GP1

Save the money on classes. Here is all the marketing they need to know.There is a thing on the desk called a "telephone". Use this magical device to make appointments to speak to every group you can possibly get in front of to promote ticket sales for football, MBB and WBB. Further, use that time to raise money for the scholarship fund and build the donor base. Speakers should include....The AD, JD, KD and Coach Kest. Selling tools should include literature (recent literature has actually been pretty good). In the past, they have counted on literature to "sell" the program for them. Literature is a tool to help sell in person. Mailers traditionally have about a 1%-2% response rate. Following literature with face to face contact should result in at least a 10%-15% response rate. Give people a reason to buy and they will. Get in front of the community and put a face on the program.Billboards don't work. They are cheap for a reason. You get what you pay for.Stick with TV and radio. Especially TV if they can afford it. If your coaches are out speaking, customers connect the person on TV with the person in the room speaking with them. The three coaches I mentioned above are all good public speakers and likeable. Use that to your advantage. Schedule the times for them as they are very busy.Class over.

I think my attitude about the program and the MAC is right in line with reality. I love the Zips, but I can't pretend the Zips or the MAC are something they are not. Maybe if the program hasn't been so shitty for so long, my attitude wouldn't be so shitty. It's time for the players on this team to take control of the program and say enough is enough.As far as the book, the cover of the book proves the great GP1 is like a fine wine. He keeps getting better with age.

Answer: Nothing......In fact, with the exception of one 7-3-1 season long ago now and one MAC Championship over the past 20 odd years, we have not done anything to deserve respect. Respect is earned, not given. This team can be very good this year. The talent is there. The problem is that the players playing for the Zips don't have a track record of coming through in the clutch. I don't see that changing this year. I'll wait for one of the 50 prediction threads that will pop up over the next couple of weeks, but I don't see good things ahead for the Zips this season. When posting the prediction thread, please post the schedule as well starting with the sentence....."Given the schedule below (post schedule below), what is your prediction for the 2009 season." Yay! More self deficating "we suck and we'll always suck" comments. Soon to come fromg GP1 "MAC is 'toilet bowl' football" and "all you dumb Browns fans"; also don't miss "even my wife thinks the MAC stinks" and "we are a mid-level program in a toilet conference". I just hate to be misquoted. I've never said the MAC is "toilet bowl football"........it's "Dollar General football".Let's see, stupid Browns fans....check. My wife thinks it stinks......check. Mid level team in a toilet conference.....wrong......we are a mid level team in a third tier conference.The point is this. If we want to be considered a good team, we need to earn it with winning. I don't see how that is a put down. The fact is, we have almost never been a very good team and that needs to change. The players need to get it done this season. We can't pretend to be something we aren't or we will never be able to change what we are.

Answer: Nothing......In fact, with the exception of one 7-3-1 season long ago now and one MAC Championship over the past 20 odd years, we have not done anything to deserve respect. Respect is earned, not given. This team can be very good this year. The talent is there. The problem is that the players playing for the Zips don't have a track record of coming through in the clutch. I don't see that changing this year. I'll wait for one of the 50 prediction threads that will pop up over the next couple of weeks, but I don't see good things ahead for the Zips this season. When posting the prediction thread, please post the schedule as well starting with the sentence....."Given the schedule below (post schedule below), what is your prediction for the 2009 season."

Scholarship player or walk on?

It is interesting when talking about team captains, Alex Allen comes up first (not a surprise) then JD made a comment about 4 OL and named a few others. Jacq wasn't one of them. For a QB who is going to be a 3rd year starter and is a senior, I was surprised.Maybe Jacq is just what he is. I still like the idea of a senior QB. The MAC is a high scoring league and points are hugely important. In a lot of leagues, that would mean the last one with the ball wins the game. In the MAC, the mindset should be, "the last one to make a mistake loses". Jacq can't be the last one to make a mistake.

Here is the question. It is the job of the coach to retain good players, but with every organization there is a degree of turnover that happens naturally. So what is an acceptable turnover rate? If we cut our turnover rate down to 4 per year and then the next year they have 5, then the "the program is going in the wrong direction so fire the coachers" (these are the same people in corporate America who have Six Sigma black belts or Browns fans) pop up their heads in an effort to try to be right about something. I think losing five scholarship players in a season is within the "acceptable" category of turnover for a football program.It is silly to believe there aren't going to be a couple of players a year who flunk out. UofA does not have the resources to keep every player from flunking out. It is also silly to believe there aren't going to be a couple of players a year who want to leave UofA because they just don't like the school or are unhappy for what ever personal reason they may have. Some may just not want to play football anymore and they stay in school because they like it at UofA. The turnover rate will NEVER be zero and some people need to get over that.

You Browns fans are funny. A guy flunks out....the coach stinks. A guy misses field goals....his coach stinks. A player continues to throw ints in the red zone....the coach stinks. At what point are the players to blame? The players are adults getting paid (yes, a scholarship is real money worth thousands a year) and they need to start earning their money. One thing I know for sure. We are on our third coach in the D-1A era and one thing remains the same....the PLAYERS don't perform in key situations over and over again. Let's fire the coach though....I'm sure the fourth coach can solve it. If not, we'll hire a fifth coach.If the Zips don't win at least seven games this year, I'll be the first one to open the door for JD to leave. At some point, the players themselves must start to perform. Coaches don't really get coaches fired unless they get caught having sex with female interns, etc. It's the players that get them fired. If the Zips don't win at least seven games this year with the talent on that team, it is the fault of the players and not the coaches. JD will pay the price, but that is just the way it goes in sports. Maybe we are just a losing program and the players themselves have passed on losing from one generation to another. Many will say that if you peel our onion of losing, there is more to the problem when you get through the various layers. In my experience, things are almost always as they appear to be. When you peel an onion, you get more onion. When we peel the onion of our losing, we just get more onion. We tried new coaches and the onion remains the same. New ADs and the onion remains the same. New fieldhouse and the onion remains the same. We'll see if the next layer of onion, the new stadium, reveals anything other than more onion this coming season. No coach in the world can change the onion.The best thing we have going for us is we are part of an even worse onion in the MAC. Try peeling that onion since 1948........Uhhh, I asked did his coach suck. I didn't say his coach sucked. There is a big difference...Could you at least have the balls to stand behind what you write? We all know what you mean, so do what the Great GP1 has done for years and stand behind what you write. Honest to God, your comment reminds me of a guy who farts in a crowded room, blames it on someone else and then lecturers the room on the evils of farting in a crowded room.

Thank you for your sane opinion. People are sitting on boards comparing recruiting classes to rosters on gozips so they can cast another stone at the coach is really silly. This season, like you said, is all about wins and not comparison charts of who is here and who isn't here. Of the 2008 class, only 8% are gone. Let's say the Zips average three players per year leaving the team for whatever reason. That's only 12 players over a four year period. Let's say there are 80 scholarships, 12 is 15% of 80. That's not very many in the grand scheme of things. Players come and go. 15% is like losing a little over 2 players from the BB team a year. The numbers they are dealing with in football are much greater than any other sport so while losing 3-5 players may seem like a lot, it really isn't because the overall numbers are so large.

You Browns fans are funny. A guy flunks out....the coach stinks. A guy misses field goals....his coach stinks. A player continues to throw ints in the red zone....the coach stinks. At what point are the players to blame? The players are adults getting paid (yes, a scholarship is real money worth thousands a year) and they need to start earning their money. One thing I know for sure. We are on our third coach in the D-1A era and one thing remains the same....the PLAYERS don't perform in key situations over and over again. Let's fire the coach though....I'm sure the fourth coach can solve it. If not, we'll hire a fifth coach.If the Zips don't win at least seven games this year, I'll be the first one to open the door for JD to leave. At some point, the players themselves must start to perform. Coaches don't really get coaches fired unless they get caught having sex with female interns, etc. It's the players that get them fired. If the Zips don't win at least seven games this year with the talent on that team, it is the fault of the players and not the coaches. JD will pay the price, but that is just the way it goes in sports. Maybe we are just a losing program and the players themselves have passed on losing from one generation to another. Many will say that if you peel our onion of losing, there is more to the problem when you get through the various layers. In my experience, things are almost always as they appear to be. When you peel an onion, you get more onion. When we peel the onion of our losing, we just get more onion. We tried new coaches and the onion remains the same. New ADs and the onion remains the same. New fieldhouse and the onion remains the same. We'll see if the next layer of onion, the new stadium, reveals anything other than more onion this coming season. No coach in the world can change the onion.The best thing we have going for us is we are part of an even worse onion in the MAC. Try peeling that onion since 1948........

Whatever happened to Kemme? Last I saw he was signed with the Lions in the spring, but he is no longer on the depth chart. No other news on Google.

Speaking of Zips in the NFL, has anyone noticed that Hixon is in two prominent ads this year on TV. So prominent I can not remember the companies (shame on me). One is of him catching a TD pass against Seattle and the other actually is of him without a helmet in a commercial he had to have been called in to do. I hope he is making good money for doing this. He has earned it. I could be totally off, but I believe one ad is for the NFL Network and the other is for a video game.?... Anyhow.....

Did they flunk out or just leave the team?

I am sure his dad is out pimping his son to other message boards right now. He was on all kinds of boards saying how interested his son was in each of the schools.He went to Eastern or Western Kentucky.

Good catch. Well done....haha I mean no offense, but you all look pretty stupid calling it the forward.We've all looked much more stupid on other topics. See the latest posts on the scoreboard and light poles. Our Hall of Fame stupidity is resides in our parking posts.

Good catch. Well done....

Gradkowski out played him in NFL terms. Gradkowski and Frye both had a TD. Gradkowski had 18 yards/completion vs. Frye's 11.5. One of the most important statistics in the NFL is yards per attempt. Gradkowski had 10 yards/attempt vs. Frye's 6.6 yards/attempt.Completing passes down field is how you win in the NFL. Unless Frye turns this around, he will be on the outside looking in.

I could care less whether or not Tressel wrote the forward. I guess the only argument against it is Dennison being the best choice. The argument against that is a book lasts forever and 25 years from now Tressel will no longer be at tOSU and Dennison will only be remembered as the guy who once coached at Akron. Using Tressel is more forward looking.In the end, publishers publish to make money. Like it or not, the Tressel name will sell books. In fact, if I published the book, I would mention that Tressel wrote the forward or introduction or whatever he wrote on the cover. Seems we are making a mountain out of a molehill to me. The NCAA is the real enemy, not larger conferences and the teams within them.

In all seriousness, I've thought about writing a book about UofA football during the D-1A years. Maybe it's just me and my fondness of UofA, but I think it would be an extremely interesting topic in a way that goes beyond just Zips football to community support, short sighted administrators, interpersonal relationships of the players stuck in a losing program, the value of good media relations, how not to market a product, the cancer of unrealistic expectations, a team on the verge of becoming really good and then absolutly stinking within two years, excellent young coaches that went on to high level college and even the NFL, etc. I don't know if the book I would write would be interesting, but at least the topic would be. I could get players from the period of transition from I-AA to I-A to give reflective thoughts on the times and then connect those dots up until today and the new stadium.The past 22 years have been intersting for UofA football. Losing has been the norm, but the book wouldn't be negative either. There are some feel good stories over the years. How about a chapter on loyal UofA fans that have sat through some horrible games over the years and continue to come back for more? One was such a masochist that he started a web page in a period when nobody in their right mind would have gone to UofA football games (I'm not in a right mind so I was going as well). ZipsWin! has actually created a situation in the time of his kids life when all kids think their parents are strange and want nothing to do with them that they actually want to spend time with their parents at games.......this is a positive story.I believe the UofA football story over the past 22 years has been very interesting on some level. We could probably be the most interesting losing team during this time period. Seriously, think about it...we might be the most interesting losing team over the past 22 years. I don't know what word would describe it other than "interesting". I don't know of many schools that have made the transition to I-A that have had so much stacked against it and has had so many odd things happen, yet it is about to come out the other side of the worm hole in good shape.This could be a really good book. Too bad I'm too busy to write it.

On the cover of this book is a color team photo. That photo is of the 1987 Zips which was the first season in D-IA.

Today I saw a guy doing what I thought was drilling for gold. Then I realized he was just picking his nose while driving his car....

Trends define a program.....we are what we are.I'm hoping to reverse the trend this year.

That's the key...... Not only "can the coaches do something with the talent", can the talent come through in critical time of the game. This is what the Zips have been lacking for the past 20 odd years.

I agree. Someone start a thread on parking.........

I saw CK's post on another topic about the scoreboard and I had to come over here to see what tapestry of stupidity was being woven on this topic. Just when I thought the arguments about parking at the Rubber Bowl (it was a freaking grass field for Christ's sake) were about as stupid as we could get on this board, I find a two page debate about the scoreboard and the light poles. The parking debates and complaints still reign supreme, but this debate is a VERY close second.Who is complaining that the steel looks cheap on the scoreboard? What the Hell are they supposed to support it with and frame it in with? Concrete at about 50 times the cost of steel? Frame the scoreboard with anti-gravity material they use on the Enterprise? Keep in mind, the stadium had to come in within budget. The steel looks just fine. It matches the rest of the stadium that is framed with......steel.The light poles. Let's see..... a light pole consists of the two following features:1. Lights2. A poleI look at the picture and what do I see, lights...check, pole.....check. What is the freaking problem? They successfully joined the two elements in the creation of a "light pole". At about 100 times the cost of the steel pole, that matches the rest of the stadium, maybe they could have created concrete poles (they could have consulted the guy who designed Rex's Erection in Cuyahoga Falls). I love the argument, "the scoreboard doesn't look good from Exchange". Exchange doesn't look good from Exchange. It is full of college students and bums. The back of the scoreboard is the best looking thing on exchange. It's the back of a scoreboard for crying out loud, not a work of art.