GP1

I thought this was JD's plan for the bye week..... I bet it is to polish up his resume and network some.

Charlie Frye? How many Championships did Frye win at UofA? The career LeFevour has has at CMU dwarfs what Frye did at UofA.As far as Boo Jackson, while the Great GP1 does know everyone in addition to knowing everything, Boo has not contacted me. I didn't go looking from the note from Dan, he sent it to me.

Why are there some people obsessed with not burning red shirts? One year on scout team can do more to hurt a player than help their development. Players on scout team get very little instruction from the coaches and can lose more ability than develop.These kids make thousands a year in scholarships. Use them.

This logic is interesting to me. The logic is if there were leftover LO players then the team isn't his. OK then, JD has only been the coach for two or three years now and he should get three more years to make the team "his". Everyone should read that last sentence out loud to see if you feel stupid or not after reading it. How come the 2006 and 2007 teams wouldn't be his as well? Weren't there LO players left over at that time as well. The truth is, they were his teams. Brett Biggs, a JD recruit, was the reason they won the MAC. Luke Getsy played a huge part in them winning the MAC....Luke didn't transfer to UofA because of the nice climate. Alleman didn't transfer because of the nice climate as well. Kemme was a JD recruit and part of that team. JD rescued Hixon from LO's defense and put him on offense then turned him into an NFL WR....Owens didn't do that and JD should get the credit.As far as the players, did Owens produce an NFL player in his first five years? Taylor, but Faust recruited him. I really don't remember one, but they were all so easy to forget. Alleman is an NFL player. The Browns have a Zip on their team. Corner is there. Would Blackburn be in the NFL without JD?...there is no answer to that but it is always nice to have a coach and group of coaches who know NFL coaches.After this season there will be a new coach. We need one. I fully expect the team to be his on day one. There is enough talent to win and to put off winning for two or three years until the team is "his" is just stupid. I just hope the players don't throw temper tantrums and leave the team after he gets canned.Seriously guys, you don't have to come up with strange intellectual gyrations to justify firing JD. It's a waste of time. He isn't doing anything with the talent he has and will be canned at the end of the season. All the coachers will be happy until the Zips lose a game next year then they will all be back with the same logic.

When things get this bad, there is never one single problem. JD is not THE problem, but he is a big part of the problem. There is a lot of blame to go around, but the buck stops with him. He has eight more weeks to get six more wins.....

Oh, that's real classy CMichFan. I would expect that out of a school that produced a QB that passed along a letter to me to forward to one of our posters today. You can see it on another thread started by GP1. You're all a real class bunch. Learn to win with class. Your QB should be out studying...instead, he is writing letters to be posted on this board.

I agree. She is climbing the Mt. Everest of coaching problems and I think she is doing a good job. Hopefully the new AD shows some patience with her. Six years with JD is enough. JK should get at least nine.

I'm not worried about Zeke and bad passes...he'll be too busy dunking on the horrible players that the MAC call "centers" to pass. I'm not worried about him missing layups....he's 7' tall and should be getting dunks. Zeke is a HS All-American and will lay waste to this horrible conference.

Maybe my memory isn't what it use to be, but wasn't Brett Biggs #34?

Like I said, don't shoot the deliveryman.

In addition to knowing everything, the Great GP1 knows everybody. I mentioned couple of week ago that Dan LeFevour sent me an e-mail saying after the UofA vs. CMU game he was going to send me a letter to forward to Captain Kangaroo. Apparently he was upset that CK called him overrated. I logged onto my e-mail and found the letter below from Dan addressed to CK with a request to post it on ZipsNaton.org. Below is that note with my commentary after. Don’t shoot the deliveryman. Central Michigan UniversityDan LeFevourAttention: Football OfficesMount Pleasant, MI 48859September 27, 2009ZipsNation.orgAttention: Mr. Captain KangarooAkron, OH 44325Dear Mr. Kangaroo,Suck it.Sincerely, Dan LeFevourQuarterbackCentral Michigan UniversityThis letter throws me into a whirlwind of emotions and confusion. I’ll start with the emotions first.I’m absolutely appalled that a D-1A QB would send out a letter to a fan board owner. I would think Dan would not have the time on his hands to do this. The coaches should take immediate disciplinary action and make certain this does not happen again. He should just keep his mouth shut and play football. You won Dan, now walk away with some class.The other emotion is actually positive. When I was growing up, young people did not call their elders by their first names the way they do today. They called them Mr. or Mrs. It’s nice to see that Dan respects his elder in Captain Kangaroo enough to call him Mr. Kangaroo. I guess that is a positive in Dan’s favor. As a sidebar, I would be interested in knowing if the word "Captain" was earned in the military (please site branch) or if Captain Kangaroo has some eccentric parents who handed out strange first names. Let's get back to the letter though.My confusion lies in the body of the letter. I think we all know what suck means. It's a verb and a pretty easy to understand verb. The confusion is in what “it” means. I would expect a college senior to be able to write a letter with much more clarity than what we have been provided. Clearly he is not an English major. At this point we are left in a state of confusion and can only speculate as to what “it” means. I have some ideas below, but it is only speculation.Maybe “it” means his two MAC Championship rings. I don’t think that is the case though. If it was, the word usage is all wrong. “It” is singular and since Dan has two championships, the sentence would need to be, “Suck them.” "Them" being the plural in reference to his two MAC Championship rings. Maybe he was just referring to his two championships, but again it would say “Suck them” in lieu of “Suck it”.“It” could also mean his Motor City Bowl MVP Award. I doubt this as we had a game against them yesterday and that game was a long time ago and the Zips did not even play them.“It” could also mean his MAC Freshman of the Year Award, but I don’t think that is the case for the same reasoning as the previous paragraph.“It” could also mean his 2007 MAC Offensive Player of the Year Award. 2007 was a lot closer than 2006, but this also does not fit as well.Against Michigan State, Dan surpassed Byron Leftwich as the #1 all time total offense producer in the history of the MAC. Maybe he was referring to this record when he wrote “it”. With several games remaining in his college career, I don’t think he would have been referring to this record.One year he passed for over 3,000 yards and ran for over 1,000 yards being only the second player in NCAA history to do so. Vince Young was the first. I also do not believe the word “it” is in reference to this award. Dan doesn’t seem like the kind of player who is concerned with personal records.LeFevour has a career passer rating going into this season at 138.8. He also had 72 passing TDs and 32 rushing TDs going into the 2009 campaign (that’s 624 points, but who’s counting). Maybe the word “it” is in reference to one of these statistics. Again, I doubt that because I don’t think he is concerned about personal statistics.I’ve run out of ideas as to what “it” means in his letter. If anyone can help, I’m listening. Please don’t shoot the deliveryman. If I receive any more letters from Dan, I will be sure to forward them to the board.

No I don't. Thank you for your opinion. I will take it into consideration the same way I take all the other opinions on this board. This board loves my opinions....they may not like them, but everyone responds to them one way or another. The board would be borring without the Great GP1.I'm off to the Zac Brown Band concert.

Are you sure it isn't that there are a bunch of lazy people working at Sporting News, who really don't know about the teams they are ranking because they don't have time to research 50 teams, looking at the field of 64 from last year and placing them somewhere between 1 and 64?Grow that....

The answer is to bring in players who are motivated by winning. Spend time interviewing kids about their views on winning instead of showing them buildings and hoping they turn into something. Treat recruiting somewhat as an interview process. Coaches run around offering scholarships these days without ever talking to players because the NCAA forbids it. It's insane. Bring in players who were on winning teams in high school. Don't bring in players who are motivated by playing in a shiny new stadium or fieldhouse. New facilities are pretty, but they don't win....just like the players who are motivated to come to UofA because of them. If facilities are so important, how come we have a successful soccer and basketball program? I think the coaches of these teams bring in players who are focused on winning and not looking nice in their new stadium/fieldhouse. The soccer field and the JAR are substandard yet we win.I hope this simple logic as not too difficult for you to understand.

Insert GP1 foolproof Browns/Zips fan logic and you will have the answer.There is a reason Jacq was the starter....he was the best player. There is a reason Rodgers is number two...he is better than number three.If you lose your starting QB in the MAC for any reason, you're finished. The Zips are finished.

Maybe, but IU still had a long way to go late with a poor QB.Just goes to show that IU is a better team than thought. IU is good enough to go bowling.

Rankings mean nothing. It is what goes on on the court that makes a team a national power. Winning the MAC is a good start, but they need to win an NCAA game. Right now, they are not even close to becoming a national power. I go to ACC basketball games....they have national powers playing. I can assure you UofA basketball is many years away from getting to that point. I do enjoy their success, but I can't kid myself.

Why would any Akron or any school want to pigeonhole a sport. This thinking is backwards and should never be adapted as part of any strategy. Every great program at any school has cycles of great and down years. The big schools cycles are shorter. Any coach and AD should never be satisfied with one "great" program. We should in fact strive to dominate the MAC in all sports. Dr. Proenza And Tom Wistrcill said as much.I'd love us to be great in every sport as well. I just don't think it realistic. Right now, our best sports program is soccer. It is a low cost sport and something we can be great at with limited resources.

As an Ohio State fan who has seen real "out of control" behavior, I hope you have laughed in the face of anyone inferring the Zips football program is "out of control." The Zips starting QB was kicked off the team. That's disappointing, but hardly unheard of in college athletics. Indiana's starting QB was kicked off the Hoosier squad this summer. It happens. Maybe it stands out because JD has had so few character issues during his tenure?The "recruiting violation" will prove to be irrelevant. Take this to the bank -- the infraction alleged against the program has Z-E-R-O chance of losing a single scholarship. It has a realistic chance of generating no penalty whatsoever. The mainstream media sickend me with their portrayal of the Zips program this past week. Most lumped the alleged infraction along with the QB story to make it appear a coach paid the QB cash. I know this because I heard it 4 times before 9am at work Thursday, and from several people at my bowling league Thursday night. I hope when this plays-out, if the program is found clean, that the media goes after that story with as much zeal as it did with their misleading headlines last week.*Note* - This will likely be the last time I comment on this situation until the investigation is completed. The Zips problem is stopping the run with the 3-3-5. And moving the chains on offense. The other stuff is all BS. As GP1's tag line says -- "...you want it to be one way, but it's the other."CK is on fire today."The program is out of control" is the cry of idiotic sports fans around the county because it gives a person a tag line for why they should fire someone. JD should be fired for one reason and one reason only....the team isn't winning with a great deal of good MAC talent. Like CK said, play physical and stop the run. Play physical and get yards on first down.Walt Harris is working at UofA because he bought a century home in Pittsburgh that is being gutted and fixed up. He needs somewhere to live and something to do for a year. Whether JD is here or not next year, Harris will not be. You don't fix up a century home in Pittsburgh to live in Akron. Harris could consult for the Steelers or something once he gets back to Pittsburgh. He is also older than he looks and may be able to retire.

Answer: Bringing in good players year after year. Stadiums, tradition, etc. do not win games. Good players win games. Our soccer team brings in one good player after another year in and year out. Coaches come and go, but the talent remains high. Our soccer stadium has yet to win a game...the players do.Fans love football, m & w basketball, but some MAC schools get good at a sport like soccer at UofA or hockey at Miami and they really focus on those sports. Miami has gotten to the point where they use their horrible football team to fund the athletic department. They play three BCS teams and one top team in Boise State with no illusions of having a winning record. At this point, I doubt they care whether or not anyone even comes to the football games. They don't play a game on campus until October....do they really think anyone is going to drive out to Oxford to watch an 0-4 team play. They pump that BCS money into the athletic department and support a top ranked hockey team with it.UofA needs to decide what it wants to be great at. Getting great at everything at a MAC school is unrealistic. Is it football? Is it basketball? Or is it easier to maintain a top ranked program in soccer rather than "growing" the other programs that may never become top ranked.OK, then for you GP1, what brings in good players?Winning. Players that want to win go to winning programs. Players that want to play in nice stadiums, get involved in rebuilding, etc. are motivated by those reasons. We nned to do some winning in order to attract winners.I believe good soccer players come to UofA because they want to win. It sure isn't the fancy stadium they play in. It isn't the coach because we have turnover in that position.

Who in the heck names their kid Otis these days? Are we back in the 1950s?

Thanks for the history lesson grandpa. No go put your gloves back before you get chilled and wait for dinner to be served at three o'clock.Exactly what I expected from you. I used facts, I backed them up, I didn't insult you directly (I even complimented your contributions on the Zips), and you resorted to pettiness. Thank you for proving my point.My pleasure....

Answer: Bringing in good players year after year. Stadiums, tradition, etc. do not win games. Good players win games. Our soccer team brings in one good player after another year in and year out. Coaches come and go, but the talent remains high. Our soccer stadium has yet to win a game...the players do.Fans love football, m & w basketball, but some MAC schools get good at a sport like soccer at UofA or hockey at Miami and they really focus on those sports. Miami has gotten to the point where they use their horrible football team to fund the athletic department. They play three BCS teams and one top team in Boise State with no illusions of having a winning record. At this point, I doubt they care whether or not anyone even comes to the football games. They don't play a game on campus until October....do they really think anyone is going to drive out to Oxford to watch an 0-4 team play. They pump that BCS money into the athletic department and support a top ranked hockey team with it.UofA needs to decide what it wants to be great at. Getting great at everything at a MAC school is unrealistic. Is it football? Is it basketball? Or is it easier to maintain a top ranked program in soccer rather than "growing" the other programs that may never become top ranked.

I can only hope that this person is no longer on the BOT.It's funny, Owens did something completely dishonest and sneaky to call Thomas dishonest and sneaky. I wonder if JD knew about this meeting. I wonder if Thomas knew about the meeting. If so, anyone attending should have been given their walking papers the next day. Calling a meeting like that is a completely low class and unprofessional thing to do. It shows how "small" Owens really was. He'll be coaching at that piss ant little college in Ashland County forever.I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when Thomas told the team to go along with the decision or get the Hell out. The silence must have been deafening and the smell of poop in their pants was probably pretty bad as well. Thomas was the man.This topic has been completely reaffirming. I would love to know more. I love history and this is a good history lesson.

With very little publicity or desire for publicity, JT has given tens of thousands of dollars to the football program over the years.And i heard from someone in fundraising that Taylor never has given anything back. I don't know what to believe.I've heard from more than one person under more than one AD that he has given generously.