GP1

I don't disagree with your overall evaluation. However, he does need to work on his accuracy. It is the most critical aspect of being a QB because it helps receivers get extra yards running.Also, even Nolan Ryan threw a curveball or change-up every once in a while. This kid needs to work on when to throw hard and when not to throw hard.

We give up 377 yards of passing from a freshman from Ken+, and we have a good defense?!? Not my idea of good D. I'll say for once I seen the staff try to put some pressure on the QB, but that's as far as I'm willing to go.A frustrating thing for me watching the game yesterday was we don't even mix up our coverage when we rush three. We appeared to play all zone behind the line. How about some man-to-man mixed in with the zone. A football team can only send five guys out for a pass. With eight defenders, surely some could play man-to-man with a last line of defense zone behind it. Our pass coverage is too passive.....well, our entire defensive scheme is too passive so why should I be surprised?

That is AWESOME. I wish I had the balls to say something like that. It has nothing to do with ball. Just say it. I'll never see that guy again in my life.......unless he takes the managers job at Five Guys at Rivergate.

if akron tries to throw the ball nicely will be sacked 10 times and the game will be over by haltime...line up in the I run at 'em, play field position and tell the defense(fleming) to stop making excuses and win ONE game...ain't gonna happen but hope springs eternal... Stick with documenting pay stubs.

So, I'm watching the Zips in downtown Charlotte today at Wild Wings. A server comes out of the door and stops dead in his tracks to see the the Zips and Golden Douchebags are playing on TV. He says to a patron, "I graduated from Can't State". The guy that is GP1 hears it and yells out, "With a degree from Can't State, the best you will ever do is serving beers at a bar."I hate Can't State.

I don't see how JD can save his job.With that said, he deserves a big thanks from everyone on this board. The team was prepared to play today.In fact, JD has a great record against the scumbags from Portage Co.Thanks JD.

I can't believe this team is 2-7. After watching every play today I feel great about the future. The talent is there.Another thing I can't believe is Can't is 4-1 in the MAC....they are terrible......actually, they are laughable......really....really really.....laughable.

Can't's QB is more Keith Partridge than Spencer Keith.With the exception of a couple of mistakes that take place in football games, our QB is much better than theirs.

The success at Cincinnati has been pretty simple to explain.First, they have made themselves one of the best teams in a conference that nearly isn't as good as it used to be. They also get BCS money and the great Basketball money from being in the Big East. Cincy joined the Big East in the 2005-2006 season. Around that time, VT, Miami and BC exited the league for the ACC. Good teams remaining were WVU and to some extent Pitt. Every league needs a team that can compete with the top two and Cincy filled that void well...Cincy and WVU will be a great game. The timing of the jump to the BE could not have been better.Secondly, the hiring of Kelly was not as much genius as it was obvious. At the time, Kelly was a star on the rise and he got out of CMU before the black hole that is the MAC could destroy his career. Kelly knows one thing for sure....you need a qb that can run his offense and run it well. Mauk and Pike fit that offense to a T. CK's favorite player at CMU fit it well also. The program Kelly took over wasn't great, but it wasn't horrible either. There was something to work with and our next coach will have something to work with when he gets here. I reamain optimistic about UofA being the best team in a bad conference in the near future.Thirdly, one of the P's of marketing is product. What is Cincy selling? Winning is now one of the things. Good players are easy to sell. Oh, and by the way, ConferenceDOA is not one of the things they are selling. Being at the BCS level opens up the door for huge paydays and national coverage. A school at least goes from being being the Tuesday or Wednesday night game to prime time on Thursday and then tonight is another BE game on ESPN. Nobody in Cincy wants to go watch Tulsa, Marshall, Tulane or any of the other pieces of crap C-DOA is selling. I don't see the difference in Tulsa or Central Michigan as far as my interest level.Where is UofA? Well, we need to become the best team in a bad conference. I believe we can. Second, we need a guy like Kelly who can come in next year, win immediately and then move on to his payday. The talent is there. The problem UofA has is they are in the MAC and it is where they belong. The MAC is a bad conference and the only move we can make is to a league like C-DOA which is what we would be upon crashing in that league.Here is where reality sets in and it's more than just saying, "Enough is enough". I hate to use Rosa Parks as an example because the struggles of minority groups in the 1950s pales in comparison to the struggles of UofA football, but here it goes. Rosa Parks just wasn't some lady who sat on the bus and said no. That day was carefully orchestrated by civil rights groups. The country was at a point where people were beginning to see the world and minority groups differently. Blacks served and fought in the Army in WWII and the Korean War yet they were still held back by a large part of society. Over time, blacks realized they had a lot of power in society and exercised it through marches, boycotts, etc. They may not have had a lot of money, but they had justice and morality on their side.What does the Rosa Parks analogy mean for the MAC. Change happened because people were listening, and not just black people. Who is listening to the MAC? There is a better chance of ZipsWin! missing a home MBB game than the country beginning to care about the MAC. People cared about the injustice black people were experiencing. Nobody cares about he injustice the MAC is experiencing. Not only does the country not care, but I'm at the point where I don't even think the NCAA cares about the MAC. Why should anyone care? College football as it is now is exciting for the public, making money for the big schools which is exactly the way the NCAA wants it and making money for the networks which is exactly what the NCAA wants also.Can the MAC boycott and what would they boycott? The MAC is the prostitute of the NCAA along with the other Tier 3 conferences. MAC schools have to accept paydays from BCS schools because they need the money. Even if they boycotted, nobody would care and the BCS schools would just dip down into I-AA schools for their non-conference games. Nobody at tOSU cares of they win three games against Akron, Can't, OU or YSU, Indiana State, Eastern Illinois. The stadium will be filled regardless. Enough is enough alright. Sometimes a doctor has to cut off a leg in order to save the patient. It's time for the MAC to move to I-AA if it wants to stay alive. "Growing" by adding more bad teams to an already bad league is not the answer. Jumping to conferences like C-DOA is not the answer and I have no idea why the Big East would want a MAC team to join their league.I wish it was different, but wishing again takes me back to something my mother once told me, "Make a wish or s#!t in your hat. See which one fills up first." 20+ years is enough. It's time to live in the world of reality.Your Rosa Parks analogy will be appropriate when people start watching the MAC because they are too tired to switch the TV away from a MAC game. I have actually talked to Rosa (no joke) and according to her there was no orchestration by civil rights groups behind her bus incident. She told me she was just to tired to move to the back of the bus.Try again.....

Spring practice needs to be brutal next year and it should. It's time to find out who wants to play and who doesn't. You find that out in the spring.

Will they?....Time will tell. Should they?, YES.If I hear one single peep out of the new coach or AD pertaining to another "building" process, I'll barf. If they want four years to build, they should let all of us know so we can stop paying attention for four years. I know I've seen enough building over the past 20+ years. I want some winning.

At least we have gotten beyond people saying that high school Coach X might be a good fit. Shows some maturity in the fan base.

That's the real shame of it all and why there needs to be a change. It's more about mismanagement and not really about coaches who really don't know anything about football.A good manager puts a person in a place where they can be successful. Bad managers don't. Our coach is a bad manager of talent.I'd be really upset if I thought there wasn't any talent becuae I would worry about the near future. I am actually very bullish about this program if there is a change.What happened to the coaches don't play, the players play? The inability of this coaching staff to teach is the weakness of the team. The team can't tackle, block, run or catch the ball. It's as simple as that. No fundamentals. Throw in a little lousy offensive and defensive schemes and you have the 2009 zips football team.It is about players. We have the players....we are not using them right.

I want a coach who believes there is currently enough talent on the team to win next year and has a plan for how to change the culture of the team and a plan for turning losers into winners. No gimmicks wanted.We should not discount a coach because he had a similar background as our other coaches. One thing to understand is we could get a guy with JD's exact background and get different results. It's all about the vision for the program.

That's the real shame of it all and why there needs to be a change. It's more about mismanagement and not really about coaches who really don't know anything about football.A good manager puts a person in a place where they can be successful. Bad managers don't. Our coach is a bad manager of talent.I'd be really upset if I thought there wasn't any talent becuae I would worry about the near future. I am actually very bullish about this program if there is a change.

Sorry guys. I just don't agree that Gonzaga is a great program or even a Top 20 program. I will admit they are a great mid-major program though. Here are their 2008 results. 25-5 looks good on the surface, but they started out the season 9-4. Whenever they play a Top 20 team, they get beaten badly. Wins against Akron and W. Kentucky in the Tournament do not really impress me much either.Back to the main point. The Zips are a good mid-major program. We have a long way to go before being considered a great mid-major program. The proof will be what the Zips do on the court. Not their rankings or their opponents rankings.

Did anyone see Outside the Lines this morning (it's Sunday)? They did a story about crazy football coaches attacking their wives and co-workers (don't get me started on how stupid most high level college and NFL coaches are in real life).The story about the nut coaching at NM mentioned he got into an altercaton with a coach from Illinois named Mike Woodford in Nashville at an NCAA coaching convention. Mike Woodford was on staff during the early Faust years at UofA. If anyone remembers, Woody was the coach who won $27 million in the lottery.

Deploy larger players and they will be strong enough to bring down the other team's players when they run the ball. The players we have on the field are too small. Use a defense that places larger players on the field and all will work out.

This is why the Zips can't run. Football isn't rocket science. Why would a defense worry about us passing if our receivers can't catch? Force the other team to respect our passing and we will be able to run the ball because there will be fewer defenders near the line. There, I just split the atom.....As far as the wildcat, ditch it. Most teams don't run it well. Those teams that don't run it well and continue to run it are wasting downs. I think the wildcat is a fad like the run & shoot was a fad years ago.

The what?

I think you captured what others may think, but aren't willing to say. As usual, the Great GP1 has to say it and then take the heat. Here we go.....The Zips are not a dominate mid-major team right now. KD doesn't say his team is Top 25 or even a dominate mid-major, he says he wants to get there. He knows where his team is right now and is living in the world of reality. Whether people want to admit it or not, the Zips were pretty harshly shown the door last year in the NCAA Tournament by a team that wasn't even that good. I think it is unlikely that a team goes from being harshly shown the door to winning a game the following season. When the Zips return to the NCAA Tournament again this season, they did nothing the previous season to earn a higher seed and the potential for winning is decreased.Most of the way I view sports is from being a Steelers fan. The Steelers are first and foremost built to win the AFC North or come in second. By doing that, they make the playoffs frequently and then see what happens once they get in. Winning Super Bowls is the benefit of winning on a regular basis during the regular season. If you put yourself in a position where good things can happen, good things will happen eventually. That's my point with the Zips. Keep winning the MAC, dominate the regular season so winning kids want to come to your school and let the chips fall where they may in the NCAA tournament.Was the MAC Championship last year more about a team putting themselves in a position to be successful, or was it part of the strange "building" conspiracy we read about so much on this board? I think it was more of a case where the Zips have put themselves in a position to win over the past few years and eventually were going to win one. There is nothing to be ashamed about because they lost their first round NCAA game.The Winthrop analogy is interesting because I live just a few miles from their campus. KD talks about the window of opportunity for the Zips. I think that is the wrong way to look at it. It assumes when the window closes, success ends because everything has to have a beginning, middle and end. This type of linear thinking is destroying our society and destroys teams. This happened to Winthrop in a conference that is better than the MAC. They basically had a class of kids that came in an won four straight conference titles, won some NCAA games and are gone. Now that they are gone (along with the coach that brought them in), they are back to not being a very good team. You guys saw what was left at Winthrop last season at the JAR and it isn't very pretty. I want to hear KD talk about the Zips dominating the MAC for the near and far future with him being part of that success. Take one game at a time and the success will follow. Worry about what happens at the end of the season when it gets here.I agree. Start with dominating the MAC and build from there.Don't "build", just dominate and good things will happen.

I depends on the type of kid you think you can realistically recruit. At the time Zeke decided to come to UofA, we had not even won the MAC Tournament yet or made the NCAA tournament. My guess is Zeke came to UofA for a lot of reasons and very near the top he saw the Zips were winning a lot and wanted to be part of the winning. I want kids that want to be part of a winning program. Kids that are focused on the end of the season are not focused on games in January and February. I worry about bringing in kids like that.

I think you captured what others may think, but aren't willing to say. As usual, the Great GP1 has to say it and then take the heat. Here we go.....The Zips are not a dominate mid-major team right now. KD doesn't say his team is Top 25 or even a dominate mid-major, he says he wants to get there. He knows where his team is right now and is living in the world of reality. Whether people want to admit it or not, the Zips were pretty harshly shown the door last year in the NCAA Tournament by a team that wasn't even that good. I think it is unlikely that a team goes from being harshly shown the door to winning a game the following season. When the Zips return to the NCAA Tournament again this season, they did nothing the previous season to earn a higher seed and the potential for winning is decreased.Most of the way I view sports is from being a Steelers fan. The Steelers are first and foremost built to win the AFC North or come in second. By doing that, they make the playoffs frequently and then see what happens once they get in. Winning Super Bowls is the benefit of winning on a regular basis during the regular season. If you put yourself in a position where good things can happen, good things will happen eventually. That's my point with the Zips. Keep winning the MAC, dominate the regular season so winning kids want to come to your school and let the chips fall where they may in the NCAA tournament.Was the MAC Championship last year more about a team putting themselves in a position to be successful, or was it part of the strange "building" conspiracy we read about so much on this board? I think it was more of a case where the Zips have put themselves in a position to win over the past few years and eventually were going to win one. There is nothing to be ashamed about because they lost their first round NCAA game.The Winthrop analogy is interesting because I live just a few miles from their campus. KD talks about the window of opportunity for the Zips. I think that is the wrong way to look at it. It assumes when the window closes, success ends because everything has to have a beginning, middle and end. This type of linear thinking is destroying our society and destroys teams. This happened to Winthrop in a conference that is better than the MAC. They basically had a class of kids that came in an won four straight conference titles, won some NCAA games and are gone. Now that they are gone (along with the coach that brought them in), they are back to not being a very good team. You guys saw what was left at Winthrop last season at the JAR and it isn't very pretty. I want to hear KD talk about the Zips dominating the MAC for the near and far future with him being part of that success. Take one game at a time and the success will follow. Worry about what happens at the end of the season when it gets here.

How much development does he really need to compete against the centers in the MAC? Let's be serious, he could hop around on one leg and be better than half the MAC centers.

Get ready to be ecstatic. The kid is a HS All-American. At a minimum, he should produce those numbers next year.It's not enough to just count on an extra year of maturity to move the team forward. I also don't understand why winning an NCAA game is the definition of moving forward. IMHO, what a team does during the regular season better defines how a team is progressing than one week at the end of the year. BB is a strange game where a really good team can have one bad day and lose a conference tournament game....that doesn't really define a team. I'd take going undefeated in the MAC as a strong step forward. Going undefeated or only 1 or 2 MAC loses would be a sign of a consistently good team. That's the step forward I'm looking for.Going beyond the 1st round in the NCAA tourney is absolutely HUGE. I don't get how anyone can blow that off as no big deal?Say the Zips make it to Round #2. The Zips are plastered all over the local and national media. They play on CBS, not ESPNU. The local bars are packed with Akron fans getting excited about their team. Dambrot no longer needs to talk about the potential his team has when he recruits against upper-echelon programs...he can point to himself actually cutting down a net after beating a Wake Forest.Keith Dambrot's Zips have been to the NCAA tourney. Now it is time to win a game (or two).Regarding going undefeated in the MAC -- Sure, that would be HUGE. However, if the Zips were to run the table in the MAC, then bow out in round #1 of the NCAA tourney, it would then be a HUGE letdown. Running the table in the MAC probably equates to no worse than a #11 tourney seed. That's a game an undefeated MAC team should win.Why are Zips fans so afraid of success? Everyone wants to pitter-patter around having high expectations for Zeke...of winning an NCAA tourney game? I don't get it. People SHOULD have high expectations for this team. The SHOULD have high expectations for the highest rated HS recruit ever to play for a MAC school. Side note: It absolutely amazes me how just about every Zips fans has gone from giddy over Zeke, to "I don't expect anything from him the first season." A couple Elton Alexander "buzz kill" quotes and everyone busts out their best let-down coping mechanisms? That's the power of the media.Great MAC teams win NCAA tourney games. Miami has won. Western Michigan has won. K.e.n.t. has won. Central Michigan has won. Throw in Cleveland State too.Zips fans need to appreciate winning the MAC. It's damn difficult to do. But the top mid-majors don't stop at winning their conference. They want more. I want more. Keith Dambrot and the Zips are capable of more. Thus I expect more in 2010.I don't think anyone would disagree that winning an NCAA game would be huge. Getting blown out would also be a let down. My point is there are a lot of ways to look at how the program is progressing (actually, I hate the word progressing because it makes me look like a "grower". I wold be better to say look at the current state of the Zips.). Going undefeated in the MAC woudl be a great way to measure the current state of the program.I also agree that the hedging of Zeke bets is crazy. This kid needs to be on the floor in Game 1 jumping center to start the game. The Zips only get Zeke for four years. He has to be taken advantage of while he wears a Zips uniform. Not playing him is like not running your fastest car in a race because it might get a dent in it. Let's fire up Zeke's motor and see what he can do.Lastly, I think the MAC has changed quite a bit in the past 4-5 years. By changed, I mean it has gotten worse.....a lot worse. Expectations need to start with the fact that we are in a really bad league. All I want right now is for this team to dominate the league this season and win the MAC. Those are the things the Zips can control. NCAA seeding is out of the control of the Zips. The NCAA likes to send MAC teams out west for an early round feast for a higher seeded team. I expect the Zips to dominate the MAC...I want a win in the NCAA tournament, but I don't expect it and I think a domination of the MAC would not be destroyed by losing in the first round.