Interesting Stats

[Captain Kangaroo]

• RB Brett Biggs has 95 carries for 357 yards (3.8) and 2 TDs this season. His 71.4 rushing yards per game is ranked fifth in the MAC and tied for 66th in the nation. - Can the offensive line spring him for a big gainer this year?

• The offensive line has allowed only eight sacks for 46 yards this season, tied for fourth in the MAC. - Credit Getsy for tossing the ball out of bounds before he gets sacked. He's constantly walking the tightrope between an incomplete pass and intentional grounding...but never gets the grounding call.

•The Zips offense is 25-for 80-on third-down conversions (31.2 percent), which ranks ninth in the MAC. - That's because we are still so weak in run blocking. 3rd and 1 might as well be 3rd and a mile for us.

• In 18 trips to the red zone, the offense has scored 12 times (66.7 %) including seven TDs and five field goals. The Zips are ranked ninth in the MAC in red-zone efficiency. - 9th is higher than I thought. We have really shot ourselves in the foot when inside the red zone this year.

• If you combine the total offense of the last two quarters of the CMU game with the first two quarters of the Buffalo game you get a whopping 77 offensive yards in 4 quarters of football. - I'm glad that stretch is over!

[GP1]

• RB Brett Biggs has 95 carries for 357 yards (3.8) and 2 TDs this season. His 71.4 rushing yards per game is ranked fifth in the MAC and tied for 66th in the nation. - Can the offensive line spring him for a big gainer this year?

I think his rushing average was seriously hurt last weekend.

The quick answer to your question is no, but for a couple of reasons. First, the offensive line has been horrible the last game and a half. Don't forget his head injury. He has the ability to average much more per game, but not much more. If the Zips can get back to the style of offense they played the first two games, we should see his average go back up.

Secondly, Biggs does not have the break away speed necessary for long runs. Two of my favorite things about him are his ability to run between the tackles (toughness) and find holes with little room (football smarts). He is actually the perfect back for this ball control offense. There have been almost no holes recently, but there have been some. Five or six yards on a first down pass allow a back getting 4.5 yards per carry, as he did the first two games, and to get a lot of first downs. Moving the chains is the most important thing to do because of the change in field position and rarely do you score every time you have the ball.

I hate to make excuses for him though because he has been my favorite player the past two seasons. We have been listening to excuses for years and I'm sick of hearing them. If he is having trouble running, he needs to try harder. If he thinks he is trying as hard as he can, he needs to think again and try harder. Everyone needs to try harder than what we have seen the past game and a half. That game last weekend was an abomination. We are a much better team than what we saw Saturday and we almost handed a smelly, steaming, burning sack of crap a win.

I would hope we could expose a very bad Miami defensive line this weekend. We'll see though if they show up to play.

[Z-P]

To the guys who went, thanks for the reports.

We've always seemed to "play to the level of our competition".............know what I mean?

Example..........we played at the level of NIU until we figured they were "soft" then the avalanche hit us.

We opened the first half vs CMU like we were playing NIU and when we figured "we had em" and started playing at their level, they ate us alive.

We go into Buffalo every frikin time for the past 7 years and figure it's a day off. Then we almost get bit...................

This is a tune that gets played by UA over and over and over.

I also know and understand what I just said is a cliche, but as an observer without much inside information, all I can offer is my opinion.

Another thing that rags me while I'm on the topic,......and I'm guilty of doing it too,...............is to prop a guy before his record is history. The only way we can tell the quality of the man is to look at his record over the long run.

Jury's still out on this whole team and the staff. We're only half way thru the season.

[GP1]

We've always seemed to "play to the level of our competition".............know what I mean?

I understand completely. It is called not being as good as you think you are.

If you look at MAC powers from years past, let's just use a Limpwich Marshall team as an example, they would have beaten Buffalo 52-0 last weekend and had 42 at halftime. Those teams just didn't win, they beat the crap out of bad teams. We need to get to that point.

We need to get to the point where the Zips are so good the crowd leaves at the end of the third quarter because the Zips are putting a beat down on someone so bad they can't ever recover in 15 minutes.

[zipper]

GP1, you nailed it. There's a difference between a team knowing how to win and a team knowing how to put the screws to 'em. I believe our guys THINK they know how to win, but they have to overshoot the goal, if you know what I mean, and go for the blowout. Every play, every quarter, every game.

[RACER]

i think expectations got way out of line after the wins versus mtsu, and niu.

this was supposed to be a rebuilding year then all of a sudden were talking about jd leaving early.how many teams in the mac can dominate every game. answer none.

bg got blown out twice this year.niu and miami already have lost a few games each, and toldeo got blown out by fresno. while there are alott of problems with this team i have to remind myself that we are 3-2.c/k is right. the red zone scoring though is a big concern though;when you can't get run the ball in short yardage.miami is down this year.

there is no reason we can't go down there, and win this game.

go akron!!!

[Zipsrifle]

Great point Z-P. The "Playing to the level of our competition" is a Zips trait that hasn't been shaken. This team needs to blow away a good team just to learn what that feels like. We had a chance against NIU, but dropped the ball.