GP1

Well put.

You sound pretty bitter. Which is understandable. You were never that good. Don't blame your own lack of talent on the coaching staff. That's just pathetic. Great blast ITZ! That's the stuff that makes boards great. However, the personal blast at Owens aside, the facts are the facts.

This is interesting...Marshall fans said the same exact thing when they decided to move to Conference USA. It seems to be working out for them so far . It's nice that more teams get into bowls, only you must have 6 wins to get in one.

I'm sure the people in New England can't wait for the big Toledo vs. Marshall basketball match up to determine last place in the Big East West Division. There is not a ONE MAC school that could leave to go to a conference like the Big East and expect to compete for a conference championship in any sport.UCONN, WVU, Pittsburgh and Louisville are better than every MAC school in the sports that really count.....football and basketball. Save me the OU beat Pitt nonsense. That will never happen again. As bad as Syracuse has been in football recently, they could make a run at the MACC. If Notre Dame ever decides to join the Big East, they would be another team better than every MAC school.Sorry, I just have to laugh when I hear people from MAC schools seriously consider another conference like the Big East as reality. Hell, Marshall is getting killed in Conference DOA. UConn is solid, but where were they a few years ago? Oh yeah..not in Division I. Boston College, before Flutie, wasn't a huge team on the map. Now they are in the ACC (though probably a middle of the pack team). Virginia Tech= who were they 20 years ago? Heck, Miami, Fla was nothing until the early 80's.Those that think teams from the MAC can go to the Big East are visionaries= they see what can happen and what has happened at other programs. If you believe, as most sports analysts do, that the BE will not remain a 16 team conference and will add 4 football teams to 8 football schools...then I ask you:WHO WILL THEY TAKE?Memphis is a virtual lock. But other than that, you could make just as good of a case for a MAC school as any CUSA school. And, LOOK AT THE SCHEDULING= MAC schools are getting Big East schools and even lower-end Big 10 schools to play at their home stadiums. That wasn't happening much in the 70's-90's.The MAC has grown, and will continue to grow. But there is a ceiling, and the quality programs will have an avenue out. If you don't see that, you don't know what is going on in the current fabric of the NCAA. I respect the optimism, but it would be years before any MAC school could compete for any Big East title in football or basketball (probably never in basketball). The question is then....Would you rather be a top notch MAC school or a middle to lower middle of the road Big East school with a chance to be good in 10-15 years. Believe me, I've seen my share of losing in football at Akron, anyone who wants to go through that again for a chance to win in 10-15 years is just insane. That's 10-15 years of no meaningful championships, no bowl games and no NCAA basketball births. Have fun Toledo, BGSU and Miami. The novelty of a conference like that would wear off after a couple of years and the fans would be absolutely miserable. Just watch how quickly the attendance at Marshall will decline in a couple of years after losing season after losing season in Conference USA.

Great Poll!Since you don't have as an option a four year supply of acne cream, I went with #5.

http://www.tuckahoeortho.com/physicians.htmI was in Virginia this week and I contacted an old roommate Shannon Wolfe, or should I say Dr. Shannon Wolfe, and we went out for some drinks. If you click on this link and scroll down a little, you can see him.For those of you who don't know, Shannon was a four year starter at DB from 1987 to 1990 and was a good player, not great, but good. Most importantly, he was a straight A student. Every day, seven days a week, he studied until 2AM, including Friday and Saturday. I've actually never been around someone that dedicated to something.Anyhow, I just thought I would give the board proof that it is really possible to be a student and an athlete. Shannon was a good guy when we were young and an even better person now.

I don't think it is a question of misinforming the public. I don't think the Beacon has an agenda to do that. But they do make a lot of "small" mistakes like the one in the article, and that mistake was easy to catch. If a reporter makes a mistake, it is up to his boss to catch the mistake before the article goes to print.I don't care if the Beacon ever writes an article about Akron sports. The Beacon is a private business and as such they can do whatever they want with the paper. What I would like to see is the paper uphold professional standards of accurate information in any article they write. If I misspell a word or have poor writing skills on this web page, it really doesn't matter because I'm just some knucklehead who likes to write on this board with people who have a common interest. If the Beacon gets information wrong, they are not upholding their professional duty to the public. The problem is they make mistakes so frequently in Akron articles, how could anyone believe anything other than it was on purpose or the people are just incompetent? Facts like a player's number, upcoming opponent and name spelling are easy facts to check and the Beacon needs to do a better job.

I'm sure the people in New England can't wait for the big Toledo vs. Marshall basketball match up to determine last place in the Big East West Division. There is not a ONE MAC school that could leave to go to a conference like the Big East and expect to compete for a conference championship in any sport.UCONN, WVU, Pittsburgh and Louisville are better than every MAC school in the sports that really count.....football and basketball. Save me the OU beat Pitt nonsense. That will never happen again. As bad as Syracuse has been in football recently, they could make a run at the MACC. If Notre Dame ever decides to join the Big East, they would be another team better than every MAC school.Sorry, I just have to laugh when I hear people from MAC schools seriously consider another conference like the Big East as reality. Hell, Marshall is getting killed in Conference DOA.

http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/spor...es/13651328.htmJust goes to show how silly I am. I thought the Zips were playing Central Michigan tonight. Good thing I have the Beacon to correct my mistakes.

There may be more to this than meets the eye, and it has nothing to do with KD, UofA, living in dorms, etc.Bubba is an adult and as such he can do whatever he wants. I could care less. Personally, anyone on scholarship is a fool to leave a sports program and transfer somewhere where that person has no scholarship. Having a full athletic scholarship is a privilege and is frequently not viewed that way by the recipients. If he was a walk-on, then that is a different story...he would have been given nothing and would owe nothing. His leaving just doesn't make any sense unless there is another possible reason outside of basketball.When I went to school, there was not an easy way to keep in touch with your high school or home town friends and you quickly lost touch. Now with the e-mail and cell phones, kids stay in touch easily. Maybe he met a girl or something back home that is going to OU and he wants to be close to her. You all know how bearded clams make guys crazy, especially at that age.Maybe Bubba just doesn't want to play basketball and wants to be close to some friends he had prior to Akron. If he doesn't want to play basketball, nobody has a gun to his head to do so and he should do the program a favor and not play. The scholarship is obviously not important to him either. If his familiy can afford to send him to the high school he went to, they can afford to send him to OU.Maybe Bubba didn't like the guys on the team. If that is the case, I guess I could see him leaving. They all spend a huge amount of time together and it would be hard to swallow being around a bunch of guys you don't like all the time. I don't see how going to OU could change this problem...what if he hates the guys at OU?What if the season falls out from under OU? The coach could get fired and if that happens, Bubba will NEVER get a scholarship from a new coach.I just question how much Bubba wants to play basketball and I wouldn't be shocked if he never played again. It seems to be the only thing that makes sense, because I don't think he will be able to contribute to OU any more than he would to Akron.

There are too many reasons why a kid picks one school over another to really say what could keep a kid home. For some, they may just want to go far from home, others may see a chance to play sooner than later at another school, others may actually like an academic program one school offers over another, etc. I question whether loyalty to your home area alone is a good enough reason to stay home. Once the reality of college sets in, loyalty may not be enough to keep a kid happy.Sports or no sports, I actually think it is healthy for a kid to get at least two hours away from home when going to college.

WOW! That must have been some really good pot. Probably grown in Guernsey County, Ohio.

Just to clarify one thing CK. Bobby Lyons was a Dennison recruit. However, Faust should get credit for bringing in a great young coach named Mike Woodford who later was with the New Orleans Saints and lastly with Florida to coach Bobby. Bobby would have never had his skills sharpened as well as they were with Dennison coaches. In fact, Bobby went to my high school (four years ahead of me) and wasn't even the best player on the team his senior year. Shawn Vincent had an older brother named Joe that was the best player on that team and if he didn't make some mistakes would have been a better player than Shawn. There was even another player on that team who was the nephew of Andy Urbanic, who was Faust's first offensive coordinator and now an athletic director at Florida State, who was a more high profile player than Bobby. Bobby was a late bloomer and Faust should get some credit for his three years in the NFL.Another player who Faust should get some credit for helping to a six year NFL career is John Buddenberg. John was a late bloomer also and a Dennison recruit. Hal Hunter, who has been with Vandy, LSU, offensive coordinator at Indiana and now with North Carolina since leaving Akron, developed John into an NFL type player and Coach Faust brought him to Akron.You are right about the talent level at Akron at the end of the Faust years. It was horrible. The failure of the Faust years can be described easily. A revolving door of coaches with no real leadership at the top, no support from the University, no support from the community, off field problems and on field failures snowballed into a 1-10 season Faust's last year. You guys would be shocked if you knew half the off field problems.

That's not completely true. OSU has two coaches on their staff who coached at Akron with LO.

So am I. In most countries, an idiot like you would have been stoned to death by now.

This is a great point and something that is overlooked with the transition between LO and JD.I was with the team at the beginning of the Faust years and the players Faust brought to Akron were much better than the players Dennison recruited to the team. There was a huge amount of resentment of the Faust players by the Dennison players because they all thought they were as good as the "new guys". The truth of the matter is that they weren't and the animosity between the two groups was obvious and really bad for the program.I'm frequently shocked when I see how small the Owens players actually were. It's no wonder why we had trouble competing during those years. The combination of small and slow in football is deadly.From all I can see, JD is bringing in bigger and better players, which is really needed. I'm sure there are a quite a few LO players and former players who think they are just as good as the "new guys". Anyone with a competitive spirit would. The truth of the matter is that they just aren't. They shouldn't be as good either. As years go by, if a program is moving in the proper direction, the players recruited should get better and better each year.

I was always a fan of Butchie and a high school football coach in Columbus told me he is really doing a good job recruiting for Ashland. He is well like around the coaching circles in Columbus because he knows football, talent and is very friendly.I say good for former Zip Butchie Washington! It's good to hear he is doing well.

Just a couple other things, man I love this topic.Someone please go on the web pages for Miami, Marshall, Toledo, BGSU and Western Michigan and show me the indoor facility they practiced in during the LO years. Other than Toledo, is there a school on that list were the type of player necessary to win in the MAC would want to go to school? Huntington is a complete dump, BGSU is a cow town and WMU has a stadium far from campus and Kalamazoo is a dump. Everyone in the MAC has challenges to recruiting. Ours is/was the Rubber Bowl. I don't see how any problem is not insurmountable. If everyone else in the league was doing it, why couldn't LO? JD seems to be getting past the RB.

Weren't about 10% of those impressive 40 wins against I-AA teams?I think we all understand the limitations the University had in recruiting terms prior to JD. The main point is our being continually out coached game after game as a result of the program, coaches and player, looking more like a Suburban League team than a MAC team.The only miracle that happened during the LO years was the loss to Can't in 2003. Only through divine intervention could we have lost that game. I would like to take a second to thank the Lord for showing himself to us that day. The problems the program had were legion and it starts with coaching. I don't blame the players for their lack of results. Hell, they should go to school for free if they can. I don't think LO and his staff had a clue as to the type of player necessary to win in the MAC. They could cherry pick a good player here or there with the carrot of a player being able to play sooner than later, but once you got below the top tier players, most really weren't that good.All things being equal, I'll never be convinced that LO could do as much with a program as JD. If LO was a better coach, he wouldn't be at a dump like Ashland right now. JD has been around the block and knows what he is doing and he was at Pitt when they changed their facilities from Pitt Stadium to their new stadium and facilities. He's the right guy for this job at this point. Nine years of nothing was enough for LO. He had to go.ITZ, it's nice that you care so much for LO. I can tell you first hand that hardly any of Faust's players really cared for him. With that said, you should use less emotion looking at this issue and more reason. I wanted the issue I mentioned in my first post on this topic to be different for the guy involved, but in the end, a change had to be made. There's never any long term benefit without some short term pain. LO had plenty of chances to win here and blew more than he didn't.

Akron should recruit from local high schools, it is good for attendance and there is alot of talent in that area. THe problem is they aren't getting the best from the local high schools. NEO has the best football in the state of ohio period. Canton Mck, Massillon, St. Ignatios, Cleveland Glenville, Youngstown, etc. The problem is Akron lets kids go to schools like Kentucky, Rutgers, Pitt, and Duke (schools with big names and bad football). Winning games will get people to games, not getting local players. Akron needs to get the best players. If that is in NE Ohio, then fine. If it is other places, then we need to get them. There are good players everywhere and the job of the coaches is to get them. There was no relationship between attendance and local players during the Owens years. In fact, the crowds were basically unchanged.The best players during the Owens years were not from NE Ohio. Frye is basically from northcentral Ohio, Dwight Smith was from out of state, Blackburn was from the Columbus area, etc.

There was an interesting statistic about NFL QBs recently that someone told me about and wanted me to guess who was #2 on the list.Ben Roethlisberger has the highest completion percentage of NFL QBs in 2005 with over 100 attempted passes. Who was second? Being the genius I am, I immediately knew it would be Frye.....and it was. What other QB would complete a hugely high percentage and still only win 40% of the games he started? Remember the LO offense that moved the ball like crazy between the 20s and couldn't get it done when they needed to? A QB must have more steak than sizzle or you get the reputation for being "more sizzle than steak".

Never apologize for your opinions Zipsrifle. Thanks Dad You're welcome......son.

It was a looooooong flight to Iowa today and I finally made it to my hotel room, I'm a little tired but here it goes........Lee Owens took an unwatchable disaster of a football program and turned it into a barely watchable program. If that is the definition of success, the guy I fired on Monday that resulted in me having to fly last minute to Iowa, sprint through O'Hare (sp?) this afternoon to reach my connection because I was late because we sat on the runway in Cleveland for an hour to leave, so I could do a colossally borring presentation to a group of architects Friday, should be hired back. Owens had two years of college experience coaching at OSU prior to Akron. Other than that, he was a high school coach. In fact, he had a bunch of high school coaches on his staff. We were frequently out coached on and off the field. During games, we hung in until halftime every game because that is what bad teams do. At halftime, the other team gets their head out of their ass and beats the bad team with their bad coaches. We did it to OU this year. Off the field, if you played at a "suburban" school and were a "suburban player" you could get a scholarship to Akron. What a load of crap that was! They may have been small, but they sure were slow.The attention to detail was horrible during the Owens years. Every game, we had to use timeouts because the defense wouldn't know where to line up. Guys would drop passes right in their hands and there was no accountability. That's pathetic.As far as that offense, it racked up a lot of yards.......between the 20s and in the first through third quarter. The guy would use up the clock, get into scoring position on the 15 yard line and when fourth down came along, he would go for the first down and not make it. That great offense couldn't even get a first down when they needed one against Can't State in 2003 and they blew a huge fourth quarter lead. Please spare me the comments about what a great offense it was. With LO's offense, when it was good it was great; when it was bad, it was horrible. With JD's offense, when it is good it is great; when it is bad, it at least rests the defense and gives you a chance to win.Do we have to say anything about that defense?There is no comparison between JD and LO. JD is a professional coach who has been in the NFL and at a Big East school. For any writer or coach to say JD picked up where LO left off clearly does not know what they are talking about. LO didn't bring Biggs to Akron who was the main player in Akron's success the past two years. LO didn't bring Getsy to Akron who, warts and all, was the MACC MVP and had a great game at the MCB. LO was basically 5-5 his last year. I'm sorry, those two I-AA wins don't count for shit. JD at least knows what a D-1A high school player looks like.JD treats his players like men, LO would cry in the "room" after losing. Way to toughen them up Lee. If JD's players make a mistake, they are told they did and then they are told how to fix it. I think LO knew when a mistake was made, but didn't know what to do about it.I really don't know what the players thought about LO, but I do know that half the guys hated Faust and half like him. That's probably normal.I could go on all night, but I have to go to dinner. This post did allow me to let off some steam. Thanks ZipsWin!One last thing...don't out other guys, regardless of how you feel about them, for going to strip clubs. It's very unmanly.

Exactly. There is a reason this guy is back coaching high school and the other guys are basically nowhere.

This is a good point. Recruiting is huge for the future of any program. I'm not going to pretend to know much about basketball, because I don't, but I do think I notice a good athlete when I see one.The young players on this team don't look like the type of player that would scare me if I was a good MAC player. I see some kids who play well together and hustle, but nobody really strikes me as a great athlete. Ultimately, good players win games. Do we have the players to sustain long term success? Romeo is a good player, but does he have the skills to be the "go to" guy every team needs?By the way, can I get a hall pass to miss the game Saturday?