Captain's Blog #6

[Captain Kangaroo]

I would like to thank the Zips for contributing to what just might have been the worst football game I've witnessed in my 44 years on this planet. What an absolute atrocity...

In the Zips 1st series you got a glimpse of the ineptitude that would rule the day, as K.e.n.t. jumped off-side, giving the Zips a 1st-and-5 at the Akron 32. Our offense worked it's magic as follows --

Alex Allen for -4 yards

Alex Allen for -2 yards

Time out

Nicely sack for -12 yards

4th and 23, after a 1st and 5.

WTF?!

Two possessions later, we're treated to the following --

Alex Allen - no gain

Alex Allen - Loss of 1

False Start Anderson

False Start Kasparek

INT returned for a touchdown

WTF?!

How about this gem from the end of the 1st half -- Zips have the ball 1st and 10 at the K.e.n.t. 22 yard line. 31 seconds remaining. 1 TOL. Down 21-7.

INSIDE HANDOFF to Alex Allen (clock runs)

Nicely sacked - Time out

Ianello summed up the decision as follows:

"When you get in your two-minute offense before the half, you try to get a field goal for sure. When you get close enough to be greedy, you go for the touchdown. I wanted to at least get ourselves in position to get a field goal."

Down 14 points on the road...on the opponents 22...1st and 10...31 seconds left...and the guy is positioning himself for the field goal. What a freaking dream come true for the K.e.n.t. defense to have the opponent simply lay down at such a key juncture.

The second half saw Zips fans witness 3rd and 27... then a 4th and 16...then a 3rd and 18...then a first down....where we immediately fumbled...followed immediately by a 4th and 20...followed immediately by a fumble in the endzone...I'm not making this up, really....followed immediately by an INT....followed immediately by another INT....followed by Rob Ianello's bold post game commentary where he said "We'll win more than we lose against K.e.n.t. when it is all said and done."

Really, Rob? Let me clue you in on a little something, my man....you just lost to one of the worst teams in college football. You lost to them by double digits. You just lost to a team that committed 13 penalties for 125 yards! HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE? If you couldn't beat this sorry clown posse, you ain't beating no one.

I stand absolutely astounded at our offensive ineptitude.

Nicely was atrocious. In his short career, my biggest problem with him has been his penchant for dropping the ball. He'd done an OK job at avoiding that through 5 games, but it really bit him today.

PN7 had a chance to make his place in UA Football History with a come back win against a really, really horrible K.e.n.t. State football team... and he played QB like Garo Yepremian.

He was the opposite of "clutch," when the Zips really needed a clutch performance.

If you want to defend PN7, I'd go with the "Where were the quick slants?" or "Where was the lob over the blitzing LB's?" routes. It was obvious PN7 was not going to hit any deep balls, but we kept running long-developing routes.

Down 21-17, with the ball on the 5, and under 4 minutes to go, the handoff to Allen up the middle was a horrible play call. It cost us 40 seconds when we needed to go 95 yards for a TD. I think that contributed a bit to the mayhem that ensued on the following play (endzone fumble).

Nice job by the defense. They played well enough to get a win. But our offense was absolutely putrid. And now Rob Ianello, with all of 1/2 season under his belt, owns two of the all-time worst defeats in the combined last 2 decades of Zips football.

Hopefully the "win" netted Doug Martin a big contract extension. That's about the only silver lining to this black day.

And I saw in another post where BZ called for the 1350 guys to be more critical. Obviously, they can't be. But it is almost uncomfortable listening to them avoid the 800lb gorilla in the room.

Joe Dunn's post game interview with LCoach lasted for 1 minute and 20 seconds. That was the post game interview...way to go guys.

After the game Andy Alleman said something like "I could make some comments on the game, but I'll just let it go." I would have LOVED for Alleman to expound on his game thoughts. But obviously he felt pressure to keep quiet.

Lunch is over. And my blood pressure is way too high. Time to stop.

The Gorilla is now up to 975 lbs, if anyone is keeping track.

[skip-zip]

When Nicely dropped the ball trying to throw on the free-flicker play, it instantly reminded me of the Yepremian play.

And I also wouldn't be surprised if Ken+ sees the "genius" in Martin, and will keep him around a while longer to continue to add to Ken+'s longstanding football misery

I'm wonder if our defense's effectiveness I witnesses could have been partly because Ken+ was scoring points with their defense, and limited the number of times their offense had to take the field. Because of that, we seemed to have a pretty fresh defense all day. And their running game just isn't anything with Jarvis out, and Terry hobbled. But, I am convinced that we tackle a little better than we did last year.

I just keep asking myself......is this all really as bad as it seems? And I am afraid to answer my own question.

[tbozeglav]

I just keep asking myself......is this all really as bad as it seems? And I am afraid to answer my own question.

It unfortunately is. Theres no getting around that.

I agree the D played well enough to get us the win. Hell, the special teams didn't do that badly either. Remove the costly penalties, sacks, and turnovers our offense produced, and there's a real good chance we're singing a different tune today. Unfortunately, the wheels have fallen off this season and we're stuck watching the rest of the season wondering which of the remaining teams on the schedule will happen to play worse than us and land us a lucky victory.

[UAZipster0305]

I just keep asking myself......is this all really as bad as it seems? And I am afraid to answer my own question.

Unfortunately, the wheels have fallen off this season and we're stuck watching the rest of the season wondering which of the remaining teams on the schedule will happen to play worse than us and land us a lucky victory.

The answer: NONE. If we aren't able to beat a I-AA team at home and a miserable Can't squad, we won't be lucky with any other games. Flat out, we deserve 0-12.

I think on offense, we should run three straight kneeldown plays to keep the clock running, rest the defense, and prevent turnovers and penalties, then punt. The last game may have gone more in our favor this way.

[Buckzip]

The really sad part is that as bad as CK's post was, everything in it is true.

This is an absolutely horrible team that is horribly coached.

Bad talent and bad coaching makes for an absolutely bad team.

[GP1]

While reading CK's post, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

[RUMPLEMINTZ]

It's game planning and coaching, not the kids. Any head coach that has a history of winning and knowing how to win would do better. Check out the history of college football coaches, notice how I said coaches and not recruiters, how they took a program from a losing one to a winning program right off the bat. Right off the top of my head I can remember how Hawaii was 0-12 with Fred Von Appen and June Jones comes in and makes them confrence champions with the same guys that went 0-12 with teams like BYU, Air Force and Utah in that conf. Stop blaming the players! Winning is taught not learned in team sports, how can you teach someone how to win when you don't know how to win and you come from a program left in shambles.

The really sad part is that as bad as CK's post was, everything in it is true.

This is an absolutely horrible team that is horribly coached.

Bad talent and bad coaching makes for an absolutely bad team.

[skip-zip]

I just keep asking myself......is this all really as bad as it seems? And I am afraid to answer my own question.

It unfortunately is. Theres no getting around that.

I agree the D played well enough to get us the win. Hell, the special teams didn't do that badly either. Remove the costly penalties, sacks, and turnovers our offense produced, and there's a real good chance we're singing a different tune today. Unfortunately, the wheels have fallen off this season and we're stuck watching the rest of the season wondering which of the remaining teams on the schedule will happen to play worse than us and land us a lucky victory.

Remove our own penalties? Heck, Ken+ far exceeded our penatlies, and we could barely do anything with that!!!

Our only TD in the last 3-1/2 quarters of that game was because Ken+ bailed us out with a Personal Foul on a 3rd and 27 that we didn't convert. And then we still needed a fake field goal on top of that!

Again I ask myself......can we really be THIS bad?

[GP1]

Stop blaming the players! Winning is taught not learned in team sports

Up until Saturday, the QB of Alabama had not lost a game since 7th grade. It must have been one Hell of a lesson. I doubt you can teach a 7th grader a lesson that lasts that long.

Some players just win. Some programs just win. Some coaches just win. Our players, coaches and overall program don't win.

It's not all on the players of course, but there is plenty of blame to go around beyond the coaches.

[johnnyzip84]

I can't argue too much with the points made by the Cap'n, but I do think K.E.N.T. has a pretty good defense. I'm not excusing our blunders, but I don't think it's a coincidence that our offense struggled more vs. NIU and K.E.N.T. than it did against Indiana. I actually liked SOME of the game plan with regards to using Burney in the wildcat to shake up K.E.N.T.'s nationally ranked run defense. But the basic running game was more or less hopeless. K.E.N.T.'s offense is just as bad as ours, though. But kudos to our defense for certainly playing well enough to win.

[Zipmeister]

When Nicely dropped the ball trying to throw on the free-flicker play, it instantly reminded me of the Yepremian play.

And I also wouldn't be surprised if Ken+ sees the "genius" in Martin, and will keep him around a while longer to continue to add to Ken+'s longstanding football misery

I'm wonder if our defense's effectiveness I witnesses could have been partly because Ken+ was scoring points with their defense, and limited the number of times their offense had to take the field. Because of that, we seemed to have a pretty fresh defense all day. And their running game just isn't anything with Jarvis out, and Terry hobbled. But, I am convinced that we tackle a little better than we did last year.

I just keep asking myself......is this all really as bad as it seems? And I am afraid to answer my own question.

Hey, at least we are running the free-flicker play.

I have yet to see a receiver run the hook and later route

nor have I seen the Zips attempt a half black option.

[zipboy]

But kudos to our defense for certainly playing well enough to win.

Given the consistency that this program has shown over the past 20 years, OU should be good for 40 next week on our D. Before there was always some hope. Our facilities are bad, if we just had better facilities turned into well the field house helps but we really need a new stadium turned into well it's a new coach, give him time. Not much of a result for all of the building that has been done the past 10 years.

[zen]

While reading CK's post, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

This was the best one yet...

the second silver lining about these losses are CK's blogs

[akron football]

How many times has Nicely been sacked this year?

[UAZipster0305]

The Gorilla is now up to 975 lbs, if anyone is keeping track.

The "Gorilla" right now is more like Godzilla.

[RACER]

we can only hope that the OU players,and coaches will have a pre-game victory party friday night.

maybe they will all come to the game hung over.i really don't see any other way we will beat them.

[Dr Z]

Let me preface my post with the fact that I did not watch the game until last night. I spent an hour and a half with my DVR. I read this post and a few others before I watched the game, so I was ready for the worst. Here are my thoughts in no particular order.

- Stop rolling PN7 out! His strength is not throwing on the run. I understand our O line stinks, but this is not fixing the problem, it's making it worse. When PN7 has time to set his feet, which is rare with the OL play, he is at his best.

- I thought Waller played a good game. I haven't been able to say that all year about somebody in the secondary. He made some key open field tackles and had a few nice coverages.

-Where were the swing passes that worked so well in Indiana? With the strength of KSPU's DL, I thought this would have been a nice call. We had proven success with it also. I wish somebody would go through all of our film and rate positive offensive plays and just run those plays one game and see what happens.

-Great fake FG. Good call. Maybe this will take a little rush off our kicker for some time.

-Our wide receiver corp is still weak.

-KSPU stinks. I have now seen Keith play twice. He was great last year. He stunk this year. I'm not as concerned with him having two more years now. His wr's aren't that good either.

-We used the TE to move the chains. We used the TE to move the chains. We used the TE to move the chains.

- I don't know if anybody else watched the game on STO or not, but if the person that screamed like a little girl every time KSPU touched the ball would like to meet me at my house tonight, I have a special gift for you.

- AA is playing well, running the ball and picking up the blitz. I hope he is still enjoying playing.

- I loved the razzle dazzle play call out of the wildcat, I'm not sure what PN7 was doing, but the play call was awesome. I noticed nobody accounts for PN7 when he lines up in the wildcat. They might have to now. We are not a good team, but we do put a lot on film. Hope that counts for something someday.

- The KSPU punter accounted for 14 points and won the game for them. He would have gotten the game ball if I were coach.

- I'm glad I spent a beautiful fall day not in Portage County.

- I haven't listen to the press conference yet, but I sure hope iCoach doesn't say "I counted X amount of bad plays that counted for X amount of whatever that cost us the game" Even though there is truth to that, it's starting to get to me already.

- Please fix our Offensive Line protection. It is as bad as I have ever seen on an Akron team. Only Vick would be successful running this offense. I wonder how frustrated PN7 is?

- KSPU put pressure on our QB like iCoach talks about doing each week. Keith got hammered once, but other than that was able to make a read on his third stinky receiver most of the day. Where is this pressure that iCoach keeps telling me about.

[MDZip]

- I haven't listen to the press conference yet, but I sure hope iCoach doesn't say "I counted X amount of bad plays that counted for X amount of whatever that cost us the game" Even though there is truth to that, it's starting to get to me already.

Sorry, he did - "I thought this was our best performance because we didn't make very many mental mistakes, we did give up four big plays for over 100 yards, which is too much."

[skip-zip]

- I haven't listen to the press conference yet, but I sure hope iCoach doesn't say "I counted X amount of bad plays that counted for X amount of whatever that cost us the game" Even though there is truth to that, it's starting to get to me already.

Sorry, he did - "I thought this was our best performance because we didn't make very many mental mistakes, we did give up four big plays for over 100 yards, which is too much."

I like that one about as much as..... "we need to get better"

[RACER]

i think everyone needs to get used to coach I speak.the sad part is we may be worse next year.could we go 0-24.

[Dr Z]

....the sad part is we may be worse next year.could we go 0-24.

I don't believe that. A year wiser is what I'm hoping for. Players (whomever they may be) will have a year's more practice in the not new anymore schemes. The more practice in the systems, the less mistakes and thinking there will be...players and coaches. Hopefully plays "slow down" for them and the skills start to take over. I look at our special teams this year, I think they have progressed from the beginning of the year, offensive and defensive fixes are harder. Maybe I'm delusional, but next year, I think we will defer!