GP1

It's not really community support as much as it is fewer quality high school athletes to draw from.

I put this topic in football, but it could apply to any sport.The MAC stinks and I find this very upsetting because I love UofA and I follow MAC sports as best as I can. The conference is in a very bad way right now and I badly want this to change. There are a lot of reasons for it that make it hard for MAC schools to gain traction. Below are just a few:1. NCAA focus on BCS schools.2. Lack of alumni support at MAC schools.3. Entry level jobs for coachs and athletic department staff creating high turnover.4. The weather makes it hard to recruit.5. The population is shifting to warm weather states.I believe the above are all givens and these givens are not going to change soon. Disagree if you wish, but they are pretty obvious if you ask me and the list is cursory. Add to this incomplete list if you wish.The question is this. What can the new commissioner do to improve the league? I think about this a lot and I don't know what the answer is. At this point, I would take the new commissioner ending the bleeding. Can the new head of the MAC improve it at a faster rate than the other conferences are improving? Remember, we are behind in the race. When you are behind in a race, you need to run faster than the person in front of you just to catch up. Unless you are waiting for the person in front of you to fall down which will not happen because the NCAA has set it up so they will not fall.Let's bring this discussion around to UofA now. Should we not worry about the quality of the league and just try to be the best team in a bad conference? When I really think about it, my thoughts always end here. Let's just be the best team in a bad conference and not worry about all of the outside issues. I think this is a really positive way to look at our sports programs. Marshall never cared that they were the best team in a bad conference. They had fun winning championships and could have cared less what anyone thought of them or the MAC. In basketball, let's not try to be the Gonzaga of the east, or whatever. The worst Gonzaga team in the past ten years would have never lost to that horrible Valpo team last night. We lost. It is what it is and we are what we are. Why can't we just win the MAC? I don't care if we win the MAC and then get blown out by 50 in the first round of the NCAA.....let's just win the MAC tournament. Let the discussion begin......

Valpo was 7-20 going into the game last night. I don't care how young the Zips are or any other excuse. There is no excuse for losing that game last night.At one point, Akron had a very good lead in the first half and they blew it. Should we be surprised? NO! This is the story of UofA sports. When the basketball team loses, KD catches a lot of flack. When the football team loses, JD catches a lot of flack. When the WBB program loses, JK catches flack. Etc. Akron has been losing games like this long before any of the coaches we currently have got here. I'll say it again and again and again. At some point, the PLAYERS themselves are going to need to take control of these programs and say enough is enough and find it within themselves to win some big games.

I always like the Big Ten vs. MAC debate. I guess for me it comes down to the following questions and answers.Is the BT getting worse? The answer is yes.Is the MAC getting worse? The answer is yes.Both conferences are not nearly as good as they were even five years ago.The final question is important. Which conference is getting worse faster? IMHO, the MAC is getting worse at a far faster rate than the Big Ten is getting worse.In any case, one if these two conferences is just plain bad and getting worse. The other conference is just horrible and while hard to believe, getting worse. You can decide which of these adjectives fits which conference.

Try to see the positive. We have a high school all american coming to UofA next year and he will immediately be placed in the starting line up. If he is as good as advertised, he should be one of the best players in the MAC next season. Kids like Zeke don't grow on trees, they are just as tall as one.I would love it if Swiech, a guy who can't beat out Bardo, would transfer and come back to try to show our high school all american how basketball is played. I'm sure Zeke would welcome the opportunity to compete against Swiech.

It's Cardinal, not Cardinals. If it was Cardinals, their mascot would be something other than a giant redwood tree.Anyhow, it's not April 1, so it can't be April Fools Day. Harris is an excellent QB coach and Jacq will benefit greatly from his teaching. Long term, what does this mean? I still think one way or another, JD is finished after 2009. I don't like the idea of Montgomery being the next head coach, but I do like the idea of Harris being the next coach. Harris took Pitt to a BCS bowl the year he was FIRED from Pitt (they haven't been back to one since). He is a strange guy, but the success was there at Pitt. Harris could be the next coach at Akron.This is the second time you've said that Walt Harris was fired (or FIRED) from Pitt. I don't recall it that way. His last year at Pitt was 2004 and he was named the Big East Coach Of The Year that year. He also led Pitt to the Fiesta Bowl on 1/1/05, although they lost decisively to Urban Meyer's undefeated Utah team. According to a Pittsburgh newspaper article at that time, at the end of 2004 Harris's agent wanted Pitt to renegotiate his contract or let him go. It became a moot point when he took the Stanford job, although apparently he interviewed at Stanford without Pitt's permission. If they wanted to fire him, wouldn't they have been encouraging him to look for another coaching job? I recall that some people at Pitt were unhappy with him, but it seems unlikely that they would fire a guy who was just named the conference coach of the year and who took them to a BCS bowl. Are you sure about that? Or could it be that they "fired" him after he announced that was taking the Stanford job?You can call it whatever you want. He was basically fired at Pitt. Pitt started his last season 2-2 and the Post Gazette ran a bunch of articles on who the next coach at Pitt was going to be. Pitt had a great remainder of the season and went to a BCS game. No matter what, Pitt did not want him to come back for another year. Again, call it what you want, but he was fired.Since ALL of the stories of the time, national, Pittsburgh, and Stanford, say that he resigned, I'll call it resigned. There are too many sources to list. If you've got ANY source, even one (other than a fan blog), saying or even suggesting that he was about to be fired after being named conference coach of the year, I'd like to see it. You'd think that someone would have picked up on that story. Just trying to be fair. He's one of our guys now.Some say red, some say cardinal, some say rust colored, etc. I don't think we really disagree. Here is a story from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette saying he was forced out. In my book, forced out means fired. I am trying to be fair to Harris. He was treated horribly at Pitt and the program has not been as good since he was fired.

It's Cardinal, not Cardinals. If it was Cardinals, their mascot would be something other than a giant redwood tree.Anyhow, it's not April 1, so it can't be April Fools Day. Harris is an excellent QB coach and Jacq will benefit greatly from his teaching. Long term, what does this mean? I still think one way or another, JD is finished after 2009. I don't like the idea of Montgomery being the next head coach, but I do like the idea of Harris being the next coach. Harris took Pitt to a BCS bowl the year he was FIRED from Pitt (they haven't been back to one since). He is a strange guy, but the success was there at Pitt. Harris could be the next coach at Akron.This is the second time you've said that Walt Harris was fired (or FIRED) from Pitt. I don't recall it that way. His last year at Pitt was 2004 and he was named the Big East Coach Of The Year that year. He also led Pitt to the Fiesta Bowl on 1/1/05, although they lost decisively to Urban Meyer's undefeated Utah team. According to a Pittsburgh newspaper article at that time, at the end of 2004 Harris's agent wanted Pitt to renegotiate his contract or let him go. It became a moot point when he took the Stanford job, although apparently he interviewed at Stanford without Pitt's permission. If they wanted to fire him, wouldn't they have been encouraging him to look for another coaching job? I recall that some people at Pitt were unhappy with him, but it seems unlikely that they would fire a guy who was just named the conference coach of the year and who took them to a BCS bowl. Are you sure about that? Or could it be that they "fired" him after he announced that was taking the Stanford job?You can call it whatever you want. He was basically fired at Pitt. Pitt started his last season 2-2 and the Post Gazette ran a bunch of articles on who the next coach at Pitt was going to be. Pitt had a great remainder of the season and went to a BCS game. No matter what, Pitt did not want him to come back for another year. Again, call it what you want, but he was fired.

It's Cardinal, not Cardinals. If it was Cardinals, their mascot would be something other than a giant redwood tree.Anyhow, it's not April 1, so it can't be April Fools Day. Harris is an excellent QB coach and Jacq will benefit greatly from his teaching. Long term, what does this mean? I still think one way or another, JD is finished after 2009. I don't like the idea of Montgomery being the next head coach, but I do like the idea of Harris being the next coach. Harris took Pitt to a BCS bowl the year he was FIRED from Pitt (they haven't been back to one since). He is a strange guy, but the success was there at Pitt. Harris could be the next coach at Akron.

A kid going to Tiffin from Steubenville should not be a surprise in the future. Dave Walkosky is the coach at Tiffin and I have known him since high school. Dave was a star at Steubenville CC in high school and lettered four years at Toledo. He coached at Toledo for a long time too and I think his wife is a professor at UT. Steubenville was part of Dave's recruiting area when he was at UT.If we are recruiting guys who end up at Tiffin though, we are recruiting the wrong people.

Interesting thought. Smith is a 4-3 cover 2 guy who might not fit in at Pittsburgh. Smith will contribute next year somewhere, but he may not be a good fit for the Steelers. Could someone please check to see if DomHix is a free agent this year? If I had to decide between Smith or Hix on the Steelers, Hix would be an immediate improvement over Nate Washington. Washington is a free agent this year and they could easily replace him. With an aging Ward and Sweed who seems to have forgotten that part of his job description is catching the football, Hix would be a great fit next year and in the future. The best Hix will ever be is a #2 receiver and he could fit that bill for a long time in Pittsburgh. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea if he is indeed a free agent. He would also be a great kick returner which the Steelers really need to improve upon.I'd rather the Steelers sign a white guy personally. Anybody else agree??There is going to be a robust competition for punter next year.

Interesting hire.Good offensive coordinator, questionable head coach. Being a former head coach will give him some instant credibility with the players. The rumor was always that the players hated him, but I think that is a good thing. Show me a players coach and I'll show you a losing coach. I guess I'm leaning toward this is a good hire.He went to the MAC Championship as a head coach. He must have been doing something right. But then again, if you can squeeze out six wins in the MAC, there is a good chance you could make the championship game.

Interesting thought. Smith is a 4-3 cover 2 guy who might not fit in at Pittsburgh. Smith will contribute next year somewhere, but he may not be a good fit for the Steelers. Could someone please check to see if DomHix is a free agent this year? If I had to decide between Smith or Hix on the Steelers, Hix would be an immediate improvement over Nate Washington. Washington is a free agent this year and they could easily replace him. With an aging Ward and Sweed who seems to have forgotten that part of his job description is catching the football, Hix would be a great fit next year and in the future. The best Hix will ever be is a #2 receiver and he could fit that bill for a long time in Pittsburgh. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea if he is indeed a free agent. He would also be a great kick returner which the Steelers really need to improve upon.

This is an important question. A more important question is, If they left, would they get more playing time somewhere else?.?I'll use another Steelers analogy since I am still in a bit of a Super Bowl after-glow. The Steelers are full of a bunch of guys who could only be good playing in Pittsburgh. Put them on another team and they become very average/bad players because their skill set probably does not fit most other teams.Aren't the Zips this team? A group of guys who are specifically recruited to play in a system suited for their skill set. If they transfer, they become lesser players than they would have with Akron.Is there enough playing time to go around? In the minds of the players, probably not. That isn't a bad thing though. Keeping the players hungry for more PT is important in a competitive atmosphere.

Exactly! When the game is on the line, the QB MUST perform.I'm sorry, but when you have a 2 score lead late in the third quarter early in the fourth, and you lose the game, that's not the on the QB it's on the Defense. BGSU 23 points given up in the 4th quarter.Ohio loss, no turnovers.Both those game lost because of poor defensive play. Buffalo game lost on a bad handoff in the 4th OT. The only reason the game went to OT? Solid play for Jacquemain. Because the defense sure never stopped Willy or Starks.But yeah we'll just keep blaming poor QB play on the losses like typical NEO sports fans.Did you see the Super Bowl this year? The best defense in the NFL had their pants pulled down with 2:30 to go in the game and the QB had to bail them out. Like it or not, it is always about the QB in football. He is the guy who touches the ball every play.

Exactly! When the game is on the line, the QB MUST perform.

This is especially true in coaching. The coaching profession is full of good coaches who got fired at one point or another. Had JD stuck around Pitt for one more year, he would have been fired when Harris was fired. It is the nature of the beast.The Broncos coach was fired this year. He had won multiple Super Bowls. Does that make him a bad coach? Toledo Tom has MAC Championships under his belt, along with a few thousand dollars of Tony Pakos but that is another thread. Is he a bad coach because he basically got fired?Sometimes fans think a winning coach is a guy who holds some secret knowledge that other coaches don't have. That is not the case. The vast majority of coaches basically know the same things. It is more the case that the difference between an employed coach and an unemployed coach is the players. I've said it before and I'll say it again. 20+ years of losing has resulted in a program that has a losing attitude. Some of you can think whatever you want, but a coach is not going to make a player a winner. All a coach can do is teach a player to play. At some point, one or a group of players is going to make the program a winner when they find that attitude within themselves. Until then, the revolving door of NE Ohio coaches will continue.Some of you can rest assured though. JD is gone one way or another after next year. They can actually be a very good team. If they are, he needs to leave and go to bigger and better opportunities. If they don't, he needs to leave in order to freshen up the program. Six years at UofA, or any MAC coach, is enough.

2-3 JC players = "all those JC players". Yikes, the lack of perspective on this board is mind boggling sometimes. Assuming none of the JC players graduated after last year, that brings the total on the team to around 7. Seven is less than 10% of the team. 8 is still less than 10% of the team.I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy that said some guy told him Santa is real. I guess that means Santa is real.

Win 20 games regardless of what happens in the MAC Tournament. Keeping up a pace of 20 win seasons says the team is consistently good....not great, but good. Over the long haul, good is a good place to be. Good things happen to you when you are good.

No, they really can't.

Thanks for posting the videos DrZ. Especially the video of the loser Browns fan at the Christmas Eve blow out. Watching that never gets old. I was at that game and stayed until the last second ticked off. I sat in the club section and my wife and I were the only two people left in our entire section when the last second ticked off. What we see on this video is not cause for a multiple game suspension or even an ejection. Rough play? Yes. Penalty worthy? Yes. The real fine should be for the punter who ran around the goings on like a scared little girl. As far as I am concerned, #47 is a little bitch for allowing himself to be abused like that. The only thing missing was him falling into the UFC male on male sex position.It takes a special kind of coward to hit a man while he's down. No matter who your favorite team is you cant deny that. It sort of reminds me of this:Looked to me like Harrison was doing his job. The play is still going on in the background and Harrison is aggressively blocking his man during the play. With the exception of the punch (and a lame punch at that), it looks to be a legal play to me. Harrison gets paid to play football from whistle to whistle. His job is to block #47 during that time period. #47's job is to get up off of the ground and run down the field to tackle the guy that plays on Harrison's team. One guy did his job, the other guy failed at his job. It's the NFL, not some pee wee league where everyone gets a chance and nice guys do indeed finish first. The NFL is a league for savage beasts who get paid to savagely beat up on the guys they are playing against. Harrison understands that. He is the savage beast every team wishes they had.

Thanks for posting the videos DrZ. Especially the video of the loser Browns fan at the Christmas Eve blow out. Watching that never gets old. I was at that game and stayed until the last second ticked off. I sat in the club section and my wife and I were the only two people left in our entire section when the last second ticked off. What we see on this video is not cause for a multiple game suspension or even an ejection. Rough play? Yes. Penalty worthy? Yes. The real fine should be for the punter who ran around the goings on like a scared little girl. As far as I am concerned, #47 is a little bitch for allowing himself to be abused like that. The only thing missing was him falling into the UFC male on male sex position.

I think there's something to this comment.See also (perhaps soon): Akron Men's Basketball - Defense. Individually, not all of these guys are exemplary one on one defenders (Conyers & Linhart the noted exceptions). As a team however, there have been flushes of phenomenal defense .. and it's showing up statistically .. and in the win column.Nice post GP1.Good points.Discipline runs throughout the Steelers organization. The owner knows what he wants his team to do and demands it throughout the organization. He could really care less what they say about him in the media or on web pages. He is more than willing to cut a fan favorite (see Joey Porter) if he feels the player is almost past his prime (they replaced Porter with Defensive Player of the Year Harrison). He drafts young players behind veterans who may be getting long in the tooth and he does not care if the veteran likes it or not. He built his team years ago, now he maintains the greatness through keeping his identity in tact. Moving this to Zips MBB. We all know how much I hate the talk of "building" on this board. As far as the MBB team is concerned, KD has built, not is building, a good program. The program is always going to function in degrees of "good". They will not become average and they will probably never become great. Good is an excellent place to be over the long haul (see the Steelers). Right now, the Zips miss that one player, the Roethlisberger type guy, who can bring it all together. Zeke is a HS All American. I expect him to immediately move the program to a championship contender again next year. If the Zips were an NFL team this year, they would be considered a playoff contender, but not a team that could win the Super Bowl (the Eagles are a team like this). Next year, they should be a "Super Bowl contender" as far as college basketball goes with Zeke on the team. When fans think of the future, they should not think in terms of building. Building means there is a lot missing. Zips basketball fans should think in terms of "maintaining". The Zips need to maintain a team that can compete for the championship year in and year out. Zips fans should understand this and accept that there will be a year here or there (two years ago the Steelers didn't come close to making the playoffs) where the team does not meet expectations but they still function in the "good" range of teams. Over the long haul in the MAC, good is good......great is unreasonable......average is unacceptable.Speaking of the value of discipline. When Warner fumbled on the last play of the game (the NFL confirmed yesterday that it was a fumble), the Steelers were so well coached and disciplined that they sprinted their offense on the field and got off the snap at the ready to play signal before they could signal for a replay. NBC almost missed the play showing the replay of the Warner fumble. Most entire teams would have run onto the field resulting in a penalty. The Steelers played to the end of the 60th minute and secured the victory. That's discipline. That's the Steelers organization.

What do you mean? A keg of Natural Light can't be that expensive. She wouldn't want any dinner because she wouldn't want to take up any beer space. Try to think of the positives.

I beg to differ on this comment. You can trade me your not-so-talented team for mine anyday.Your team is very talented. They just pick players with great talent that would be better playing in another system. They have an identity problem more than anything else. Your team has far too much talent to miss the playoffs. The blame really falls on the owner who probably can't admit that running an NFL team is not as easy as he thought it would be and he is in over his head. I guess I may be too hard on the Steelers talent level. They probably have a very high average talent level on the team. They keep that average up with a lot of "good" players, but not if any "great" players (with the exception of Ben). Too many teams get 3-4 great players and surround them with bums and they can't understand why they can not win.

There is only one statistic you need to look at with Ben. That statistic is wins. When the game is on the line, he comes through.I am a Steelers fan and I watch every game start to finish. They are not that talented of a team, but when you put it all together with a winner at the helm, you end up winning. Santanio Holmes would not be the #1 receiver on a lot of teams. Hines Ward is slow and old. Nate Washington only catches half the passes that hit his hands. Sweed........he is just awful.The Steelers won 12 games with Mewelde Moore starting at rb for a lot of the season. He was a cast off from the Vikings.Ben has 9 more years left on his contract. If he continues to win the way he does, the HOF is certain.