GP1

Decent enough OOC schedule. Based upon the performance of the MAC in OOC and bowl games last season, we should start off the season a solid 1-4. The only way we go 2-3 is if Cincinnati is really the fraud I think they were. Mauk was one and done at that school. Now that Mauk is gone, Cincinnai may just be just plain done.I'm much more interested in the MAC West teams we have to play. We seem to get the short end of the stick in that part of the schedule. How about a break with EMU for a change?

I will be in Denver tonight and will be watching games at the ESPN Zone. Is the Akron game on any TV feed? GoZips.com shows none, but that may just be local tv.

You're not getting it....read closely and use the force.

Most of you were probably there, so I will tell you all how Bubba came to cry like a little girl. I had to watch the replay a couple of times on ESPNU to see it.After dribbling down and taking an off balance shot from Buchtel Avenue, he tumbles to the ground and his little thin pencil neck is not able to support the Rock of Gibraltar sized skull on top of it. His head snaps back hitting the ground. Normally, I don't like to see a player get hurt, but this did bring a smile to my face. As far as his crying, I am so absolutely fed up with watching adults cry after losing a game, I could just throw up. It's so unsportsman like.

I don't know how many watched the game on TV, but it looked really good. I could tell there were empty seats at the end, but the average person across the country probably couldn't tell. Let's hope good crowds continue.

Do you guys think this Humpty kid will ruin the image and the style that we're used to?

Any win against someone in the division is a big win regardless of how it looked. Great job Zips!

I watched the game last night. Bubba absolutely stinks. Someone please answer the following question....How did Bubba dupe one D-1A school into giving him a scholarship, let alone two? That guy is a waste of a scholarship. One of the best days of Coach D's career must have been when Bubba came in to tell him he was transfering.

All the good stuff comes after I leave....The best left though. You may remember that it was possible to buy beer in the Chuckery. The new student union does not offer beer.

I'll give you guys four good reasons this four star player should sign at UofA.1. Antonio Bryant2. Larry Fitzgerald3. Dom Hixson4. JA12Anywhere JD goes, WRs land in the NFL...or in JA12's case, he will have a shot.

I love this topic. Most of my response will be about football. I actually think the Tuesday/Wednesday games on ESPNW(whatever) have been horrible for the quality of product the MAC presents. I kid about the MAC being like Dollar General (it is) and I believe these games are contributing to the bad product on the field.Most importantly, football players like a certain mental rythm during the week. What I mean is Monday/Thursday maybe helmets and shoulder pads...Tuesday/Wednesday full pads/full contact....Friday shorts and t-shirts. Saturday a game and getting really drunk after the game. These games break the rythm by moving games from Saturday to whenever they air. There are times when a team plays Saturday and then has to turn around and play Wednesday. That's not enough time for a young man to mentally prepare for a game and the quality declines. There are also times when a game becomes more than a week away....that's too long between games and I think the players become complacent and the quality declines.If the MAC wants to improve the quality of product on the field, it needs to go back to Saturday only games. Stop the 6:00 starts as well. The probability of rain is greater in the evening during the fall than during the day. Allow people to get out of the house in the afternoon to enjoy the sun. There is such little sun in Ohio that people would enjoy the afternoon sitting outside. It does the league no good to play on national TV during the week and have the teams play like crap. If the MAC plays like crap on national TV, the rest of the country will think the product is crap. People are not stupid, they don't want to spend their money on crap.

I don't know how many of you watched the game yesterday (probably a lot), but Hixson and Blackburn made good contributions to the Giants victory. Hixson especially. Hixson had a runback to around the 50 and Blackburn made a good block for him to gain an extra 10-15 yards. Good job guys!My team is the Steelers and these two would look great in Black and Gold next year. Just about anyone would look good in Black and Gold compared to the effortless dolts they have covering kicks right now and Dom is a better kick returner than anyone they have.Most importantly, another week in the playoffs = more money, more money, more money.

I think the Zips are going to wipe their butts with toilet paper made out of soft Bobcat kitten fur tonight......and not the harsh toilet paper an OU student would make out rolling papers.Zips win big!

I think a more realistic scenario is they don't know what they are doing, or they don't have a real grasp of what players have done.As far as them eventually getting in, former NFL Zips should be the first in line. Especially if they have graduated. In almost every case, NFL experience is an indication of the quality of a player.There is no defense for John not getting in yet.Maybe you could give them a call or send them a letter outlining your concerns. I remember Buddenberg as an outstanding player also and I'm sure he deserves consideration. Most of the members are older, but I don't think they lack a grasp of Zips sports history. You could always volunteer your services to the nominating commitee and that would give you some insight into the selection process. Buddenberg was a good OL. How he isn't there is beyond me. I believ ehe was a 10th round pick, when there still were 12 rounds in the NFL draft. One of our better OL ever at UA.It was the 10th round. How many people even know that the Browns were the team that drafted him?The University wouldn't know because the media guide is wrong about his career. John played for Cleveland for two years, the Steelers for one and Atlanta for three. I think he played his CFL time with Sacramento when they had teams in the United States.

A playoff system has basically made every other divisions regular season irrelevant. The same 12 teams make it every year and they mix in four different teams periodically.The issue nobody ever addresses when discussing playoffs is what the NCAA would do to level the playing field between those who make the playoffs and those who do not. The NFL does this through scheduling, draft picks and salary caps to name a couple of big ones. The NCAA has no mechanism to do this. An unlevel playing field is the reason why the same teams make it in every year in the other divisions. The advantages they have are recruiting and practice time. Practice time is the most important to the future of the program, at least for the next season. Why is practice time important? Let's face it, a playoff is the end of bowls just like the 64 team NCAA BB Tournament has made the NIT a joke. The bowls would go away. Teams making the playoffs would have additional time to develop their young players during the playoff period for the following season. A guy who works for me played for Clemson long ago and said that at their bowl game practices this year they spent at least 30 minutes per practice with the red shirts and second/third team players in full contact drills to evaluate and coach them. The further you make it into a playoff, the better chance you have of developing the team for the next year; thus creating the advantage between the teams that make the playoffs and those that do not.If there was a playoff, how do you correct this advantage? Great question again GP1! Limit scholarships? NO, this solution is too punitive. The trick is to only impact the playoff teams the year after making the playoffs and not years down the road. Here is my solution. I've never seen this idea anywhere so I think it may be original. Limit spring practices based upon how deep into the playoffs you go. 16 team playoff equals four weeks. Increase spring practice from 15 to 20 practices and an 11 game season (15 are way too few practices so the NCAA created the farce of a 12th game giving five extra practices in the fall in lieu of spring with a I-AA team or MAC team waiting at the end of the week).The more a team advances in the playoffs, the fewer spring practices they get. If you make the playoffs, you only get 15 spring practices, those that don't make it get all 20. If you win one playoff game, you only get 10 spring practices. If you make it to the final four, you only get 5 spring practices. If you make the championship game, you get none.

I think a more realistic scenario is they don't know what they are doing, or they don't have a real grasp of what players have done.As far as them eventually getting in, former NFL Zips should be the first in line. Especially if they have graduated. In almost every case, NFL experience is an indication of the quality of a player.There is no defense for John not getting in yet.

http://www.gozips.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_...;ATCLID=1365302If John Buddenberg is already in the HOF, please disregard this rant. Before the rant though, congratulations to everyone inducted.John Buddenberg was the best offensive lineman to ever play at Akron.....hands down. He has six years of NFL experience and I believe three years in the CFL for nine professional years total. Why isn't he in the Varsity A HOF? It's absolutely shameful if he isn't.How good was he GP1? Great question! In 1988, we played Auburn. At the time, Auburn had a All American defensive end named Tracy (sp?) Rocker. They were ranked #12 at the time. John played Rocker one-on-one for the majority of the game and did not surrender a tackle or sack that day.After his NFL career, he came back to school full time to finish his degree. I believe it is an E. Engineering degree. This person should be in the HOF.Community involvement? Well, he coached his sons little league football team to the state championship game last fall.Local? Of course, lives in Stark County.Further evidence as to why the Varsity A should be absorbed by the University and taken out of the hands of volunteers. They all mean well, but this is Division I-A sports and we need to behave as such. I'd challenge anyone to go out and find one Division I-A school that has a varsity association is run by volunteers.....and we wonder why we don't go anywhere......or that there is no money......... A wise poster from this board once said to me, more than once, at an Akron game, "It's Bush League all the way..." It sure as Hell is.

You should have just stopped right there. And who's Pat Summitt?I know you are just kidding, but Pat Summitt is the John Wooden of women's college basketball. I generally don't like women's sports, but I do like to use the word "winner" to describe one. Pat Summitt is a WINNER if there ever was one.

Sports PickleThe Sports Pickle has some fun at the expense of the MAC.....and Purdue for that matter. Toward the bottom right of the front page.

Great idea! No go out and find the boosters. We can't fund what we do now. It is going to take more than a few boosters to get the Athletic Department to where it needs to be.

That's the truth. Maybe we're in over our heads in football. March madness is way better than the bowls. I wouldn't mind putting more emphasis on basketball.Thanks.I could write the exact same post about MAC basketball.I love the bowls, but we have only made one. I love MM, but we never make it. We're always "building" to get there though. That's all MAC schools do is build for the future. Big on building, little in results.

Thanks!I could have gone on all day.

The MAC is bad and getting worse. The week night games are not helping the quality of product on the field. Most schools have too small of a fan base to really compete. The league looks foolish in bowl games and any bowl committee not looking into getting out of their affiliation with the MAC would be a committee full of crazy people (with the exception of the Motor City Bowl). Scheduling is at best poor as the schools do nothing but allow themselves to be practice games for BCS conference schools. Our conference champion lost by 50+ to Clemson which plays in an average conference (ACC) that they could not even win their division.Today is a sad day for the MAC. I would go as far as to say CMU could not beat App. State, which leads me to a point I hate to make......The MAC is a I-AA conference and the commissioner should call an immediate meeting of all MAC Athletic Directors to discuss the future of the MAC as a I-AA conference (it would not hurt basketball). The ADs wouldn't do it because it would look bad on their resumes, but that's what they should do.Sorry to be so negative, but I did not see much positive in MAC football this season. All trends point to it getting worse.Have a nice day everyone.

My understanding is Mr. Taylor has been more than generous with his donations to UofA. Far more than any other Zip ever to play in the NFL now or in the past.

The one thing I remember the most about listening to sports radio in NE Ohio was listening to Brenda talk about the mentality of NE Ohio sports fans. He always talked about them living in a constant state of wanting to build something; when in fact, they needed to stop the endless cycle of building and start winning. If a coach doesn't win in two years, fire the coach, tear it all down and rebuild. If that coach doesn't win in two years, do the same thing again. Etc., etc., etc. That gets me to my point.If Akron can get their hands on a JUCO QB that is immediately better than CJ11, they should get him. I'll say the same thing about the Zips as I said about the Browns after Week 1 (I'm not even a Browns fan). The Browns had too many good players on that team to be as bad as they were Week 1. All they needed was a QB change that could take advantage of the talent on the team. With that one change, the Browns went from a team in endless building mode to a playoff contender and one that can see some hope. Welcome to the big leagues Browns...we'll see if you can keep it up.I'll say the same thing about the Zips. There is too much talent on that team to wait for a freshman QB (CJ11) to maybe or maybe not develop and lead the team to a championship down the road at some point maybe. Please don't anyone get hyper-sensitive over about what I am about to type, but we went down the exact same road with Frye and I don't want to go down that road again. His first two seasons, the team went 4-7. Season three, they load up on two horrible I-AA teams and went 7-5 (5-5 against I-A teams). A lot of you got all tweedlefluttered after that season, but basically they got Owens fired after that season (See the sports section fromt he ABJ, November 17, 2003 and you will see a guy, Mike Thomas, who completely understood how bad the team was and how unimpressive that record was. Actually, see the quote at the bottom of this post.). Season four, without putting Biggs in the starting lineup, that team goes 3-8 or 4-7 again. With Biggs, they go 6-5 with a shot at the championship game until losing to that QB machine Betts from Miami the last game (I can't believe I typed that even jokingly. By the way, Betts has a Super Bowl ring. God, that makes my head hurt). The following year, with Biggs and a QB that didn't fold in big games, they win six games and win the conference. Miracle, no. Nothing happens by chance.Certainly most of you watched a lot of football this holiday season. I would hope that all of you now know what I have been saying for years on this board. It all starts with the QB. Teams with good QBs win...teams with bad QBs don't win. CJ7 wasn't the answer I though he would be, but I also don't think CJ11 is the answer either. At least I'm not willing to wait for CJ11. We need a seasoned QB to come in here and win games.Stop building, start winning. There is talent on the team that needs to be utilized. The OL was good, the TEs were good, the running backs were the best pair ever, the guys on defense are talented but playing in that horrible 3-3-5 defense. The only thing lacking is the QB. Let's get someone at QB that can take advantage of the talent that is there. This is season five for JD. It is a make or break season regardless of whether or not there is a new stadium. The new stadium is insignificant to what has to happen next year. He needs to win next year. The question is also, do you people want to win or do you just want to continue the endless building?Quote by Mike Thomas: "Even in winning seven games this season, I did not believe the program was on the right path for long-term success," Thomas said. "We were 5-5 against Divisioin I-A opponents with 17 starters returning, including 11 on offense, with the easiest schedule in the conference and possibly the easiest schedule in the country for a Division I-A program." ABJ, November 17, 2003, by David Lee Morgan Jr. Everyone should read this article so you understand everything that was wrong with the program then. Mike Thomas was the only person in the program at the time who had a clue as to how bad they were. The players' quotes show how absolutely clueless they were.