GP1

Agreed!This nonsense has gone back to one of the greatest myths about UofA sports and that is Huggins would have stayed at Akron of Faust was not hired.There are actually a few good myths about UofA sports. Perhaps a topic is in order...even a poll.

Disagreed and here's why. I think a big problem JD has run into with recruiting SO MANY kids from Florida is that they come from a different world and many times (not all the time) have discipline and attitude problems. From players I've talked to the unity that used to exist on this team is just not there anymore. Good points, but if the kids want more unity, they should join a fraternity. If they want to hold hands and sing "We Are The World", they should join a commune in California. This is a major college football team and not a love fest.There is not enough Division 1-A talent in Ohio for OSU, Akron, OU, BGSU, Can't State, Toledo, Miami and Cincinnati to field top notch teams year in and year out. How did all of that team unity and discipline work out for Ohio State when they were getting their asses kicked by Florida last Monday?We went throught the "bring in local kids" nonsense with Lee Owens and it was a disaster.

The answer to the question of "JD should..." is, get the best players possible on the field regardless of where they are from.

If you allow people to sit wherever they want, then they will feel entitled to sit wherever they want. When the new stadium is built, they will feel entitled to sit in the reserved sectiion even if they didn't pay for it because like a child they will say, "but we did it at the Rubber Bowl". If people want to sit in reserved seats, they should pay to sit in them. It's not much more money to sit in reserved than GA. The Univeristy needs to break the culture of entitlement.

http://www.dispatch.com/prep/preps.php?sto...0111-E7-00.htmlJust got back to my hotel and found this article in the local paper.

They probably could not afford to do so. A really good marketing executive probably makes much more than either JD or KD.

No it isn't. They were nice people, but just more of the same billboard buyers and newspaper add buyers we saw here for the past 20 years. They also had more than their share of give away programs as well. There was actually a decline in season ticket holders for football during their time. If the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.....well, we would still be in the same boat we are now.....someone who cut his teeth at Virginia buying billboards and newspaper adds resulting in half empty stadiums or full of people who didn't pay to get in and us bitching about it. It goes on, and on, and on, and on.........One thing they were really good at though was self promotion. And we can continue this discussion further if anyone wishes.

This is so unbelievable it must be true.Why wouldn't the athletic department just offer 10% of any NEW season ticket order sold or Z-Fund contribution raised by an Athletic Department employee to that employee? Hell, open it up to anyone working at the University and get everyone involved. Employee sells 10 Family Packs for football @ $100 ea., employee gets $100 bonus, etc. The incentive must be there to produce similar to my company only paying independent sales agents commission. If they sell a lot, they make a lot, but so do we. If they don't sell a lot, they don't make a lot, but the cost of sale was kept low. I wonder if anyone at an athletic department convention has ever offered up this idea. The pay for some of these people is so low, they would bust their ass just to make a few extra dollars.Give 20% commission to any NEW reserved seat sold for football. I think my tickets were only $15 each, so the net after commission would still be $12 which was more than the general admission seating (normal or Family Pack) and they have a new customer buying high end tickets at face value. Even if tickets remain the same price next year, there would be an increase value of the ticket 20% if the person renews.UofA will never know if they can change the culture around Akron and sell more tickets unless they get away from buying billboards and newspaper adds. Try the other way.

Thanks for the props. I don't know if it as much a secret as a cultural problem in Summit and Stark Counties. A person can't drive through Akron without knowing the University is there, and everyone knows they have sports teams so it can't be a secret. The cultural problem must be challenged head on and the only way to do that is in person.You folks really need to understand something about college athletics marketing departments. These people go to conventions every year to learn the next great way to design a billboard and newspaper add. There is almost zero original thought (there is acutally little original thought in universities in general, but that is another subject). We have a long list of former and current athletic department staffers who have spent time at Virginia. Does anyone think Virginia needs to do anything more than put up billboards and newspaper adds to sell tickets? It's easy for them. It's hard to sell at Akron because billboards and newspaper adds are not the way to sell tickets in a market like Akron. In fact, billboards and newspaper adds aren't even selling.If we fired all of the people in our marketing department right now, we would just get more of the same because the culture of university athletics is so inbred that someone else would be hired, from some other school, that someone knows, who attends all of the same billboard and newspaper add conferences that the previous group did and the group before that, and the group before that, and the group before that.......... I've seen enought billboards and newspaper adds in the past 20 years to know they don't work for UofA. Listen to Marlo (signature line below).

It doesn't matter what they put on the web page as long as they don't go out and sell the program to the community.

http://www.cfbanalyzer.com/cgi-bin/chain.c...orida&year=2006Here is another. All that's missing is a guy with a raspy voice saying, "That means we could beat Florida."

Ohio University: The Bobcats lay claim to national title by virtue of beating Akron, which beat Bowling Green, which beat Eastern Michigan, which beat Toledo, which beat Northern Illinois, which beat Central Michigan, which beat Middle Tennessee State, which beat North Texas State, which beat SMU, which beat Arkansas State, which beat Troy, which beat Rice, which beat Tulsa, which beat Navy, which beat Stanford, which beat Washington, which beat Washington State, which beat Oregon State, which beat Missouri, which beat Ole Miss, which beat Vanderbilt, which beat Georgia, which beat Auburn, which beat Florida The above was copied out of ESPN.com. I don't think I have ever seen a more perfect example of Faustian logic outside of hearing it from the man himself.

Used to live in Storrs myself Zip Watcher, and about the same time you did. To add on your list of places.....how about the Bidwell Tavern in Coventry? Willington Pizza was awesome, the Greek pizza especially. Ted's grinders.....how about Ted's upstairs....four and a half walls, a bar, a dart board in the back and a lot of draft beers. Wasn't there a place called Woody's out in Ashford or somewhere like that....I can't remember the name of the little town? What was the name of that YSU like stadium they had on campus behind the basketball arena? Is Yale a school or a sound one makes when they ?

If this is true, I can't imagine what Nate is thinking . This guy is knocked kneed and has childbearing hips. He's more suitable for the WNBA than the NFL.

Zips Win! posted this topic at approximately 10:00 PM last evening. After 177 views there are only three comments and only one of them is about the game itself.Perhaps it is because it was a road game or perhaps it is because the Zips seem to be a little sluggish, but does anyone sense a little apathy about the BB team? I would have thought that a loss to a divisional team and a good analysis of the game by Zips Win! would have generated more discussion.The BB needs to get some consecutive wins under their belt against good teams........and soon. When the bandwagon comes around the corner, there actually has to be something to hold on to for someone to jump on. Is there much to hold on to right now?Dambrot said in his post game interview that Akron did not get the ball inside enough to generate fouls and he felt that the lopsidedness of the fouls was because of strategy. Any thoughts?

http://www.gozips.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPI...0&ATCLID=742888Game statistics.

I can tell you that from years of working in the construction industry, well written specificaitons are skirted every day in the name of saving a few bucks and quality is destroyed every day because of it. "Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten." "The bitter taste of a poorly completed project lasts much longer than the temporary sweet taste of saving money."Construction managers work directly for the owner and are paid by the owner. Almost every large public project uses them now. UofA will be paying the company awarded this bid. I've always heard that the going rate for a CM saving money for a customer is about 10% of the savings so they have a huge interest in value engineering. Ten percent of $50 million is $5 million (much of which will have to go into paying for change orders). Ten percent of that is $500,000 and that's a huge incentive for the CM to value engineer. Being a public project, the successful bidder will probably bid at or below their costs and then make up the remainder in value engineering bonuses. The CM business is an absolute racket and if it wasn't for an even larger racket, lawyers, there would be no need for CMs.There are three ways to get a project.1. Good2. Fast 3. CheapThe trick is that only two can be achieved. Akron wants to build this stadium on the cheap, so getting it good and fast are the only two remaining options. If you want it cheap and fast, it probably isn't going to be good. If you want it cheap and good, it probably is going to take some time to police all of the illegal immigrants building the stadium so the work will be very slow. These are the realities of construction.When the plans and specifications for this project are released, those of us in the construction business should post regularly about what is being used to build our new stadium. I'd be interested to see what others in different fields think about the design and documents. Those of you not in construction can view them at the purchasing department or architects office at UofA. They are public documents and you have a right to see them. I'll even try to download them off of Dodge and get them to the moderators and maybe they can post them.

Yikes! Construction managers are the worst thing to happen to the building industry. Most get paid cash bonuses for "value engineering" projects. Value engineering is the process of destroying a well designed project in the name of saving money. In the United States, we have a unique way of improving a product until it no longer works.....that's "value engineering". The University has taken the first step in destroying the new stadium and the ground isn't even broken yet on the site.

The answer is that the program has never looked better. Not just in the past 20 years. Again, that's why I think JD has overwhelming support on this board and the poll. JD just needs to do a little clean up in spring ball to see who wants to be here and who doesn't want to be here and I think the program will have easily six wins next season. There is nothing wrong with running malcontents off the team.

I was told by someone in the Athletic Department a couple of years ago that approximately 45 Division 1-A coaches applied for the position when JD got the job. My brother knows a guy with Ohio roots who is/was on the staff at Minnesota who applied for the position and didn't get it. There would be at least 45 apply again.

I think this poll shows good support for JD. It would take a disaster for him to get fired after next season. The buy out alone on his contract would prevent it.

NFL teams love to bring in rookies to try out for teams and put pressure on those above them on the depth chart. They also like to make rookies the #3 QB because the have to pay them very little thus saving salary cap space. Luke could hold a clip board, document plays and play on scout team just as well as another rookie could.I think Hixon had an injury last year around this time and it may have cost him a shot at the combine.Luke will not be on an NFL team next year. Alleman is a good player and has NFL talent, but if he has some of the penalties he did last season during training camp, he'll find himself on the outside looking in as well.

It depends on how bad the losing is. 6-6 or better he keeps the job. Five wins with a young offensive line and a new QB and some new people on defense, maybe depending on how bad they look losing the games. Four wins or less, yes.

A friend of mine just told me a funny story about this guy. My understanding is that he was all set to go to Pitt out of high school and the day before signing day he backed out and decided on Miami. On signing day, he showed up in an all pink leisure suit. Since then, whenever anyone in Pittsburgh says the word "Pinky" they are referring to Andrew Johnson. I don't know if the pink suit is true or not (I believe my friend), but it's a funny story if it is.

All good points.To address the point above, universities have people who crunch numbers just like every other business out there. If there was more money to be made in a playoff system than a bowl system, there would have been a playoff years ago. Athletic directors know their job is to make money and if a playoff would make them more money, they would jump at it in a second.Bowl sites simply couldn't be used to have a playoff because most people could only afford to go to one game a year. It's not like basketball where you only have to fill fifteen to twenty thousand seats. The games would be played in 60-70,000 seat stadiums and I don't think they would come close to filling them.Lastly, the point about only 50-60 teams having a shot. In reality, it is less than 15 out of about 120. Look at all other levels of college football. It's the same teams year in and year out that make the playoffs and go deep into the playoffs. Mt. Union, Wisconsin Whitewater, Grand Valley State, Northern Missouri, UMASS, Montana, App. State, etc. Having a playoff system has basically destroyed any interesting regular season competition at these levels of football. Unless someone really enjoys college basketball, the 64 team system has basically destroyed interest in the regular season. I'm not even certain why conferences like the Big East, Big Ten, SEC, etc. even have post season tournaments. All of them are going to get 5 or 6 teams in the field of 65 anyhow. Just give the conference championship to the team with the best record.