GP1

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.

The job of the commissioner is not to increase the talent level in the MAC. That is the job of the schools themselves. The only school I would like to see increase their talent level in the MAC is UofA so we can be an even better team. I like being the best team in a bad conference.I'm not sure what the commissioner can do to force big programs to visit MAC campuses (is that even a word?...not sure). Any program with a huge name would require a game in Cleveland.

I disagree.I loved parking in the Rubber Bowl lot. It really turned into a great party spot within the last 5-or-so years. What will be lost, tailgating-wise, is the ability to park wherever you want, however you want. The ability to be really obnoxious and have such ample spacing amongst fans that no one really cared if you were obnoxious. The ability to play football, golf, beer pong, whatever, without limits. All that was unique to the Rubber Bowl and is lost. But that's the price of moving up. Paying a premium to park an RV is VERY common at football games. I still think people will drink, play corn hole, cook out, play music and whoop it up @ Infocision. I know I will. For those students who want the beer pong, funnels, 110 decibel music etc, they will need to party in someone's off campus back yard, then walk to the game. That's the way it is done everywhere else.Well i wasn't necessarily complaining about paying for the RV. I just was asking if anyone knew the price.But i have a feeling that they will crack down on fun times and keep it from being a true college tailgate. And beer pong and beer bongs ARE part of tailgating. What's going to happen to my 20 foot beer bong?!That must have been the work of future engineers.

If it is, it will be the first intellectual thread on parking this board has ever had.....

5-5? Probably 5-7..... JD has had to play more difficult schedules, but there is still to much losing.....with the exception of the MAC Championship game of course.

2005...... I guess. This topic should actually be the "Golden Year" for UofA.2003 and 2004, would we have broken 50% wins without I-AA teams.

Interesting background.Both real experience in marketing and leadership positions. Sounds good enough to me. Let's see how he does. OK, I can't resist. It appears as if he has extensive experience marketing and leading Dollar General-like organizations. Division III and II are probably worse than Dollar General. Professional volleyball? If he has a track record of success marketing these groups, he can market the MAC. I say good luck Sir!

Wrong on all three counts. Can't is our rival and it is good for us to play them every year.BG and Toledo have a long standing rivalry that is good for the MAC so they stay.EMU is a Ohio/Michigan school and geographically makes sense.The three to go are Buffalo, Temple and NIU. I'm not sure why one MAC Championship makes Buffalo a good long term program for the MAC. As soon as the coach leaves, the winning will follow.NIU is not part of th Ohio/Michiagan group. They go. They aren't really a good fit for the MAC geographically. Sorry NIU.Temple. They don't really want to be here anyhow so they can be gone. They are an eastern school that needs to find an eastern conference to take them. The MAC takes schools that nobody else wants and Temple was one of those schools. Given the choice between A-10 BB or MAC football, they would take BB.None of these schools have a rivalry either so they can go. Then we still have the Akron vs Can't, BG vs Toledo, OU vs Miami, Michigan schools vs each other and well there's poor BSU out there, but they are a good fit for the conference.

Getting traded from Miami to KC has to be.....well.....depressing. KC is a horrible team. Maybe they can do some good there.