The MAC Stinks

[GP1]

I put this topic in football, but it could apply to any sport.The MAC stinks and I find this very upsetting because I love UofA and I follow MAC sports as best as I can. The conference is in a very bad way right now and I badly want this to change. There are a lot of reasons for it that make it hard for MAC schools to gain traction. Below are just a few:1. NCAA focus on BCS schools.2. Lack of alumni support at MAC schools.3. Entry level jobs for coachs and athletic department staff creating high turnover.4. The weather makes it hard to recruit.5. The population is shifting to warm weather states.I believe the above are all givens and these givens are not going to change soon. Disagree if you wish, but they are pretty obvious if you ask me and the list is cursory. Add to this incomplete list if you wish.The question is this. What can the new commissioner do to improve the league? I think about this a lot and I don't know what the answer is. At this point, I would take the new commissioner ending the bleeding. Can the new head of the MAC improve it at a faster rate than the other conferences are improving? Remember, we are behind in the race. When you are behind in a race, you need to run faster than the person in front of you just to catch up. Unless you are waiting for the person in front of you to fall down which will not happen because the NCAA has set it up so they will not fall.Let's bring this discussion around to UofA now. Should we not worry about the quality of the league and just try to be the best team in a bad conference? When I really think about it, my thoughts always end here. Let's just be the best team in a bad conference and not worry about all of the outside issues. I think this is a really positive way to look at our sports programs. Marshall never cared that they were the best team in a bad conference. They had fun winning championships and could have cared less what anyone thought of them or the MAC. In basketball, let's not try to be the Gonzaga of the east, or whatever. The worst Gonzaga team in the past ten years would have never lost to that horrible Valpo team last night. We lost. It is what it is and we are what we are. Why can't we just win the MAC? I don't care if we win the MAC and then get blown out by 50 in the first round of the NCAA.....let's just win the MAC tournament. Let the discussion begin......

[zen]

Let's just be the best team in a bad conference and not worry about all of the outside issues. I think this is a really positive way to look at our sports programs. Marshall never cared that they were the best team in a bad conference. They had fun winning championships and could have cared less what anyone thought of them or the MAC.

End of discussion.winning is fun, although if you're in a bad conference and you are winning, it's always in the back of your mind... but we aren't even dominating (yet ) so the whole discussion is moot.Let's start kicking some arse, and then let's b1tch about the conference

[UAZipster0305]

Let's just be the best team in a bad conference and not worry about all of the outside issues. I think this is a really positive way to look at our sports programs. Marshall never cared that they were the best team in a bad conference. They had fun winning championships and could have cared less what anyone thought of them or the MAC.

End of discussion.winning is fun, although if you're in a bad conference and you are winning, it's always in the back of your mind... but we aren't even dominating (yet ) so the whole discussion is moot.Let's start kicking some arse, and then let's b1tch about the conference

I concur 100%. The only program that has the right to complain is men's soccer...and the conference isn't really holding them back...the stigma of being Akron without a long-standing tradition of being National Championship contenders is the limiting factor.With the exception of football, the conference will never hold us back so long as we perform well in our out-of-conference schedule against respected programs.

[Buckzip]

Let's just be the best team in a bad conference and not worry about all of the outside issues. I think this is a really positive way to look at our sports programs. Marshall never cared that they were the best team in a bad conference. They had fun winning championships and could have cared less what anyone thought of them or the MAC.

End of discussion.winning is fun, although if you're in a bad conference and you are winning, it's always in the back of your mind... but we aren't even dominating (yet ) so the whole discussion is moot.Let's start kicking some arse, and then let's b1tch about the conference

I agree. But the problem is that UA, in both football and basketball, loses to teams that they have no excuse losing to.This happens over and over every year.Then when we start putting a few wins together, all of a sudden some think we are much better then we really are.It seems like every year some on here are saying, well we lost this game, but if we can win the next one. Then after the next game it's the exact same thing. We are 3-3, if we can win the next 6, we can still finish 9-3. Then we end up finoshing 4-8 or 5-7. It's the same thing every year.It's the cart and the horse theory. Akron can't go to a better conference, because we aren't even winning much in a crap conference. Very few top recruits want to play in the MAC in front of 8,000 when they can play in a BCS conference in front of 50,000 or more.There are recruits that would rather sit on the bench at a major program than start at a MAC school.Just the thrill of going through that tunnel into a packed stadium is a dream for some guys.

[72 Roo]

Interesting discussion. I believe we all feel the same way but maybe choose different logic to support our opinions. Mine is to get the hell out of the MAC as fast as we can, provided we can compete to win in a basketball and football conference. That is a big proviso. Until then we need to dominate the MAC. We are only prepared to do so in soccer and track, not the money sports which rule all decisions. I'd love to be in the Big East, but they, rightly so, will not take us so we should get used to it. Frankly, I don't blame them. We bring little to the conference except for soccer and track. A more realistic goal would be Conference USA. That would help all sports and we could make the leap if we begin dominating the MAC. I hope we look that way in the future. If we focus only on dominating the MAC we still will not get the attendence or recognition we need to come close to balancing the athletic dept budget. C-USA gives us a better chance to do so and will make us continue to grow and develop. I can't see the MAC ever generating the attendence we will want.Until a jump is feasible we need to get our house in order and start winning the MAC regularly in football and Basketball. We need to be the program that causes all conference members to think the road to the championship goes thru Akron.

[ksu sucks]

Akron has something that most--well none--- of the other MAC schools have. We have a dynamic President who takes athletics seriously, and realizes just how effective a strong football or basketball team can be in creating publicity for the school. A strong sports program(specifically football) can "make" a school. Take Ohio State for example. Ten years ago, any idiot from Ohio who applied could get in. Fast forward to today in the midst of the Tressel era, and look at OSU's acceptance rate. I have friends who are students at OSU and are a part of the recruiting team there(i.e. they bother prospective students with multiple phone calls) and they told me that OSU has plans on increasing it's admissions selectivity to that of the Ivy's within the next couple years. My point is, that OSU's football team, and it's Nat'l championships over the past few years(regardless of where the team is now) has increased the applicant pool there to the degree that they are benefiting academically.Proenza realizes this correlation between sports and academics more than most MAC presidents, and the brand new stadium(especially despite the economic times were in) is a testament to that. While Can't State's president talks about making cuts within the athletic department, Akron is drawing up plans for a new soccer stadium and possibly a basketball arena.Essentially, what it's going to come down to is the players, coaches, staff, and community to instill a winning tradition. Proenza has set this school up for success in the long haul, and now it's up to the teams to make it happen. If our teams utilize the facilities, coaching, and skilled athletes we've brought here the past few years, domination in the MAC isn't that far off. THEN, we can talk about conference moves . Besides, don't you guys just love playing Can't every year??

[skip-zip]

I know we've had many, many discussions on this topic in the past. I'll just comment on a few of the things I saw here, and leave a few more of my own.1) I don't see what affect people moving south has on Akron football and basketball support. Plenty of teams, from high school to pro, get more than their share of support in the Northern part of the country. 2) I still can't see us meeting any of the factors that would make us an attractive addition to a "bigger" conference. Large football attendance? Large basketball attendance? A large donor base? I would think that even C-USA would look at us as falling far short of having the potential to generate revenue for the conference, and be a good draw when we play road games at their other member schools. Maybe long-term, sustained sellouts at the new football stadium would change the way people look at us. But, that's going to take one heck of a commitment from everyone involved. 3) Every sports team is always going to lose some games that they should have won. Could a few people say, "that stinks...I'll never go to a game again"? Sure. But our dilemma is much bigger than that. We need to increase our support by the thousands, not by the hundreds.Here's the best thing we have going for us right now....We have leadership that supports athletics in a big way. We haven't always had that. For the most part, it involves hiring good coaching staffs, and supporting them with good faciilities, training equipment, recruiting resources, etc. We've made some huge strides in this area in recent years. And in the opinion of someone who's been all over the MAC, I can't think of any school in this conference that is in as good of a position as Akron to increase their level of success right now.

[GP1]

1) I don't see what affect people moving south has on Akron football and basketball support. Plenty of teams, from high school to pro, get more than their share of support in the Northern part of the country.

It's not really community support as much as it is fewer quality high school athletes to draw from.

[GP1]

All good points. Let's try to look at this also from the new head of the MAC position. What are three things the new president of the MAC can do immediately to improve the league?

[skip-zip]

Great question GP....1) Go to bat for your member schools when they get hosed (i.e. our 2006-07 basketball team, and our 2008 soccer team).2) Encourage and aid the upgrading of schedule strength at EVERY school for men's basketball. If everyone doesn't get on the same page, the conference isn't going to improve its standing (this is far less of a factor in football, but that is for another discussion). 3) Spend resources to market MAC Athletics to the general public in the region.

[zen]

3) Spend resources to market MAC Athletics to the general public in the region.

I could be crazy, but I would consider it an investment to virtually "give away" television contracts for 5 years.From that, MAC get's better exposure in their markets, and builds a larger fan base, and the the networks with the contracts get content at a minimal cost during which to run ads and make money.When you build up more interest in your programs, people get hooked. The contracts will make money later, and interest in your school's programs will rise.Currently, the MAC schools get minimal television time. As far as people in Ohio, S.Michigan, N.Illinois, and those other markets are concerned, their MAC programs are in the same black hole as HS sports. Hell, even H.S. games get more air time. It's ridiculous....and no, it is not an investment to give in to ESPN so they can hide the few MAC games that they do air on unavailable networks and odd time slots

[GP1]

Great question GP....1) Go to bat for your member schools when they get hosed (i.e. our 2006-07 basketball team, and our 2008 soccer team).2) Encourage and aid the upgrading of schedule strength at EVERY school for men's basketball. If everyone doesn't get on the same page, the conference isn't going to improve its standing (this is far less of a factor in football, but that is for another discussion). 3) Spend resources to market MAC Athletics to the general public in the region.

Excellent point on issue #2. We are probably more guilty of this at UofA as anyone in the league.I'm not certain what the MAC president can do when a member school gets hosed other than telling someone he is really mad. The president has no real power to make the NCAA do anything.Marketing the MAC is extremely difficult because the quality has become so poor and historically has been poor. The MAC has had over 60 years to expose itself to the general public and still attendance is poor. Either there still isn't enough exposure, or people don't like what they see when they go to a game. 60 years of going to market with billboards is a long time. At some point, maybe someone will wake up and realize billboards don't do anything.

[ZachTheZip]

The MAC stinks. What can be done about it? Absolutely nothing. The MAC is controlled by the university presidents who, besides Proenza and one or two others, are content to be where they are at. Some even want to drop to 1-AA or ignore sports all together. You can't do anything to change that.The only thing Akron can do is focus on improving its own athletics both in the actual quality and in the public perception. One leads to the other.As for GP1's original list:1. What does this tell us? That the NCAA likes money? Well, duh. The best way to gain the favor of the NCAA is to have money. The best way to have money is to have a large and active alumni base. The best way to have that is to create pride among the students that sticks with them after they graduate. It's an ongoing issue, but I feel that it has improved since I started going here.2. See #1. We can't worry about how crappy the other MAC schools are. The only thing we can do is try to nurture a relationship with the few other MAC schools who are striving to become something more, and leave the rest in the dust. In fact, when you look at other conferences that are consideres "successful", you'll see that they have a well-defined hierarchy of talent. Look at the A-10 for example: Xavier, one or two others, and then the rest are purely mid-major type schools. The Big Ten has OSU, Penn State, and then crap in football. That's how the MAC needs to be. Our parity works against us because we have no "face of the conference" schools.3. This is a problem that we will see until we can afford to keep the talent. Or unless we find somebody with vision who wants to transform UA into a place where people want to end up, not use as a stepping stone. We are incredibly lucky to have a guy like KD in charge of men's basketball. Same goes for Proenza as our president. He's worlking maniacally to transform UA into what he envisions as his dream job. We need coaches that want to turn their job into what they want it to be, not use it to find somewhere else.4. This is only true for football. Basketball doesn't have anything to do with the weather. Soccer, despite being outdoors, is consistently getting the most talented players in the country, not to mention the guys from overseas.5. The older population is shifting southward. I'm guessing around 90% of the "growth" comes from retirement-age people. How does that affect college-age recruits? Their grandma lives in Florida next door to a half-million other grandmas, so they would rather go to FIU? It doesn't affect us nearly as much as you would think.

[skip-zip]

GP....the marketing issue is indeed a tough one. I've been around Akron athletics for a long time, and I have run out of possible answers.But let me give two examples of things I encountered recently:1) I have a neighbor who is a Cowlumbus State alum and fan. He sometimes will go to an Akron game for something to do, and enjoys going. But he views it as going to some "lower level division" college basketball game.2) There is a couple that my wife and I have been hanging out with recently, and they asked us what we were doing on a recent Saturday. We said we were going to an Akron/Central Michigan basketball game, and they looked at us with a half-laugh and asked "why would you wanna do that?". And, these are the same people who put on their Nuthead gear every Saturday during football season.I think the general public, and even semi-informed sports fans, view MAC sports as something just above the level of a high school. It's unbelievable how much they do not know. And the MAC should consider making a commitment to informing the public that this IS D-1A athletic competition, with D-1 players. No offense to these schools, but this is not Hiram, or Case, or Tiffin. And sooooo many people don't know that we play in the same division as all of those big schools they hear so much about.

[ZachTheZip]

As for what I want toe new commisioner to do, here's a quick list off the top of my head.1. Grow some balls and tell Temple to join for all sports or get the hell out. If they join, immediately start looking for a 14th team to balance out the nightmare of a schedule you've just created. If there is no 14th team to be found, lobby the MAC presidents (they have all the real power, remember) to dump one of the small-minded schools who wants to regress in football (I'm looking at you, EMU).2. Dump ESPN. 8 more years of weeknight games for the additional "benefit" of being seen by 500 people on ESPN360. Join up with CBS like the MWC.3. Stop "helping" teams schedule for football. We were forced to drop Kentucky thanks to the MAC office and had to keep Wisconsin, and I'll never forgive them. If you want to do something constructive, strike up a deal with one of the other conferences like C-USA for a "challenge" where teams get a home-and-home with a somewhat equal team.4. Enforce a rule that MAC teams must have at least 6 non-conference home games in basketball, and that they must join a pre-season tournament. The MAC has an incredible home-court advantage, and some of the west teams could really benefit from playing weaker teams at home instead of getting beat on all season before conference play. Their improved record would help the East in the RPI instead of being so much of a SOS anchor.5. Stop adding crappy teams in Soccer. FAU? Hartwick? Please. We all know that Akron has all the power there, and as soon as we leave (please, Mack, get us out of there) you'll drop the sport all together.

[skip-zip]

uakronkid....I can kinda see where you are going with this. The problem is, if the entire conference doesn't do something to upgrade themselves, then those 2-3 teams that end up being the real top dogs of the conference carry no credibility when looked at on a national scale. I don't want to turn this into a full-blown discussion about SOS, etc., but even a 25-game winner as the MAC conference champ this year would have looked pretty weak when compared to the 100 or so best teams in the country. Sure...you don't need 10 good teams to have a respectable conference. But, a healthy portion of them need to at least be viewed as formidable competition. And if our conference gets involved to encourage all of us to increase our SOSs, which increases the collective conference SOS, that would be a good start. Not a cure by any means..but a good start.

[Dave in Green]

In basketball, let's not try to be the Gonzaga of the east, or whatever. The worst Gonzaga team in the past ten years would have never lost to that horrible Valpo team last night. We lost. It is what it is and we are what we are. Why can't we just win the MAC? I don't care if we win the MAC and then get blown out by 50 in the first round of the NCAA.....let's just win the MAC tournament.

It would probably be somewhat less difficult for Akron to become a national power in basketball than football. For one thing, basketball is all played indoors, so the cold weather climate that affects football is not the same issue. It also requires fewer key players to become a power in basketball than football.It's good to have both short and long term goals. Before growing into a national basketball power, Gonzaga used to lose to teams with poor records like Valpo this year. They grew the program to first win the conference, and continued improving until they became a national power. So it's fair to say that being the best in the MAC is the next step toward becoming the Gonzaga of the east. Akron has already taken the first step toward becoming the Gonzaga of the east by retaining a good, stable men's basketball coaching staff that produces consistent winning seasons. The Zips also have an X factor in the form of LeBron's support. The next step is to leverage all of that to attract a potentially dominant player, and that is now in place with the signing of Zeke Marshall. If Zeke fully blossoms, the Zips could be favored to win the MAC for the next four years. That would, in turn, make it easier to recruit other quality players who want to be in a winning program.In other words, the foundation has been put in place to grow Zips basketball into a power that might be attractive to a bigger conference, if that's a goal. Another possibility is that other MAC schools might put more effort into improving their basketball programs to compete with a dominant team that routinely destroys every other team in the conference.There are no guarantees in life, and the whole thing could come crashing down. But I personally like the direction the men's basketball team is taking, and think they should be given more opportunity to continue to show progress with the building process already in place.

[Captain Kangaroo]

1. NCAA focus on BCS schools.

This really hurts MAC football. I posted a statistic several months ago that showed something like 99.73% of the of Top 200 overall players from the past 5 years of D-1 football recruiting classes chose BCS schools. You win with players, and the NCAA has basically relegated half of the NCAA schools to the back of the recruiting bus. I'm still waiting for the "Rosa Parks" of the non-BCS schools to have the balls to call someone out and advocate real change.Can a non-BCS school overcome? I guess if you are out in the middle of Idaho or Utah...and you are the only game in town...college or pro...you can get something going. But in the middle of OSU and Browns/Steelers country...good luck being non-BCS.Basketball is in the same boat, but it seem like there is a better chance for success. The MVC will typically get 3-4 teams in the Big Dance. The Horizon can expect two in a good season. Schools like Gonzaga, Tulsa and Davidson make noise as do many others. If a school or conference commits to success in basketball at the mid-major level there are several examples where high-level success can be had.

2. Lack of alumni support at MAC schools.

You always hear the OSU clown blurt-out "Ohio State doesn't compete with Akron." It is wrong on many obvious levels, but no more so than in OSU's effect on UA school pride and alumni donations. If you always treat your school as "a place to get a degree," and direct your collegiate passion to another school, you never donate to your alma mater.And to be fair to "OSU Guy," the MAC has done a HORRIBLE job of fostering alumni loyalty. And UA is probably the worst offender. UA administrators have for decades used OSU's existence as a crutch for their own lack of creativity and investment in its future alumni. The advent of the AK-Rowdies seems so minor, but it was a HUGE investment in getting students interested in Zips athletics. And subsequently getting alumni to continue supporting programs after they've received their degree and begun working.The next step is to WIN! Win freaking championships...make headlines...get people buying gear...get on the local news...capture someone's imagination!!! AK-Rowdies only care so much if the football team is going 5-7 and the basketball team is hoisting "NIT Participant" banners.Screw beating Canisius...or South Dakota...or losing in the 2nd round of the NCAA soccer tourney. W-I-N something big.

[ZachTheZip]

Akron desperately needs to win. They need to win the MAC in basketball, and they need to win against "name" programs in football. And a national championship in soccer. These are what you could say are the "next step" for our programs. Akron basketball has been consistently in the "good" category in the MAC, and the next step is to consistently win it, and then we can focus on improving outside the MAC. In football the opposite is true. We won the MAC four years ago and we saw what that can get us, but there is so little consistency in that sport that we're better off trying to get that one elusive marquee win that gets us national press and opens up eyes locally. Then we can parlay that into winning the MAC.In soccer, we destroy the MAC every year and win against the best teams in the country. Almost every non-conference win comes against a "marquee" opponent. We're like the Memphis of soccer. There is only one step left to take, and that's a NCAA title.

[ZachTheZip]

uakronkid....I can kinda see where you are going with this. The problem is, if the entire conference doesn't do something to upgrade themselves, then those 2-3 teams that end up being the real top dogs of the conference carry no credibility when looked at on a national scale. I don't want to turn this into a full-blown discussion about SOS, etc., but even a 25-game winner as the MAC conference champ this year would have looked pretty weak when compared to the 100 or so best teams in the country. Sure...you don't need 10 good teams to have a respectable conference. But, a healthy portion of them need to at least be viewed as formidable competition. And if our conference gets involved to encourage all of us to increase our SOSs, which increases the collective conference SOS, that would be a good start. Not a cure by any means..but a good start.

It's a process. Recruits want to play for winners. If we win the MAC more often than not, that means that we're winners. We get better recruits, compete better outside of the MAC while continuing to win in the MAC, and it snowballs. In basketball, you can see that beginning to happen. All it took was something to get it started. That something was LeBron James. He brought Keith Dambrot up to the point where we hired him, and he was surrounded by great talent like Dru Joyce and Romeo Travis where his idea of giving back to their hometown was planted. They came here to transform Akron basketball into something great and that's what I can feel happening, even if it is happening a bit slower than expected.

[johnnyzip84]

I see a lot of good points have been brought up already. I agree wholeheartedly with uakronkid that the Temple situation should be dealt with immediately. It's all in or see ya. And if that leads to a "culling of the herd" then so be it. I DO like the fact that the MAC has a championship game in FB, and it's tough to have one of these with less than a dozen members. BUT, we need 12 commited schools in FB and in hoops as a minimum, for the conference to be strong in other sports. And if that means a little bit of a "shake up", I'm OK with that too. Perhaps Middle Tennessee and Western Ky would like to replace EMU and Temple (if they don't coopperate)?

[Captain Kangaroo]

In basketball, let's not try to be the Gonzaga of the east, or whatever. The worst Gonzaga team in the past ten years would have never lost to that horrible Valpo team last night. We lost. It is what it is and we are what we are. Why can't we just win the MAC? I don't care if we win the MAC and then get blown out by 50 in the first round of the NCAA.....let's just win the MAC tournament.

It would probably be somewhat less difficult for Akron to become a national power in basketball than football. For one thing, basketball is all played indoors, so the cold weather climate that affects football is not the same issue. It also requires fewer key players to become a power in basketball than football.It's good to have both short and long term goals. Before growing into a national basketball power, Gonzaga used to lose to teams with poor records like Valpo this year. They grew the program to first win the conference, and continued improving until they became a national power. So it's fair to say that being the best in the MAC is the next step toward becoming the Gonzaga of the east. Akron has already taken the first step toward becoming the Gonzaga of the east by retaining a good, stable men's basketball coaching staff that produces consistent winning seasons. The Zips also have an X factor in the form of LeBron's support. The next step is to leverage all of that to attract a potentially dominant player, and that is now in place with the signing of Zeke Marshall. If Zeke fully blossoms, the Zips could be favored to win the MAC for the next four years. That would, in turn, make it easier to recruit other quality players who want to be in a winning program.In other words, the foundation has been put in place to grow Zips basketball into a power that might be attractive to a bigger conference, if that's a goal. Another possibility is that other MAC schools might put more effort into improving their basketball programs to compete with a dominant team that routinely destroys every other team in the conference.There are no guarantees in life, and the whole thing could come crashing down. But I personally like the direction the men's basketball team is taking, and think they should be given more opportunity to continue to show progress with the building process already in place.

I agree with all above. People want to plant a tree on Monday and begin eating fruit on Wednesday. It doesn't work that way.I agree basketball is making continuous progression towards making a sustainable run at "elite" mid major status (if there is such a thing). Look at the program 5 years ago, and look now. It is night and day. This season is a step backwards (from the past couple), but we still have as good a shot as anyone to win the league title and make the post season. That's not too bad for a rebuilding year? Next season we lose Linhart, and gain Zeke, Sullivan, Parish and Steward. The table is also set for football. 5 years ago we had no indoor training facility and the worst D-1 stadium on the planet. Now we're state-of-the-art across the board. It is JD's time to seal the deal. There are no more excuses. I think he'll succeed.

[zipboy]

If I was the new MAC Commissioner1. Pay for performance. If you make a bowl game, no need to share with the rest of the league. A league with 12 mediocre teams is worse than a league with 3 studs and 9 horrible teams. Basketball, whoever goes to the Big Dance, keeps the whole pie. 2. If you don't play at least so many home games in basketball, you get fined. If your RPI is worse than 300, you owe 10% of gate receipts to the teams who end the year with the highest RPI.3. Is it feasible to be solid in both football and basketball? I hope so but I don't know the answer to that. If not, decide which sport to invest as little as possible in.4. Each year redesign the league based off competitiveness. In basketball take the top 6 and have them play each other 3 times, with 1 game against 3 of the other 6 teams for an 18 game conference schedule. This keeps the RPI high for the better teams. In football, limit how many good teams play each other so that you have the best chance to have as many teams bowl eligible as possible.5. Put all games on the internet for free like the Horizon. The more people who see you and care, the better.

[pdt1420]

About people who recognize their degree at one school but invest emotionally in another....A sales engineer and I went to lunch, he started talking about where his son should go to school and asking me for advice (since I'm just out). I was telling him that coming out with less debt from a public state school is better than a bigger name degree from a private or out of state school where the kid will be up to his eyeballs in debt.He used that as a segway to say that he went to the College of Wooster, and I said "oh, that's cool, I went to Case for 2 years and played Wooster in football."His response was to the effect of: "yeah, sometimes I want to make my kid go to OSU, because, y'know, I'm such a big OSU fan, and when people ask me if I went there, I have to be, like, no, I went to Wooster." (Italics added for the incredulous disdain in his voice)The guy has the career he has because of his education, and yet he dumps on his alma mater because people rightly see him as the front runner he is. It, coupled with Olive Garden's menu, made me throw up in my mouth a lil bit.Now, I think his kid should go to OSU before he pays to go to Wooster, but the point is, if it comes down to enrolling his son at OSU or any public MAC school, which do you think he'll choose?

[uafan]

Winning curers a lot of ills, and that is where we need to start. Every year in football we start out O-for, sacrificing for the sake of a "pay day." Our revenues should be up with Info, so let's drop these early season pay days and schedule someone who will do a home-and-home (Cincy) where we will be competetive. When was the last time we were 1-0 to start the season? Have more than 4 or 5 home games. get the students excited, get the community hooked (with the new stadium) and this will begin the building.Also, make recruiting a few Akron kids a priority. 1 or 2 kids on the roster from Akron won't cut it. With home town kids playing, home town support follows. And don't tell me Akron area high schools don't turn out college ability athletes.