is still the high school on the hill. Specifically, the Law School typically has one of the highest, if not the highest, rates of graduates passing the bar exam on the first try.I'd be really interested in knowing what the average time laps has been since the average person in Summit County actually walked on campus. I know people who live in the city who probably haven't walked on campus in 20 years.

The ooc schedule the year above doesn't seem to be all that more easy than the one we play now. Given we have better facilities in the form of the fieldhouse, more money to throw at the program and campus is better, I wouldn't say our schedule has "grown" much over the years. We certainly don't seem to be "building" a better schedule. In fact, we seem to be in around the same position. Potential conference champion in a bad conference, weak ooc schedule and good coach with good players (although the players as a group are much better today).In all seriousness, the landscape of college basketball and college athletics in general have changed drastically over the past 20+ years. It's hard to compare with the time laps between the two periods.

In their time honored tradition of incompetency, Can't has lost their 1960 time capsule reported in the ABJ this morning.In the third to the last paragraph, the words "haven't yielded any clues" appear. Doesn't this describe the average Can't graduate/student/administrator/professor?

You're probably right about catching his eye. However, proving a negative is very difficult and until the Zips put a string of big wins together, the interest level will remain low.When anyone goes to buy a product, they tend to look at the entire product to see if it appeals to them. What are the Zips selling besides the team in blue and gold? Well, the other team is one of them. The game day experience is another. The concessions are another. The MAC is another. One of the problems the Zips have with selling tickets is they are good, but they surround themselves with bad products so people don't buy the whole package. The other teams, as a whole, aren't worth buying. The seats at the JAG, specifically the benches, are the stuff that puts chiropractors' children through college. The food at the JAR is bad. The MAC is bad. How many of you would buy a Hickory Farms gift package with summer sausage, dried cranberries, wheat thins, granola and tofu? Not many...the summer sausage looks great, but the rest just isn't worth the purchase. The Zips basketball team is like the summer sausage. On a cold winter day, the idea of it is appealing until you look in the package and see the cranberries, etc. You could still get 3,300 sausage loving fans to buy the box for the sausage alone (at a discount), you just probably aren't going to pick up the Joe Akron crowd interested in sauage, cheese, honey mustard and crackers.The ABJ argument. If the Zips were getting 3,300 fans per game a few years ago with little ABJ coverage and they are still averaging the same amount today with more ABJ coverage, how important is the ABJ? Everything about the Zips is better than it was a few years ago including the ABJ coverage AND Plain Dealer coverage. It kind of makes someone with an open mind think that maybe the theory that ABJ covering the Zips more would expand attendance was wrong. I used to believe it, but this makes me think I may have been wrong.

I would. I think our relationship with the local schools is good enough. In the past, all we get from local high school coaches in NE Ohio is pissing and moaning when we will not give a scholarship to one of their DII players. We don't need to pay someone sixty thousand a year for that.Yep. They bitch and moan if Akron doesn't offer, then if their guy gets a bigger offer, they turn on Akron as the little school.And that's why we need to hire somebody who can explain that to the high school coaches. Somebody who can change how it works.We can hire this guy right after we dip into our bottomless pit of money and hire a special teams coordinator. We could send out a mass mailer to all coaches saying UofA is not running a welfare agency for talentless kids and save a Hell of a lot more money than hiring a someone to do this. What the heck would we call the position.....Recruiting Coordinator of Whiners?Most coaches in high school know if their players are good enough or not. The problem is the parents. We don't need to pay someone to explain to the coaches what they already know. The problem is this. A lot of high school coaches are, either formally or informally, partly evaluated on how many players they get scholarships for to D-1A schools so they press coaches for scholarships. Their motivation is different than ours. They don't care if the Zips suck or not because their kid isn't good enough to make them a winner.All the Zips coaches need to do is have an adult conversation with these guys telling them their player isn't good enough to play D-1A football.

Thanks for the view into reality. Shouldn't we also know when the games are so people buying tickets know whether or not they will be available to attend the games before they purchase the tickets.

I would. I think our relationship with the local schools is good enough. In the past, all we get from local high school coaches in NE Ohio is pissing and moaning when we will not give a scholarship to one of their DII players. We don't need to pay someone sixty thousand a year for that.

Being the magnanimous GP1 and Steelers fan, I forgot offer a heartfelt congratulations to the Browns for their victory over the Steelers. It was a bad game in a bad season for the Steelers (although they are still in the playoff hunt somehow). It was a good game in a typical season for the Browns. I hope the Browns continue the same success they had this season again next year. Again, congratulations.

Well, Zeke banged up his knee pretty bad tonight. Trainer thinks it could possibly be a hamstring pull...won't know until tomorrow when he goes in to see him at 7:30 AM. I think right now, Zeke's body is beat up and the 2 days he is going to be home is GREATLY needed....he just needs a few minutes away from everything. Give him a minute for his body to catch upwith all the work he is doing and then it is a wrap!A friendly suggestion..... Information about the physical well being of a player is best not shared in such detail in public. We never know who else is watching.

Is football the albatross, or are non-revenue producing sports the albatrosses?

I don't think you could find a quote of mine saying we need to stop improvements. We need to improve what we have and do so within our means. Let's pay for what we have before we grow ourselves into too much debt.As far as knowing our place. I know what we are. We are a MAC school and that's it. Let's be the best MAC school possible.

It is. I posted one of my brilliant posts about what college football should do to reform itself. The answer is not splitting the money more evenly.The answer is creating a separate division of college football with the best 40 teams of the last 40 years. Four divisions of ten teams. Those 40 teams must play everyone in their division and only teams from the other divisions. Out of division games are against the teams that finished in the same ranking in their divisions from the previous year. 12 games a year. At the end of the year, the first place teams of every division have a four team playoff. Then they can have the playoff everyone wants. They should also pay the players who play in this 40 team group. If universities are going to rake in cash, so should the players...most at these schools are bringing in money under the table, they my as well pay them in the open.The answer isn't to limit the money, the answer is to let the money teams have theirs while letting the lesser money producers more effectively compete against one another at their own level.Except for the most part "lesser money" teams have had more success.Texas and the Big 12 don't even sniff 1/3 of what OSU and Florida make. USC and the PAC 10 have had huge success and the conference only makes around 60 million a year in TV money. Utah, Boise State, and TCU all get minimal cash (at least until recently) and compete better than most of the money teams.I know you said "top 40" except the problem with that there is no way to "qualify" who the top 40 are. They can't even justify the Top 25 and they have been doing that for over 60 years now. What's to keep media and coaches from making that an exclusive group?No, one of the fastest solutions is to actually make each big conference give fair portions of the TV money (the money that is in question) to the lesser conference they kick the crap out of every year.The Big 10 plays somewhere between 18-24 games against the MAC. One third of the schedule, they make big money of their network and kicking that game to affiliates. Pay up. As of right now the MAC get's about $1 million from TV revenue (ESPN mostly). They get nothing from the Big 10 or Big East.Additionally the NCAA and the Federal government needs to support regulations preventing excessive salaries and "strong arm buy outs" of coaches. The Big 10 and SEC deserve the money they make. But they also should be paying the teams and conferences they make that money off of. Another quick and non-socialist fix, is the NCAA says you have a cap on what you can spend on your sport. 100% of gate and sport related sales (concessions and merchendise), and 10% or TV revenue, the remainder must go to other non-revenue sports and academics.There is no reason there can't be a spending and salary cap for programs and coaches.I agree, the problem is difficult and finding the top 40 teams would be difficult. The first thirty would probably be pretty easy. That's why only the Great GP1 would be qualified to pick the top 40.However, given I have a real job, I would permit a group of journalists along with a group similar to the one that selects the NCAA field of 64 to pick the teams. A top 40 group would actually be a good topic on this board. I also think the joining of the top 40 would be voluntary and schools would have to petition for entry. At any point, a team could drop out of the top40 and another could be selected.One thing I am certain of is any regulations/restrictions placed on schools would not work. Just like the tax laws, these regulations could be maneuvered around. Also, I think the federal government is having trouble regulating it's own spending and I don't trust them to regulate university athletics spending. If anyone really listens to the average politician speak, they are actually very stupid people. If you read the report above closely, it is clear that the market will eventually take care of salaries because schools simply will not be able to spend more. Even if you restricted salaries, coaches would find other means of generating income, ie: endorsements.There has been a lot of talk about bubbles in the past few years. In the 90s we had the dot com bubble. This decade we had the housing bubble. Soon, we are going to have to face up to our government spending bubble and it is going to make all of the other bubbles seem small. Most of these schools are state school programs. If private funding slows and public money is in a pinch, we could see a "building" bubble in the near future for universities. See the word unsustainable in the report above....have we been hearing that word much in the past couple of years? Let's keep that in mind as we consider a new soccer field and bb arena. Only 20% of the lifetime cost of a building is the construction of the structure. The other 80% is maintenance. As we ponder or futurer building, are we sure we can pick up the other 80% over the next 80 years? Do we have $512 million over the next 80 years to maintain The Big Phone Booth? What about the fieldhouse? What if we build a bb arena? What if we build a new soccer stadium? I hope someone it thinking about this. I hope UofA doesn't have to sacrafice what I consider to be a good education over sports facilities. Hofstra just had to make that choice and we know what they decided.

It is. I posted one of my brilliant posts about what college football should do to reform itself. The answer is not splitting the money more evenly.The answer is creating a separate division of college football with the best 40 teams of the last 40 years. Four divisions of ten teams. Those 40 teams must play everyone in their division and only teams from the other divisions. Out of division games are against the teams that finished in the same ranking in their divisions from the previous year. 12 games a year. At the end of the year, the first place teams of every division have a four team playoff. Then they can have the playoff everyone wants. They should also pay the players who play in this 40 team group. If universities are going to rake in cash, so should the players...most at these schools are bringing in money under the table, they my as well pay them in the open.The answer isn't to limit the money, the answer is to let the money teams have theirs while letting the lesser money producers more effectively compete against one another at their own level.

And that's fine, but at what balance? You say that football scheduling cripples the program but they schedule maybe 2 "unwinnable" games a year. We'll call it 1.5 because for the most part we do Big 10 monster (OSU, Wisc, PSU) and then Big East/Big 10 minor (Cinci, Syracuse, UConn, Indiana) which under normal circumstances are about a 35% chance of a win (decent odds). That equates to 12% of the schedule. (you say that is crippling)Your 3 money games for baskeball would be roughly 11% of the schedule. How is that not "crippling"?Good question. 35% is way to generous, but it is the holiday season. Look at it as the overall percent of ooc games. The football team played really 2.5 of their 4 ooc games last year against teams they shouldn't be able to beat. That's 62.5% of the ooc games. Let's look at reality though.In order for the bb team to play that percentage of ooc games against BCS level competition, it would be between 8-10 games. Just as crippling as what the football team does. If the bb team plays 15 ooc games, I don't think it is unreasonable for them to go to the ATM three times a year. That would only be 20% of the ooc games. BTW, the football team should only go to the ATM 25%.Right now, our bb program is good enough that they can weather that storm and destroy the crap that is the MAC. It's time for them to start contributing to the bank a little more.

I mentioned in an earlier post the Knight Commission Report on the financial state of college athletics. This is the report. I find it to be an eye opener and cause for concern. It's rather long so give yourself some time.

I'll repeat an earlier theme from today. You don't play the UNCs of the world to increase your ranking in any poll. You do it to rake in cash. New facilities have to be paid for.There was just a great Outside the Lines show on facility growth in college athletics and how unsustainable it is for most schools. Under our current "growth" plan for college athletics we need to decide if we are really going to pay for all of these sports facilities or are we going to just let them sit there while the taxpayers of Ohio pay for them.I don't want to cripple the bb program like the football program has been crippled, but it needs to generate some more cash for the sake of the entire Athletic Department.

This is foolishness. These guys played their hearts out for Zips Fans, including you. And you begrudge them the opportunity to realize a dream of being paid to play the game they love?I don't get it.Go Zips! B) I agree.Fan boards tend to look at the world as if it is still the 1950s and this is a good example of it. It's easy to say a player should stay for the coach. In reality, the coaches are using the players just as much as the players use the coaches. Porter received a fat contract at UofA because of his efforts and the efforts of his players. The players recieve nothing more than a scholarship to UofA. The fans receive a good event when they pay to go to a game. After the game is over, the players and coaches have lived up to their obligations to the fans.Congratulations to this young man for realizing his dreams.

I have a somewhat different spin on why the Zips need to play larger schools on the road regardless of whether or not they will come to Akron.Five years ago, this was a good schedule based upon what the Zips Athletic Department was doing. Today, we have a new stadium that needs to be paid for. We have a new soccer stadium in the works. We have a new BB arena that is being looked into down the road. At some point, money has to come in to pay for all of this. That point is NOW. The two largest financial outlays are The Big Phone Booth and the fieldhouse. The "building" is over and now they need to bring money to support them.As I see it, the three sports with the best chance to fund the Athletic Department are football, MBB and soccer. Soccer is pulling their financial weight and they can't do more than what they have done this season with the stadium they have. Football set attendance records and they play an OOC schedule that is good for the accountants, but horrible for the program long term.MBasketball is pulling their weight in the winning category. The problem is some of the teams they are playing at home OOC are horrible and nobody is willing to pay money to go see them. The Zips need to bring in more money by mixing in a UNC or some other teams they will more than likely lose to, cash the checks and move on to the other games. I don't think 2-3 games a year like this would hurt the team because they have good coaching and good talent to get past it. If I was the new AD, I would take the scheduling in a different direction regardless of what the coach wanted to do. I'm not saying the football suicide schedule is the answer (in fact, it's moronic), I'm just saying they need to go out and grab some more money.

Excellent quote!It reminds me of one of my favorite golf quotes, "100% of the putts that come up short of the cup don't go in."

Good post!The MAC has gotten so bad in just about everything, it's hard to pinpoint exactly what has happened. The answer is difficult, so the solution is probably difficult as well. If you were a player of good offensive talent/wants to play in the NBA, the MAC probably isn't the place for you. Between the bad refs and the defensive orientation, the games are a bloodbath. This is probably just one reason of many though.