GP1

If you really want to feel like a dirty old man in Charleston, go hang out at the Starbucks on Calhoun across the street from the University between 10 AM and noon. Stream the old The O'Kaysions song "I'm a girl watcher" while you are sitting there. A customer of mine recently retired and that is the only place he would meet anyone. Always wanted to go to Lana, but didn't know much about it. Will go next time in town. Seasonal fish right now are Wahoo, Tile Fish and Wreckfish. Flounder is always in season.

Maybe they committed 7 more fouls.

Let's hear about the travels.

Miami won't make the NCAA tournament.

Didn't match intensity.

It's very simple. Make wide open shots and we win.

USC was woefully coached and organized yesterday, but they had some good young talent. Truly one of the worst team I have ever seen at the mid major or major level. Regardless, the Zips performed well. I see them coming out today and playing as well as they did yesterday, which is pretty good. What I don't know is the talent level of The U or how well their coach is able to deploy the talent. If they are better organized than USC was yesterday and have better talent, the Zips can still win. Or, if they are better organized than USC and the Zips struggle, it could be a long day. I only see two results and I think each are equally as likely to happen. Either the Zips win or Miami covers. Not sure Miami wins a close one because that will mean Akron is clicking on all cylinders and they had to eek one out. If the Zips can keep it close, they can win if they are as well organized as yesterday and lay off of some of the nutty 3-point shots they take. No way do they win making 8 of 27 three pointers. Make 8 of 20 three point shots and turn those other seven into high percentage two pointers, keep the game close and like all average teams wait for Miami to poop their pants. Play hard. Play smart.

Or, it could have to do with both the quality of the official and the quality of fans attending games. Maybe the NCAA is trying to get control over this behavior. Fans watch coaches and if their confrontation towards officials escalates (I didn't think any Zips coach looked over the top yesterday, but fans can't always hear what is said.), so does their abuse of officials. It's one thing to try to get control over students, but when they have to go out of their way to discipline someone in the stands who is old enough to have a grandchild, it says a lot more about the fan than the ref. I don't applaud the NCAA for very much, but if they are making an effort to get adults to start behaving like adults at a public event, I'm all for it.

These weeknight games are a disaster for the league. OU was just as bad. I used to be embarrassed by it, now I'm just made depressed by it.

I would like to say I was writing about myself, but I'm reserving making an ass out of myself until later in the evening.

As the early season progresses, this should take care of itself. Lots of young guys come in and take poor shots. As these guys earn more time on the bench, there will be fewer bad shots.

Good post Dave. I don't know what the forecast was, but if they knew this weather was going to happen, it was irresponsible and stupid to take a couple of busloads of college kids on a trip to Buffalo in that kind of weather. As soon as the roads clear, they should pack their bags and head back to Can't.

The guy was making an ass of himself.

One request for the douche who almost got thrown out for heckling the refs non-stop. Please join the adult world. I stopped heckling refs when I turned 30...and I stopped wearing jerseys to games before I turned 20.

Good post. The Zips were organized, well conditioned, physical and hard working. They can win a lot of games with those characteristics.

I think you are asking the wrong question as it relates to networks. The TV ratings are going to be what they are and there is some risk to televising bowl games as it relates to unknown match-ups. Early bowl games are for gambling degenerates, filler for the down the trough ESPN networks and people who absolutely love football. I'm sure the advertising slots for games have already been sold. The sponsor of the bowl itself gets three hours, but they get their name on the bowl all year long so there are additional advertising benefits to sponsoring the game. The bowl committee gets to decide who plays in the game. Bowden might even know some people personally who sit on the two bowl committees in Alabama. The politics are very important at this point. I think the question is, who would draw more locals to the game?

Wouldn't it be just as easy to have them smoke some Skywalker OG?

Link Teams allowed a maximum of 15 practices. Most impressive is after one particular season, 51 of 70 teams that made bowl games made post season again the following year.

This is a very important question. A coach puts some thought into what he would do if his best player went down due to fouls and can make adjustments around that. A coaches best option and game plan assumes his best player and captain is in the game. Remove that first option and some other option of lesser quality becomes the best option with an even lesser option then becoming the adjustment. The season just started and they have been going through training camp planning around Tree being with the team. So much of what they have been doing leading up to this is a waste of time and to retool once the season starts is very difficult. It puts KD in a really bad spot. It will be interesting to see if in the next few days the team can adjust on the fly to these circumstances. Young teams normally don't find adjustment easy.

For ESPN, it is about the sponsorship revenue. For the schools, it is a chance to spend more money than you bring in for the "exposure" and also a few extra weeks of practice to prep some underclassmen for the next season. For gambling degenerates, it is another game to bet. For the bowl itself, they do need some money to give away to a local charity. Because of that, the Montgomery bowl seems like it would be a good fit for Akron. I would be willing to bet that we are a more attractive draw for this bowl with our coach being formerly of UNA and most importantly Auburn than another MAC schools with Coach X and Player Y nobody has heard of. We have a player Y, but a name in a coach people have heard of. If we win next week, I think it would be awesome if we found our way into any bowl. Let's face it, lots of us haven't had much to be really happy about as it relates to this program for almost 30 years. Bowls for a school like Akron are very important. There are people in this world who schedule regular vacations around bowl games. I hope we can get to that point some day and this year would be a good start.

I actually loved it (see earlier posts). I love a boring off tackle play when it works because it is as you describe above. I hate a boring play when it doesn't work because they frequently are the base of an offense and if you can't run the base of your offense regularly, you can't win. EDIT: One thing about boring plays, they seem to work better against bad teams. The now 2-8 Tennessee Titans are a bad team. UMASS is a bad team. The Steelers and Zips offenses got a lot of help from bad teams this week. Formations and play calling both take a back seat to execution. These two teams were "magically" able to execute against bad teams with bad players. The trick is to be able to execute every week. The Zips have one more week to prove whether or not they can execute against a bad team. Can't is horrible and we should win. We need to start executing better against better teams or we will be 6-6 forever and I'm not interested in following a 6-6 team forever. I've done it for almost 30 years now and I've had just about all I can take.

"coveted" is too Biblical of a term for me. I would prefer the word "interested". We might have some interest from the bowl in Alabama. Outside of that, I don't hold much hope.

I like it too when it works. I hate it when it doesn't work. Same reaction to bubble screen and triple option. Big fan of plays that work. Hater of plays that don't work. ThatThat's how I roll.

Dreams are about all Zips football fans have.

One more win and we might be on our way to Alabama. Getting my hopes up. Why do I do it to myself?