GP1

Two words come to my mind.....1. Of 2. what?

I'm surpised this article didn't make the board.There was a time when players spent too much time working on football in lieu of school. Now, players aren't spending enough time with football and we are seeing bad football early in the season. Last night, the horrible play on TV from most teams was just bad. The NC State vs. USC game was almost unwatchable. The NCAA needs to rethink some of it's endless rules that require each school to have a freaking lawyer to decipher what the Hell the NCAA is trying to say.

Surprise it is. It's shocking. This is the first time in history a football team has become pregnant.This was really funny and deserves to be moved to the top of the page.

Penn State - LossMorgan State - Win. At least it had better be.Indiana - After last night, I'm going with a win. On second thought, the Zips find a way to lose this one.CMU - The Zips can't win there and will not win.OU - The Zips win at home.Buffalo - The Zips have won here in the past and will win again.Syracuse - The Zips round out a 3-0 record in upstate NY over the past two years with a win.NIU - We struggle there and will lose because it is our third road game in a row. Thanks schedule makers. Can't State - Easy win for the ZipsTemple - Zips win bigBGSU - Road game against a good team and the Zips lose in a very exciting gameEMU - Zips win easilySide Predictions Include:1. Zips go 7-5 and are one of only three teams with a winning record so they go to a bowl game. 2. JD keeps job if he wants it because he hit the minimum standard for a MAC coach which is 6 wins against D-1A teams and they go to a bowl game. Coachers have to hold off for another year. 3. Half the MAC coaches get fired at the end of the year....again. 4. The MAC continues to "build".

I will be going to the Baylor game tomorrow (I guess since some on the board are too thin skinned to read the words "Wake Forest", I can not say Wake Forest. We don't want to offend anyone who is offended by the words Wake Forest. Wake Forest could mean something in another language so I don't want to say Wake Forest too much. The words Wake Forest may cause some sort of a wake that will not allow people to see the forest through the trees. I'm not sure, but we want to make certain we stay away from the words Wake Forest at any cost. Even interesting comparisons between the Wake Forest and UofA are not allowed even though there are amazing similarities between the two schools on some level. So when I say I went to the Baylor game, keep in mind they are playing at Wake Forest. And by "at Wake Forest", I don't mean Wake Forest, NC. Wake Forest, NC is a city around Raleigh where the original Wake Forest started before some very wealthy person built a campus in Winston-Salem. Wake Forest is a school in Winston-Salem, NC that has an angry, mean faced minister as the mascot. If Jim Grobe doesn't get better play calling this season, that minister is really going to be mad at him, but like most ACC schools, Wake Forest is a basketball school first. It's funny, in the wake of that last sentence, it makes me think that the average sized person playing basketball at an ACC school might think they are standing in a forest because the players are so tall.). The plan is to watch the Zips play at the Fox & Hound in Winston-Salem then head over for the 3:30 Baylor kick off.I will put a special post on the board tomorrow with my thoughts.Going to Baylor games are fun. It will be interesting to see if the team they play will continue their slide downward since their last ACC championship.

Here are the results from last night. Thoughts?BGSU (Home Team) 31Troy 14Villanova (I-AA) 27Temple (Home Team) 24Can't State (Home Team) 18CCU 0NTSU 20BSU (Home Team) 10I'll try to find the silver lining. It could have been worse. BGSU puts on a good performance. Temple....laughable. Can't State.....regardless of who they play, they are laughable. BSU....the loss of future Arena League great (oops, that league went under)......the loss of future CFL back-up Nate Davis is killing this team.Let's see how the rest of the weekend pans out. These results are giving me hope for this season. All I want the Zips to be is the best team in a bad conference.I'm looking forward to the Zips vs. Indiana game in a couple of weeks. It could be a big win for the Zips based upon IU's showing last night.

Dead Spin agrees with the Great GP1.

Thanks for your first hand view of the THUG getting clocked. It's amazing what will get defended on this board depending on what people look like.So here is your story. After shaking hands with everyone else, this UofO player just happened to have this reaction to the "tap" on his shoulder. Not only does the player from UofO respond, but there is a coach right next to them who responded in shock as well when the THUG said "good game". Riiiiight. The THUG made a b-line straight for the UofO player, said what he said and then tried to sneak away. Obviously, he didn't sneak fast enough. I'm sure when the swelling goes down and his teeth are repaired (did anyone notice the tooth flying out as he crumbles to the ground?), he will be able to tell everyone what he said.....assuming he can remember it of course.Here is probably what happened. The UofO player ran his mouth publically for a week up to the game and then had a horrible game in which his team was beaten. The THUG from BSU decides, "Look, 20 of my teammates will be around me and I'm going to say something. This guy stunk up the field tonight and I'm going to let him know it". From this point forward I will stop referring to this THUG as a THUG and just call him glass-jaw. Glass-jaw runs up to the UofO player and says (while striking the guy in the shoulder), "Run your mouth now chump" or something along those lines. Then glass-jaw earns his nickname. Hilarity ensues. The end.Glass-jaw is not some innocent victim in this story.

Only if winning the Wagon Wheel involves tossing a little orange ball through a little orange ring..... In a few years, the average Can't State football player will not be tall enough to punch a normal sized adult in the face.

I just saw the replay on ESPN. They don't show it in the video, but the THUG from Boise St. probably did deserve to get punched in the face. Not because he ran his mouth, but because he hits the Oregon player on the shoulder and then runs away like a scared little girl. If you're going to talk trash, look the guy in the eyes while you do it.At the end of the day, the Oregon player should be kicked off the team. It was disgraceful what he did.If Boise State wanted to make a statement, they would suspend their player for a couple of games for his role in this situation as well. That kid's hands are not clean in this whole mess and if the message the NCAA is trying to promote is sportsmanship, this kid falls well short of the mark the NCAA is trying to establish.

ArticleExcellent article that was written about the ending of the BSU vs Oregon game last night. I have to say, the Great GP1 is rarely shocked by anything, but he is shocked this morning. This kid should be removed from the team today. It isn't like Oregon didn't deserve some trash talking from BSU players after the game. They were awful. When you are awful, you deserve all of the crap the other team throws at you.How does this story end? My prediction. The following steps will happen:1. Oregon throws him off the team.2. Player transfers to junior college 3. Player transfers after one year at JC to desperate D-1A program.4. ESPN runs touchy-feeley (sp?) story on player two years from now on how he has changed his life.5. After college career, player is arrested for domestic violence.6. Player is forever remembered in reruns of Fox Sports Most Shocking Moments.

Surprise it is. It's shocking. This is the first time in history a football team has become pregnant.

This is laughable.My prediction: Can't State doesn't win another game this season and their coach gets his contract extended.

I drove by their campus this morning while out seeing customers around Myrtle Beach.

I still like Class of 82's prediction. Your score is too hard to get to. 37 points would be four TD's (assume all TDs are with extra points) and three field goals. 27 is three TD's and two field goals. PSU will have five TD's and one FG for 38. The Zips will have two TDs and two FGs for 20. The Zips will move the ball, but not score enough TDs and miss a couple of FGs along the way. That's just how we roll. Joe Pa is not one to run up the score so the Zips will cover.The Zips can win every other game on the schedule except this game and maybe the CMU game (odd things happen to the Zips up there).

I love this prediction. Take the Zips +28 and the under.

Because they are bitter....

This is a sign of a guy who is up to speed on current marketing trends. I sat through an awesome presentation the other day about using Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc. to spread your message or improve traffic on a web page (Hint: Put a blog on your web page and update it at least twice a day. 60% of all internet searches use Google. Google is different than other search engines as it measures more than web page hits. Google includes how often you update your web page. Blogs are an update to a web page. Want more traffic? Include a blog and update it regularly. Use links on Facebook, Twitter, etc. to link to your web page. Get people interested in what you have to say. Use your key search words in your blogs. It works.).I hope to see more of this in the future. This is a good start and is more than communication to fans. It can spread the message to a far broader audience that newspapers, direct mailers, billboards, etc. don't. It also spreads the message much faster than normal marketing mediums. He can update his blog from his Blackberry sitting in his living room.Nice work Mr.W.....(I'm not even going to try to spell it just yet. It will take some practice).

I agree totally. I don't think it is too much to expect graduates of a university to wear Dockers and a golf shirt to a University event. The cost isn't even very steep all things considered.Everyone wants a big time program. With a big time program comes big time costs. Welcome to big time college football in a big time stadium.The first ever Wake Forest game I went to I wore a t-shirt and crappy shorts and felt out of place because everyone was dressed so much better. I had to go out and buy a nice WF golf shirt and wear better shorts to fit in. That is what a college football game should look like in the adult section. Now everyone go out and buy a UofA golf shirt to wear to the football games. Do any of your posts not include a Wake Forest reference? Yes they do.

I agree totally. I don't think it is too much to expect graduates of a university to wear Dockers and a golf shirt to a University event. The cost isn't even very steep all things considered.Everyone wants a big time program. With a big time program comes big time costs. Welcome to big time college football in a big time stadium.The first ever Wake Forest game I went to I wore a t-shirt and crappy shorts and felt out of place because everyone was dressed so much better. I had to go out and buy a nice WF golf shirt and wear better shorts to fit in. That is what a college football game should look like in the adult section. Now everyone go out and buy a UofA golf shirt to wear to the football games.

What are the ratings for the MAC Championship game?I don't believe for one second that displaying the MAC on national TV is a good thing for the MAC. Until the product improves, it isn't worth watching and is leaving a stench in living rooms around America. Quite frankly, the only reason they show Wednesday games is because they want to use it as promotion for the ABC/ESPN weekend line-up. I would like a regional network to pick up the MAC and show the games. The regional network would spend less time promoting itself and more time giving the fans interesting information about the league and schools playing.As far as the Dark Ages, the MAC is currently in the Dark Ages of the conference. In the 1950s and 1960s, the conference had teams like Miami which was a national power. Western Michigan was frequently good during that period as well. Moving into the late 20th Century and into the beginning of this century, Marshall, Toledo and Miami were all very good teams and Miami had a Top 10 finish during that period. Guys like Leftwich, Pennington and Roethlisberger were national names of interest and were REAL NFL prospects. Who is/was interesting the past couple of years? Nate Davis......please, this guy is struggling to make the 49ers right now. The fact that he left school early to become a third string QB is laughable. If Davis was more intelligent, he could have stayed one more year at BSU, found a team stupid enough to draft him and then actually put him on the field, and changed his name to Charlie Frye Jr. The same can be said of MBB in the MAC, there are absolutely no nationally known players and the talent level, with the exception of UofA, is getting worse.Where is the Conference now? In the two sports that matter, football and MBB, our conference champions get laughed off of the field of play in post season competition (spare me the NIT wins). The MAC was flat out embarassing last couple of bowl seasons. The Conference champion in MBB the past few years gets shipped off to the west coast to serve as first round fodder for a higher ranked team.We should not think for one second that the key to the MAC's success runs through Bristol, CT.

I mean the university as a whole. The university is growing and progressing quickly. The direction that the entire university is moving is not benefitted by being involved in a conference that no one cares about. I understand your defeatist attitude. It's much easier to say that everything sucks, it lacks any value, and it never will have any value. I get it, it's easy, because anytime something remotely negative happens you can say "look I was right". The problem is that the people involved now, the people who make decisions, don't want to be just "General Dollar" they don't want to just be some pissy little group of buildings sandwiched betwee downtown and the ghetto. That means building a campus people want to be on, building facilities people want to play in, and having vision enough to see that 5-10 years from now things can be different here.You can see it in our research, you can see it in how programs are constantly being rated higher, you can see it in the attitude of the new students. Athletics is just a small part. But unfortunately it is the most visible part. The average person doesn't know that The University of Pittsburgh developed the polio vaccine, but they do know that Florida was the National Champions. Proenza and the board of trustees recognize this, and that is why they have pumped nearly 100 million into the athletics programs. Is it the 300 million Minnesota spent on their stadium? No. But you know what it's a start. And the ammenities for the fans are strikingly similar.I will be happy if we can be a Boise State or Utah (undefeated BCS busters). But I will settle for being like Cincinnati (10-2 (should have been 9-3 damn it) Big East Champs). But it takes vision to get there, a willingness to accept change and determination to create it.Actually, I don't think my attitude is defeatest in the least. The only thing I want to be right about is UofA having the best teams in a bad conference and I believe that is possible. Our basketball team is a perfect example of that and I'm happy for their success. I wish all of our sports programs were experiencing their success. The soccer team is a better program and operates on a different level than our other sports so they should be kept out of the best team in a bad conference discussion. I'm not some Browns fan that roots for failure so I can be right about something. There is no joy in watching the MAC flounder year after year since 1940 whatever. At some point, reality has to set in for the member institutions and the question needs to be asked, "How do we at least make a bad conference presentable?" I think that is reality and an achievable goal for the MAC. I don't know exactly how to make the MAC more presentable, but I think they need to start with making the league smaller. The second is out of our control....the NCAA needs to make a group of 40 schools that are the highest level in college football and stop the charade that they treat all schools the same. These would be positive reforms that would benefit the Zips long term.

The NCAA should be cited for a lack of commitment to the non-BCS schools. It's almost criminal what they do.I agree about I-AA for football. The MAC needs to decide whether it wants to be a small fish in a big pond or a big fish in a small pond. Heck, we would still get a big pay day for football because every BCS school plays I-AA schools now so we wouldn't be hurt financially. Imagine I-AA playoff games at The Big Phone Booth (InfoCision Stadium....InfoCision is after all a telemarketing company). It would be great.Yeah, no thanks. Any other MAC program that wants to drop feel free, but 1-AA is not a progressive direction. We're building a bigger a university and part of that is making sure that all our athletics compete at the highest level.If by progressive you mean get bigger, I'm not sure what that will accomplish other than flushing money down the toilet and I disagree. If by progressive you mean living in the world of reality, I would agree. I want to live in the world of reality.While we build at our rate, the BCS schools, with the aid of the NCAA, are building at a faster rate. The NCAA has made it so that is how it works. I actually think it would be really progressive if the NCAA would do what I say and have one BCS league (or whatever they want to call it) that is the highest level of college football and get rid of the dead weight in I-A as it is right now.As nice as our fieldhouse and new stadium are, the stadium is dwarfed by the stadiums of BCS schools. I think it would be progressive to just admit what the MAC is and what we are and deal with it in a realistic manner. If we stay I-A, let's be the best team in a bad conference and leave it at that. Anything else is unrealistic.

still gets me that the ref it happened right in front of hat to wait to blow the whistleI have to be honest, the cheap shot is there and the player deserved to be thrown out. However, it was not obvious to me until I saw it a few times. It happens very fast and I can see how the ref could miss it.

The NCAA should be cited for a lack of commitment to the non-BCS schools. It's almost criminal what they do.I agree about I-AA for football. The MAC needs to decide whether it wants to be a small fish in a big pond or a big fish in a small pond. Heck, we would still get a big pay day for football because every BCS school plays I-AA schools now so we wouldn't be hurt financially. Imagine I-AA playoff games at The Big Phone Booth (InfoCision Stadium....InfoCision is after all a telemarketing company). It would be great.