GP1

I told everyone last year that the Platinum Horse was a good place to "tail"gate before and after games.

Two for one lap dances at the Platinum Horse.

I can see my topic is going no where. My as well break from the topic and add: You can never have too many good STRIPPERS at the Platinum Horse.

You can never have too many good______________. Fill in the blank with a specific position and not a group (ie: offensive linemen). I would say for this team the answer would be tail backs.

If you insist..... Owens was a high school coach who surrounded himself with mostly high school coaches. If he was any good, he wouldn't be at Ashland now. Think about our past two coaches. Faust was put out of coaching after Akron and Owens is at Ashland. 18 years of...... ..........sorry guys, I just couldn't hold it back any longer. Getting back to Blackburn....... After watching the game Saturday night, I have to admit that Blackburn did look really good. Much better than I thought he would. Still a long way to go though, but a positive sign is that the team ran that article on their web page. There is usually more than meets the eye with team web pages. I say it's better than even money now that he makes the team.

Hummmmmmmmmmm........interesting.

Thanks for a good report. This coaching staff has it all going on. They are smart, young and hungry. I'm sure they are not making friends with the players, but who cares as long as they win.

I have a whitish background on this page now. Am I the only one that has it? It is very difficult to read white lettering over it.

The older you get, the more similar they become.

If anyone out there can find a year by year breakdown, please do so. Also, if there are comparisons to other players drafted around when Frye did it would be interesting to know their bonus. I actually though Frye would have received more signing bonus money. Maybe $1 million minimum. The money is more valuable to him now than it will be in three or four years because he could be earning interest on that extra money. I really do think he should have held out for more bonus money.

That's one of the better articles I have ever read explaining contracts in the NFL. Nice work. Question: Where are you keeping these old articles?

I find NFL salaries fascinating. I don't think the length of Frye's contract is as important as up front bonus money for signing. Players financial security is dependant upon guaranteed money up front and the salary is something that can go away if a player is cut prior to completion of the contract. Base upon what we read in the papers, it does not appear to be the case that the Browns are planning on playing Frye this season with the pick up of Johnson. Frye may not have the opportunity to pick up on field bonuses like Roethlisberger did with the Steelers. If Dilfer plays well and/or doesn't get killed, Johnson will not make much either. Roth... had a salary of around $650,000 last season but earned around $1.7 million with on field bonuses. Frye should go for signing bonus money. If he has to hold out, then hold out. This is a business after all and what can he really lose by holding out? GO FOR THE MONEY! The up front bonus money also puts Frye in a win/win situation. If he does well with the Browns, they can renegotiate his contract after a couple of years and he will get more in salary after getting rich with signing bonuses. He'll also get more signing bonus money in a renegotiation. If things don't work out for him, he has gotten rich through his signing bonus. Then he gets to try his luck with another team that will pay him another signing bonus.

How much is signing bonus and how much is salary? Or is that salary only? Maybe it was in the articles, but I read them pretty fast.

I don't think coaching lost the game for OU last year. Akron had better players and they out played OU late in the game and scored a TD that put the game out of reach. While Akron did not have a great deal of talent last year, they certainly had more than OU and they were on a roll when they played. If OU fans think they should have won the last two seasons, I'd like to get some of that pot they are smoking down there.

I just saw the AP preseason poll in the Beacon this morning. I laughed out loud when I saw the sports writers picked OU to finish in front of Akron and Can't . Maybe the writers did not get to see OU play last year, but they were one of the worst D1 teams I have ever seen and I am sure it will take years to rebuild that program. Maybe they think Frank Solich is magic, but I think not. Just as a Nebraska fan. Here's to the media's continued ignorance. By the way, Can't could not beat Akron at Can't last year. They certainly will not beat us this year at the "historic" Rubber Bowl. Akron wins their last two games of the season, finishes in third place and gives us all something to really look forward to in 2006.

Wouldn't he have to sit out a full season if he played all of last year?

Ah, rereading my origingal post I see that it was poorly worded. I didn't mean use the FB as giving him the ball, I should have said use the FB to block. Thanks for showing me the error in my ways Capt.

I want to say linebacker, but I don't think the three seniors we lost will be that hard to replace. This sounds weird, but if Basch and the other fullbacks are not healthy, it will be a huge problem. Especially on short yardage downs and gl when they really need to get a couple of yards. Biggs isn't big enough (no pun intended) to get short yardage on his own and Kennedy is too inexperienced to find the holes. While JD doesn't use the FB a lot in the middle of field, he does on short yardage. Question? Is Basch even a fullback? I get all of them confused.

Biggs was MAC Offensive Player of the Week two or three times last year. I'd like to think he could do that at least again this year. If so, he should be at least Honorable Mention.

ITZ is consistently the best poster on this board. I think ITZ really stands for "Recent Player Who Still Has Friends On The Team". Nice work ITZ. How good could any of those guys been on defense last year? Teams went through us like swiss cheese. 6's best game was OU. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? OU was a disaster last season. Any player who had their best game against OU should be ashamed of themselves. We need to get players in the program that have their best games against BGSU and Miami if we want to win.

No problem. Maybe someday when I'm on vacation and have a couple of hours, I'll go through the coaches Faust had on his staff and not just in 1987. I think if some of you knew who was on the staff and where they are now, you wouldn't believe the team didn't win under Faust. Coach Faust was such a nice man though, I hate to print anything that will make him come off in a poor light.

This article presents an interesting lesson on what a Division I program should look like at the coaching level. If you look at this guys resume, it is high school experience prior to coming to Akron. Owens had a staff loaded with guys like this, especially at the end. With the exception of Fickell and Peterson, I can't think of any assistants of his that really went onto big time programs, but that doesn't mean there aren't any either. Fickell going to OSU was a no brainer, but Peterson did not even leave Akron to go to a big time program. His next step was Miami, which says a lot about the direction Owens was taking the program. The lesson here is that if the capt. of the boat isn't quite certain which direction to pilot the ship, and the crew isn't certain as well, the boat goes in circles. Faust on the other hand had great assistant coaches that went onto big time programs. The problem was that Faust was a high school coach. I think we have all learned our lesson about hiring coaches with mostly HS experience. I'm looking at a photo of the 1987 Zips, which was the first year of Division I. Bob Shaw was the defensive coordinator, and he went onto WVU to be the DC when they played Notre Dame for the national championship. Coach Shaw also coached at many big time programs such as Arizona prior to Akron. Andy Urbanic was the offensive coordinator and is now assistant AD at Florida State. Coach Urbanic coached at Pitt prior to Akron and was the head coach at Bethany College prior to that. Jim Corrigal (sp?) went onto be the head coach at Can't State. Jim was also a Hall of Fame player in the CFL. Gerald Carr was the QB coach and later went to North Carolina, Indiana and the Philadelphia Eagles and is now with Kentucky. Mike Woodford was the DB coach and continued to coach after winning $27 million in the Ohio Lottery. He was at the New Orleans Saints, recently with Florida until Zook flamed out and will coach against Akron in the fall because he is at MTSU. Hal Hunter was a great young OL coach at the time and went onto Vandy, LSU, was the offensive coordinator at Indiana and is now with North Carolina. Hunter beat Auburn the last game of the season as the head coach at LSU after the head coach got fired. Ivy Williams was the WR coach and came to Akron from the Detroit Lions. He was later made famous, or mabye infamous, by being the coach at Alabama who got the program into recruiting trouble. I don't think another big time program will take another shot at Ivy because of it and he is now at Sav. State in Georgia. Chris Ball was a grad assistant that year and he coached at several Div. II and I-AA schools out west. He is now DB coach at Alabama. Virgil Starks was another grad assistant and he served as Associate Dean at U of A for a number of years and is now Assistant AD at Auburn. Feel free to Google any of these coaches and you will see their complete resume. Every coach Faust had was a career professonal coach. What's the lesson here? No matter how good the crew is, if the capt. can't pilot the boat in a straight direction, the boat just goes in circles. Nine years of Faust and nine years of Owens. I'm dizzy from going in circles for 18 years. I'm happy we now have a coach with professional and college experience only and a staff of college coaches. It appears as if we have the right capt. and crew to get the boat going straight. Time will tell if they have the right map or not. I think they do. There is one more person in the 1987 photo who needs mentioned. You will not meet a better person. I wish I knew where he is keeping that Fountain of Youth so I could get a drink. Who is it? Kevin O'Connor, the Equipment Manager. This guy is still with Akron and after 18 years doesn't look a day older. He never forgets a face or a name. Here's to you Kevin. Thanks to ITZ for once again giving everyone a platform to sound off. You always bring up an issue that can lead to good discussion. Have a good day everyone.

Did anyone see the JD/Frye interview with that woman on Ch. 23? Probably not since nobody watches that station, so I'll fill you all in. JD and Frye did a nice job fielding questions from a complete moron. I'm not certain the interviewer knew what a football looks like and it was just an awkward mess to say the least. Both were gracious enough to answer the questions politely, but while they were being questioned, they had a look of complete confusion on their faces. If it was a cartoon, they would have had a thought bubble over their heads saying, "What the Hell am I doing here?". I don't know if anyone saw it or not, but it was alarmingly douche chilling. In the future, Ch 23 should not waste the time of a player or coach if that is all the better they can do. Oh well, it doesn't really matter. Nobody watches that station. Have a good day everyone.

If all he did was long snap, which is what they do in the NFL, I think he can get really good at it. He could have a really long career if he gets with a team that needs him. I don't know anything about the Giants so I don't know if there is a need.

You guys must be too young to remember the Faust years. The 27% graduation rate and the constant parade of guys flunking out (not to mention the criminal activity) was something to see. Owens had too many suburban kids on the team to give the Faust recruits any competition in the flunking out game. If JD is going to turn things around, he is going to have to sign some marginal players. Marshall did it for years and still continues to do it. BUGS and Toledo have also experienced success in recent years doing the same thing. We may see more and more of this in the next few years. I'm glad to see that the OL is going to be more physical this year. JD really wants to run the ball and needs a line like that. Biggs took some big hits last year on the line and he is our best hope this year. He needs to take less punishment from much bigger guys. After all, there isn't much of him....... I'm more interested in the defense and who is going to be the #2 running back. I'll say it again. I think this upcoming team is going to be better than many expect them to be.