Akron Thoughts

[TexanMark]

Joe Siegferth did a great job handling the ticket requests and got us a group rate for the the seats and the Tailgate Lot. Well done Joe...BTW, he even called me after the game and asked how we were treated. Awesome customer service...thanks Joe.

Got into Macedonia, OH late on Friday night. The construction on SR 8 was never really a factor the whole weekend. We stayed at the LaQuinta and it was a good stay.

We were in Lot 34. It ( the lot and parking flow) was well run, the lot is very nice with a good strip of grass along Carroll St...Akron fans were laid back save for the Akron Rowdies who got the biggest kick out of blasting

from the post Akron '08 broadcast. Well done...I got a chuckle out of that. I invited them several times to come over and have a coney but apparently they were shy but they missed out on coney served at Heid's as seen on this episode of "Man vs. Food" I mentioned to them we no longer employ GRob and he is Michigan's problem now. Niko Tamurian (local Syracuse Sports TV guy) came by and interviewed several of us...as he was doing a story on Internet fan boards. Kenner from the Akron sports board was a good sport and got interviewed...nice guy with a great TV setup....sported a Sat TV set up and I got to watch a bit of Yukon puking on themselves.

This next paragraph is directed at the delusional Akron fans who think they should be like Can't State with $5 tickets

Personally I felt like I was back in 1990: $20-25 to sit on the 40 yard line, $5-10 to park, motels well under $75...concession prices were also priced like a minor league baseball park. Infocision is a beautiful small/medium sized stadium with great sightlines. Wide corridors and a good selection of concession items. You guys need to get real...Akron Football is great deal for 1A. Your stadium is on campus and you have a nice tailgate set up among an attractive campus. I'd rather watch a game in this setting than sitting out in some cow pasture 2 miles from campus. You are an urban university and it is a nice set up for a stadium downtown--embrace it. You need to help the rebuilding process by supporting the team and creating a home field advantage.. Bottomline: If you want to be Can't State drive 10 miles NE and sit at their crappy high school like stadium with high school ticket prices. You realize in the big boy divison ticket prices over $35 and closer to $50 is the norm? Cuse fans going next week to Washington are paying $66 to sit in the endzone.

Sadly, Akron needs to support your team...a really pathetic crowd by Akron...maybe 13k Zip fans for a season opener against a well known program. Your crowd despite being small was also quiet and sat on your a$$...a bad combo. You never made much of an effort to cheer not even early. Hello? Maybe get off your a$$ on 3rd down defensive stands? It was also a fairly lame student body...arrive late, sit with disinterest on the endzone lawn and leave early...good job students. BTW, I do like the idea of an end zone lawn...well done and it should be awesome once the crowds come.

Hopefully Coach I can get you back to their winning ways soon and get the students interested in the Zips. BTW not to slam just Akron Students our students (Cuse) are just as bad (leaving early) but they do cheer when the game is close but they bail out quickly if we fall behind in the 2nd half.

I do hope Coach I will learn kicking field goals might be safe...to lose close but to beat a better program you have to take chances....stupid, stupid call in the second half...also, I wonder if Nicely was told not to force anything? It seemed like he threw the ball (uncatchable) anytime he was pressured? Listening to the the post game interviews from both coaches was telling. Hopefully Coach I learns and moves on...

Bottomline: Akron had gracious fans and Joe Siegferth in the Ticket Office really came through for our tailgate group. I would love another series with Akron if we can get a 2 for 1 or a 3 for 2. Akron ought to like it also --->if we brought 2500-3000 fans (Joe S. still thought closer to 5k but I think it was less) off a 4-8 season what would we travel off an 8-4 season to Akron in the future? Things are looking up for Cuse. Hopefully Akron is not too far behind.

Good luck the rest of the season...hope you can make a bowl game.

[Z.I.P.]

Joe Siegferth did a great job handling the ticket requests .

Didn't he used to be the basketball coach at South High School? Could this be his son -- anyone?

edit: Joe Siegferth was the legendary basketball coach at Akron Central and Central-Hower HS from the early 60s till 80s, I believe. He coached future Basketball Hall-of-Famers Nate Thurmond and Gus Johnson as well as Akron legend Billy Turner. Our Ticket Manager is Joe Siegferth III. I assume, his grandson.

[skip-zip]

Mark,

I'm glad you were treated well here in Akron. I think we all appreciate your feedback, especially as it pertains to the atmosphere, fans, etc. Coming from someone who's been associated with a higher-level program, I guess we have a little more confirmation on how far we have to go in order to become a bigger and better program ourselves.

I chuckled when you talked about hoping that we can get "back to our winning ways". Don't get me wrong. I appreciate the sentiment. But, we've reallly never had a "winning way" as a I-A program. We didn't move to 1-A until the late 80s, and have had very few winning seasons, one MAC title, and one bowl appearance during that time. I'm actually still stunned that we beat you guys in Syracuse two years ago, because we didn't have a good team that year either.

Good luck to you guys this year. I admired your good away-game turnout, and we welcome you folks back to Akron again someday, if it works out that way in the scheduling. And please....have a great season so that we don't look so bad.

[Buckzip]

Texanmark,

Nice post. The thing I disagree with is where you say this is a value for DIA football.

You are right that it is a value for DIA football. The problem is that UA isn't playing like they are DIA.

Watch other teams, not just top 25 teams, and you can tell the difference. The stadium may be nice, but I am not going to watch a crappy team at a nice stadium and pay the high price for it.

It's like paying a lot of money to go to a fancy restaurant and the food sucks. I don't care how nice the place is, if the food is bad I'm not going back. UA is not entertaining.

The team looks like crap, and the supposed great recruiter isn't doing anything so far to change that.

Our recruiting ,so far, is very mediocre under him. I am extremely underwhelmed at the verbals we have so far.

Great facilities, great stadium, a great recruiter, and we are in the middle of the MAC in recruiting? Absurd.

[K92]

It was very nice to meet Mark on Saturday. He is a very cordial person and I can really say the same for everyone in his contingent. The Syracuse fans were definitely a group that loves to tailgate and it was immediately apparent they were quite experienced. Got to meet Cuyahoga 'Cuse who made the trip down from Solon with his family as well. We were in right in the midst of a Orange flood and made some quick friends with the Syracuse faithful.

Mark was kind enough to hook me up with a Hoffmann's Coney, which was a real treat. As you all can see from the video, I am a man who loves to eat. Parked directly beside us was the Kimball family, father and 3 sons, who put on a clinic of how a tailgate should be. They also shared some fantastic food with us including sauteed shrimp and some of the most lip smackin'est ribs you've ever tasted. If Akron re-ups the series with SU, we are going to make plans to tailgate with them again. These 4 gentlemen were great neighbors.

Then we packed up and went to the game.

I have stayed off the boards since then because I don't want to say things I will regret later.

Keeping it positive, I would say that the band sounded great. Kudos to them. I like them better without the flag corps as well. As far as football. . .thank god for Brian Wagner. What a player. I liked the way Nate Burney ran with an attitude. I hope to see him perform better this week and beyond. Although the 1st game was a unmitigated disaster, I was pleased to see the Zips commit zero turnovers. One step in the right direction for sure.

Mom always said if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all, so I will take her advice and not even get into the negatives of the day. The Zips need to make a huge improvement from week one to week two. HUGE. That being said, I have a hunch that Syracuse is much improved from last year. Travelling to Washington this week will be a report card game for them.

I am trying to keep everything in perspective and although there is much weeping and the gnashing of teeth in ZipNation, things could be worse. Just ask the fans in Lawrence and Oxford.

[RootforRoo44]

I'd rather watch a game in this setting than sitting out in some cow pasture 2 miles from campus.

We were cool until you ripped on the greatest tailgating area in the entire sporting world. I'd take the Rubber Bowl tailgating ANY day over the set up on campus. The stadium...well yeah that's a different story.

[johnnyzip84]

Excellent review, Mark. Glad you seemed to enjoy yourself as much as I did in Syracuse in 2008. While working at the job I held at the time, I kept a picture from that Zip victory (the low point for you guys, I know) as my computer desktop background. The picture showed Andre Jones clearly beating his man for his 2nd TD of the game. The number of the badly burned defender was none other than #35. Well, when this same Mike Holmes took back the blocked FG for a TD this past Saturday, I thought to myself (after the sting had subsided) that here's a guy who has really worked hard to improve his game. He played a solid overall game. Opponent or not, that sort of effort leaves an impression on me. I hope he has a great remainder of the season as I do the rest of the Orange.

Oh and thanks for trying to bring some sanity to the ticket price discussion. Perhaps you also realize that the Syracuse game is even the ONLY $20 GA game in 2010; the rest are $15 for GA. I think the ticket price furor here is largely entwined with the dissatisfaction with the coaching staff/athletic department. There probably wasn't one person on this board who was excited when the hiring on Ianello was announced (with the possible exception of the AD). Of course it's way too early to tell how he will pan out, but the poor showing in the opener probably reinforced some negative perceptions. If the Zips had played well in defeat, like SU did in Marrone's 1st game against N'Western, the attitude might be a little different. It'll take at least a few good results to change this.

You're right about our nice stadium. I'm thankful it's been built....in fact I like to tell my wife and buddies on the way out or in "they can't tear the thing down now, no matter what". I will enjoy it as long as I am able.

Good luck against Washington this Saturday and the rest of the season. I also hope we play again soon. I want a return trip to Clark's Ale House and The Blue Tusk. After all, if someone had said to me way back when this 2 for 1 series was 1st signed that they'd give me one Zip win out of the three games, I would have said "where do I sign?".

[skip-zip]

I'd rather watch a game in this setting than sitting out in some cow pasture 2 miles from campus.

We were cool until you ripped on the greatest tailgating area in the entire sporting world. I'd take the Rubber Bowl tailgating ANY day over the set up on campus. The stadium...well yeah that's a different story.

Amen. How can you beat having one big giant party in a wide open grass field?

I actually really thought I'd grow to like the "campus tailgating" atmosphere after the Morgan State game. There were house parties going on everywhere. It made me forget about the Rubber Bowl for a week. But, it just hasn't been the same since. Last Saturday, I felt no enthusiasm in the areas around the campus at all.

I still like the idea of tailgating at the Bowl, and then coming to the Info for the game.

[MaxZIP]

I'd rather watch a game in this setting than sitting out in some cow pasture 2 miles from campus.

We were cool until you ripped on the greatest tailgating area in the entire sporting world. I'd take the Rubber Bowl tailgating ANY day over the set up on campus. The stadium...well yeah that's a different story.

Amen. How can you beat having one big giant party in a wide open grass field?

I actually really thought I'd grow to like the "campus tailgating" atmosphere after the Morgan State game. There were house parties going on everywhere. It made me forget about the Rubber Bowl for a week. But, it just hasn't been the same since. Last Saturday, I felt no enthusiasm in the areas around the campus at all.

I still like the idea of tailgating at the Bowl, and then coming to the Info for the game.

I think he was still talking about Can't.

[you am i]

Good observations from an outsider's perspective. It sounds like you had a decent time.

I agree about the ticket prices. Bitching about paying $20 for a major college football game is nuts. But bitch some people do.

Sorry the home team provided such a sorry exhibition of football. It was embarassing.

[Z.I.P.]

Good observations from an outsider's perspective. It sounds like you had a decent time.

I agree about the ticket prices. Bitching about paying $20 for a major college football game is nuts. But bitch some people do.

Sorry the home team provided such a sorry exhibition of football. It was embarassing.

I think, if the U was smart, they would do like the Seattle Sounders after a poor performance, and offer everyone who attended their money back!

[Bleacher Bum]

I was the one blasting Kenny's 2 Pennies. It was nice to meet you Tim Robbins. I would have loved to take you up on that coney offer but we had so much food, even I was stuffed.

[zip37]

Joe Sig. was coach at Central/Central-Hower Had such players as Thurmond, Turner, Gus Johnson. At one time all three of them were in the NBA, and only one other HS in US had as many--Overbrook of Philly, this was in the 60s.

[Dr Z]

I wish you were a Zips fan Mark. Thanks for stopping back and posting. Good observations. I'm glad to hear your trip went well.

Post some photos if you have time.