GP1

I have something more exciting than high school football to do. With all the extra rain this year, my grass continues to grow so I will be outside watching that this fall on Friday nights.

I would think that we would have at least one also. If there are approximately 130 D-1A teams in the country and each has 22 starters (130 x 22 = 2,860) Kiki and Luke would only be .07% of the list. Surely one of them deserves to be on the list.

We "hear" about a stadium all the time. If you want to "see" physical evidence of how far along the stadium is, call the purchasing department and see if they have any projects bidding pertaining to a new football stadium. The answer is yes they do. I looked on McGraw Hill Construction News and it isn't there yet (I may have done the search wrong though), but there are projects in the purchasing department. The University is a public institution and you have a right to see it if you wish."But GP1, but GP1, what are the projects?" Thanks for asking. They are playing a little catch up right now. There are still some routine engineering studies that need to be competed and that is what is out to bid. These studies are pretty easy to do. Things look good. Patience is all they ask.As far as the remainder of the property, someone mentioned a good idea to me last week and someone else told me they did this at one of the Hilliard high schools outside of Columbus. To Hell with the two or three houses they need to buy. Threaten to build the stadium around them and leave their access to the road. Build a fence around three sides of the homes so they will be protected. If this happened, it would drive down the value of those homes to next to nothing like it did to the guy in Hilliard. If those owners want to play hardball, they University should play right along with them. Enough being nice.

It is; however, is that the most funny part of this thread? Everyone think about it. There is one poster I find strangely interesting and funny that he still feels the need to come in here and post. Being a self promoter myself, I always enjoy reading other self promoters comments hoping to use one myself some day. Nice work......even from afar.It's good to see everyone this week. I was away on business and now that I have a BlackBerry I don't take my computer with me on the road so I can't post when away.

Maybe I should apologize to some of you for supporting the program regardless of who the AD is, but there is no chance of that happening. I think I say in my original post that "these guys are far from perfect". Maybe in a fit of paranoia, some of you missed that. At the risk of getting accused of being the Athletic Department's Mike Trivisano, I'll add this. The small fan has a great chance this year to get involved with the program and spend time with people from the Athletic Departmen on a 1 on 1 basis. They are all more than willing to talk to anyone about the program during the call sessions. You all could help with the Fund Drive. It's not like this has not been publically communicated to the masses or on this board. If anyone chooses not to participate, then you are missing a good chance to get in on the ground floor of something really fun and productive. Speaking of production, I've sold 167 tickets in two days, and combined ticket sales and Z-Fund donations are $2,246. What is everyone else doing to improve things? Call nights are 6-8 PM, Tuesday thru Thursday.CK is absolutely correct when he says that everyone should let some time pass before judging the new AD. Like all things, time will tell. I honest to God can't tell a major difference between Thomas and Rhoades. How could any of us, he hasn't been here long enough to make a judgement. The only area I would disagree with CK on this is that Rhoades has big shoes to fill. By the look of the attendance numbers the past four years, we weren't making great strides anyhow. The best decisions he made were actually the two no brainer decisions of letting the former football and basketball coaches go. All of us had that figured out, and if we had it figured out then it shouldn't have been to difficult for him. Mike and Mike were nice guys and all, but posting a state of the nation letter on this board doesn't make them brilliant communicators.Have a nice weekend everyone.

I don't know what the Hell is going on with everyone, but I've never seen so much bitching and complaining on a web board as I have on this one recently. Everyone is turning into a bunch of old ladies. We are going into what is going to be a great year for Akron sports and all some of you people do is cry about the most meaningless things.Anyhow, I don't like to golf so I try not to. However, I played in a scramble last weekend and tee time was 7:45. We were off the course at noon and the next outing started after that. We ate lunch, presentations were made and I was home by two o'clock.Does anyone think that four hours is plenty of time for the vast majority of people to go home, take a show, take a nap and go to a game? I do.Does anyone think that having an all Zips day might be fun for some people? I do.Is it really necessary to go home and take a shower after golfinig in the fall? I don't think it is. The air is so cool that you really don't sweat. Besides, your going to a football game and not a black tie charity ball.Does anyone think that maybe they can get more people to go to an outing on a weekend than during the week thus make more money? You're stupid if you don't think so.I hope you guys will start to be a little more open minded about what they are doing with the Athletic Department. These guys are far from perfect, and what they are doing now is not really all that different than what they have done in the past.Oh well, I'm going to try to go sell some football tickets. You guys just stay at home and think about the next thing you are going to bitch about. Keep tearing things down you nothing but a bunch of God damn crybabies.Have a nice day!

I'm not 100% certain, but I think they do. Something to do with student fees to attend sporting events.I think that whether or not the tarps get removed depends on how many tickets are sold prior to the game. They probably know what the average walk up crowd is for the first game and combined with pre-season tickets, I'm confident they will know whether or not to remove the tarps.Here is the question: What has anyone done to sell a ticket today? I sold a family pack to the bartender at one of my favorite restaruants today. I'm looking at the form and her check right now on my desk. For those not in sales and marketing, it is called a one call close. Very few can pull it off.

Don't hesitate for one second. Buy some tickets. This season, the most important thing a Zips fan can do to support the team is to buy extra tickets whether they get used or not. Don't give away extras outside of the ticket booths the day of a game either, make those people buy a ticket just like you did. The citizens of Akron need to start taking ownership of this team. For basically $100, you can buy a Family Pack to the games. That's 20 total tickets toward the 75,000 we need to average 15,000 per game.It is also up to all of us to help sell tickets for the University. There are enough concerned people out there that the University is doing well with it's Fund Drive. I would challenge each of you to participate in this Fund Drive effort. It's one thing to talk about the problems selling tickets, but it's another thing to actually do something about it. It's time for all of us to start doing.

On the hunt for what? By the looks of those uniforms, it is very possibly a gay bar.

For the pleasure of not reading about your hometown Zips, they charge 50 cents. ...........................but is it worth fifty cents to read the daily comedy of grammatical and factual errors?

I wish. I would cash out on some stock options today before the price of oil goes down and takes the value of my stock along with it.

In a big boys and girls world, we don't always get what we want.If people are going to go to games and sit there stewing because they did not get to park where they want to park, then they shouldn't go to games and make themselves miserable. The games are intended for people to have a good time. Try to have a good time everyone. MAC games are really fun to attend if you just let yourself. The cost of going to college athletics is not going down any time soon. In fact, if you read the WSJ article I noted above, it is now more expensive in many markets to go to college football games than NFL games.Mike brings up an interesting point about the reduction in the cost of season tickets for UofA in an attempt to make the new Administration look bad. The truth is that many people who were over charged when the price structure changed were kind enough to donate the money to the University athletic scholarship programs in lieu of a refund. Good thinking Athletic Department and thanks to those kind people out there who think more about giving than taking. One last thing about the WSJ article is that is says tickets for the Notre Dame vs Penn State game are selling through scalpers at $875 per ticket. What does this say about the original price of the ticket?

There is not a separate charge of $500 to park at Akron. You can park for $5.00 a game if you wish. It's still amazing to me how misunderstood the parking mailer was/is.

Some how, some way he has to do it. It's up to the coaches to call plays that will help him develop and succeed under pressurer while passing from the pocket. Troy Aikman is one of my all time favorite NFL players. He got his butt kicked for a while at Dallas while he stood in the pocket and got killed. The accuracy he developed during this time helped get him to the Hall of Fame. He learned to be poised under pressure and look how his career turned out. The ability to do this will only make Frye a better player in the long run. The question is whether Cleveland fans will want to watch him learn on the job? The other is, do the Browns really see Frye as the QB long term? If not, maybe they will not mind him running around just to make things happen and when they improve their line they can abandon him in place of a pocket passer. The truth is none of us really know what the coaching staff thinks of Frye because we don't get to sit in their meetings behind closed doors.

If someone could link to this article it would help others understand how good we really have it at UofA. The article is on page P3 of today's Wall Street Journal and it is titled "Deep in the Pocket".One interesting thing that stood out to me was that Syracuse charges $180 per seat for a season ticket ($30 per game). Is the value of a Syracuse game twice the value of UofA's most expensive ticket? I don't think so. If anyone tells you that going to a UofA game is too expensive, please do me a favor and tell that person they are full of crap. Then find out why they really don't want to go. Money should not be the issue unless the family is poor.

When I listened to the nfl radio guys at Browns camp they were saying the same thing.The Browns will be scouting a lot of teams QBs, and looking for a cut. Interesting, I should get my own radio show. It clicked for me one day while watching an ESPN story on the Jets at the gym and I thought to myself, "GP1, one of those guys will end up with the Browns before all is said and done." The question is whether either of those two will want to come to Cleveland given they can go with any team they wish at that point. The only upside the Browns could sell to either is the potential of starting in Cleveland. Other than that, they could go back up with a good team in a really nice climate.The Browns will have to pick up a cut. I can't remember a time when there was such a lack of talent at the QB position in the NFL and no NFL team is going to give up a decent back-up QB in a trade. Especially since the Browns really have nothing to give up. A winning NFL QB must stand in the pocket and throw most of the time. Frye must do this to succeed long term. Scrambling leads to nothing but confusion and holding penalties. Guys like Mike Vick never win anything in the NFL because they either get killed running around, or their running is supposed to make up for their lack of throwing ability and it always backfires.

Reserved seats are much better than GA because the sun will not be in your face the whole game. The only advantage is the closer proximity to the beer garden.The band and students will be on the visitors sideline. It's about time we allow our students to sit over there and heckle the visiting team as bad as ours gets heckled at every other school.Akron needs to move some fans over to the visitor's side just to keep the stadium from looking empty during film session with recruits. All in all, this isn't a bad move.

Former Zips QB Mike Johnson is the WR coach with the Ravens. Interesting.......

DrZ is 100% correct. If Frye is going to have any success in the NFL, he must throw the ball down field.Campbell will not be the back up. Here is my prediction:The Jets have three former starting QBs in camp this summer with one rookie. Only three will make the team. Chad Pennington, Kellen Clemens ®, Brooks Bollinger and Pat Ramsey. The competition for the roster spot is between Bollinger and Ramsey. Pennington will make the team since he has been there so long and the Clemens will make it because he is a rookie and they can make him the third QB and not pay him a lot. The loser between Bollinger and Ramsey gets a one-way, all expenses paid trip and an apartment in Berea to Cleveland where one of them will cry himself to sleep every night wondering what he did to make the football Gods angry with him. When this happens, the poop will hit the fan around Cleveland.

Nah, Joe would probably hitch a ride with someone so they would pay the parking. He would be complaining all day and all night about "them horseless buggies" and about how teams don't run the split option any more. And whats this I hear about the "forward pass"? It will ruin the game. I love it.

The rule should neither help nor hurt any team as all teams are impacted by the rule equally. However, Akron does run a ball control offense and they have a tough defense this season. A major factor in winning football is controlling the ball throughout the game. Ball control allows a team to exhaust the opponent's defense with offense and stopping your opponent with a well rested defense late. After you stop the opponent with your defense late, you control the ball with the lead against an exhausted defense until the end of the game. This new rule allows Akron to more easily run the clock out on an opponent than it did in the past. My prediction is that Akron will have a lot of late leads to protect this season and with their ball control offense, this rule and a good defense they are going to win a lot of games. Or at least run the clock out on a lot of teams.Now, I always like to run a little smack, and that dinosaur Joe Novak is a good one to target (especially since our young whipper snapper of a coach beat him last year in the MACC). Back when Joe started in football and those new fangled leather helmets became all the rage, commercials were not that important. Try to follow me now Joe....You want your team on television for recruiting purposes. You want the networks to pay for the television rights to produce the game. How do you think the networks pay for the rights? If you were a sponsor, would you settle for a 15 second spot at the same price as a 30 second spot? Since the networks are helping you to recruit and support college football in general, shouldn't they and their sponsors get something in return? Maybe when Joe retires, he can move to Akron and complain about paying $5.00 to park at a football game.

Nobody really addressed the basic question. If OSU loses out on a national championship chance by losing to Akron, there is a good chance they will have another chance within a couple of years so the loss to Akron is not nearly as important as Akron beating OSU. If Akron beat OSU, the program would be taken to a new level. One thing you would not see any longer is Akron students wearing OSU gear. Ticket sales for Akron's first couple of home games would sell like crazy. It would have two years of positive impact for the program that could lead to a decade of success.

http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/spor...es/15223184.htmI was sitting at Dilly's yesterday on Triplett Blvd. getting a burger and hot dog when I saw a bunch of vans starting to pull up at the Rubber Bowl. I just figured they were maintenance people getting back from a late lunch or something. I had no idea they were setting up for practice on the lower grass area by the runway.I like this idea. First, it forces humility on the players. Second, there are now three classes of Zips who have no idea how bad it used to be to go to the Rubber Bowl for practice every day. They now know what the Seniors on the team had to go through when they were younger and it is something they can all now relate to together. Both the seniors and younger players should not forget where the come from, and it wasn't that long ago that they did not have that beautiful field (inside and outside) to hold practice. I'm not certain they should go there every day, but once is a good reminder.

Tip 1: Stick with a lite beer. It's easier to drink 12-15 of them before a game rather than trying to chew down 12-15 Guinesses.Tip 2: Bring lots of people and buy a keg as it's cheaper in the long run.Tip 3: Bring lots of girls with loose morals. It makes the after game party more fun.

We are just going to have to agree to disagree. I don't believe for one second that for the past 20 years people have not been going to games because Faust wanted to use a different brand of shoes. There are now recent alumni of the University who were still in diapers when Faust came to Akron. These people don't care about the past. If this is indeed the case, these people really need to get over it and find something more recent to be bitter about. The other argument to the story is that Akron moved to the big time. Did you want to stay in the small time? The people of Akron don't go to games because they aren't really interested, or they expect a free ticket. Nothing else can explain it.Dennison was not the answer when moving Akron to D-1A as he had almost no experience at that level (remind anyone of Owens?). Faust was the answer, but keeping him as long as they did was a disaster.