One reason....

[Doug Snyder]

3. Somebody should be watching Mario Cristobal: It was a nice little story last week when Florida International went on the road and beat Louisville 24-17. It was the first win ever against a team from an AQ conference for FIU. Now the Golden Panthers have stepped out there and done something serious. They beat UCF, the defending Conference USA champion, 17-10 on Saturday before the largest crowd in school history (20,205). And FIU basically did it without all-world receiver T.Y. Hilton, who left the game after three catches with a hamstring issue. The Panthers shared the Sun Belt title with Troy last season after starting 0-4. This season they are off to the best start in school history. Look at the schedule. Yes, FIU could win them all. "When you have a victory like this the eyes continue to open and open wide," said Cristobal, in his fifth season as a head coach, who said that FIU is "a program on the rise." He just signed a new five-year deal this summer. http://www.cbssports.com/#!/collegefoo...-fius-on-a-rollHead coaching recordYear Team Overall Conference Standing Bowl/playoffs Coaches# AP° Florida International University (Sun Belt Conference) (2007–present) 2007 FIU 1–11 1–6 T–7th 2008 FIU 5–7 3–4 T–5th 2009 FIU 3–9 3–5 T–6th 2010 FIU 7–6 6–2 T–1st W Little Caesars Pizza 2011 FIU 2–0 1–0 FIU: 18–33 14–17 Total: 18–33 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_CristobalHis resume prior to his recent success in not that impressive.I think we need to give the team and current coach to the end of the year before making any coaching change decisions. (although 0-4 would be unacceptable here)

[Big Zip]

@Doug not a bad comparisson...nice job.I do like that Cristobal runs a different offense, but that is not to say the path wasn't similar with work experience. I will say his work at Rutgers probably gave him a more realistic preview of what it was going to take and Rutgers was ultimatley successful -- both things that Notre Dame did not provide iCoach.Looking to see significant improvement this week...hoping we see it.

[K92]

Did you see that FIU got some votes in the coaches poll? Pretty impressive.

[GP1]

Last year when everyone said we would go 0-12, I said it was almost impossible to go 0-12 in the MAC. Granted, we waited until the last week for it to happen, but it happened. Point being, it's the MAC and there is always hope for winning.

[ZachTheZip]

FIU jumped from 1-11 to 5-7 in their coach's second year. Does anybody really see this team winning five of the next nine games?

[ZipsAlum92]

FIU jumped from 1-11 to 5-7 in their coach's second year. Does anybody really see this team winning five of the next nine games?

No. At best, I see us going 1-11 again.

[Captain Kangaroo]

I remain baffled by the comparisons to Cristobal or Golden. FIU had no football program at ANY LEVEL until 2002! Now they are knocking on the Top 25 door. After 110 years, we're knocking on the Bottom 120 floor!We are a hell of a lot closer to Doug Martin and Jim Corrigal that we are to Cristobal or Golden.

[johnnyzip84]

I remain baffled by the comparisons to Cristobal or Golden. FIU had no football program at ANY LEVEL until 2002! Now they are knocking on the Top 25 door. After 110 years, we're knocking on the Bottom 120 floor!We are a hell of a lot closer to Doug Martin and Jim Corrigal that we are to Cristobal or Golden.

Or Pete Cordelli (the similarities are striking)

[Doug Snyder]

I remain baffled by the comparisons to Cristobal or Golden. FIU had no football program at ANY LEVEL until 2002! Now they are knocking on the Top 25 door. After 110 years, we're knocking on the Bottom 120 floor!We are a hell of a lot closer to Doug Martin and Jim Corrigal that we are to Cristobal or Golden.

Temple's first year was 1894 and had to downgrade from a FBS conference. Before their recent success they were far worse than the Zips and had just as bleak future.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Owls_football I am not suggesting that ICoach will be another Golden or Cristobal. But their programs had some of the same issues and succeeded. The comparison to Golden is to the type of offence he chose to run.

[Dr Z]

Isn't Jason Taylor going to be in town this weekend? Can he come early and give a motivational speech to the players? He is in a similar situation and seems to be able to take responsibility for the actions of the players and not blame a coaching staff.Source"It's us," said Jason Taylor, whose return to Miami after a season each with the Redskins and the Jets has quickly soured. "It's not the coaches. It's not ownership. It's not the fans. It's the players in this room that are doing dumb things and getting in our own way. "If you can't fix them, you've got to replace them. I'm not advocating anybody losing their job, but this is a very serious business, and it needs to be taken seriously, and I'm not sure everyone understands the magnitude of what we're trying to do here. If you can't get it, get out of the way and we'll get somebody else who will."

[Doug Snyder]

Isn't Jason Taylor going to be in town this weekend? Can he come early and give a motivational speech to the players? He is in a similar situation and seems to be able to take responsibility for the actions of the players and not blame a coaching staff.Source"It's us," said Jason Taylor, whose return to Miami after a season each with the Redskins and the Jets has quickly soured. "It's not the coaches. It's not ownership. It's not the fans. It's the players in this room that are doing dumb things and getting in our own way. "If you can't fix them, you've got to replace them. I'm not advocating anybody losing their job, but this is a very serious business, and it needs to be taken seriously, and I'm not sure everyone understands the magnitude of what we're trying to do here. If you can't get it, get out of the way and we'll get somebody else who will."

Do we have an extra uniform??

[blueandgold]

I wish.

[Z.I.P.]

Isn't Jason Taylor going to be in town this weekend? Can he come early and give a motivational speech to the players? He is in a similar situation and seems to be able to take responsibility for the actions of the players and not blame a coaching staff.Source"It's us," said Jason Taylor, whose return to Miami after a season each with the Redskins and the Jets has quickly soured. "It's not the coaches. It's not ownership. It's not the fans. It's the players in this room that are doing dumb things and getting in our own way. "If you can't fix them, you've got to replace them. I'm not advocating anybody losing their job, but this is a very serious business, and it needs to be taken seriously, and I'm not sure everyone understands the magnitude of what we're trying to do here. If you can't get it, get out of the way and we'll get somebody else who will."

Future NFL HC Jason Taylor? If his acting career doesn't get in the way... Maybe he should be talking to the AD and coaching staff, rather than the players -- I don't happen to blame Akron's players. They're not the Dolphins.

[you am i]

I have not totally given up yet. Joe Novak had a few rough years at NIU before he turned that program around. That being said, when a head coach has the kind of disastrous start that RI has had, I am sure history shows that he crashes and burns far more often than he ultimately achieves success.

[UAZipster0305]

Isn't Jason Taylor going to be in town this weekend? Can he come early and give a motivational speech to the players? He is in a similar situation and seems to be able to take responsibility for the actions of the players and not blame a coaching staff.Source"It's us," said Jason Taylor, whose return to Miami after a season each with the Redskins and the Jets has quickly soured. "It's not the coaches. It's not ownership. It's not the fans. It's the players in this room that are doing dumb things and getting in our own way. "If you can't fix them, you've got to replace them. I'm not advocating anybody losing their job, but this is a very serious business, and it needs to be taken seriously, and I'm not sure everyone understands the magnitude of what we're trying to do here. If you can't get it, get out of the way and we'll get somebody else who will."

Future NFL HC Jason Taylor? If his acting career doesn't get in the way... Maybe he should be talking to the AD and coaching staff, rather than the players -- I don't happen to blame Akron's players. They're not the Dolphins.

What's worse: That I'm a Dolphins fan or a Zips fan?At least I'm not a Can't fan.

[skip-zip]

I have not totally given up yet. Joe Novak had a few rough years at NIU before he turned that program around. That being said, when a head coach has the kind of disastrous start that RI has had, I am sure history shows that he crashes and burns far more often than he ultimately achieves success.

There are some good comments in this thread, but I think this one is the most notable.Far too many people on this website talk about Akron becoming Temple or Boise or TCU. Just like in basketball, where we talk about being Gonzaga or Butler.Unfortunately, dozens of football programs are working hard every year to become part of the elite category. In basketball, it's hundreds of programs yearning to be mentioned with the top dogs, and working their butts off to try to get there. Using these examples to say "Why can't Akron be like that" has to come with the realization that these cases are extremely rare, and need so many things to fall into place. So, yes. Unfortunately, we're far more likely to "crash and burn", than we are to join the few who have risen from the ashes to join the elite.

[Dave in Green]

Great post, Skip. It's so easy to look at things and say "someone did it, why can't we?" Realistically, you have to look at it and say that 1 out of 100 did it, so we at least have a 1% chance.

We look at Boise State football or Butler basketball and say "that could be us" while others look at UA soccer and say the same thing.

Yes, it's possible if everything goes right. But everything rarely goes right.

And then the search begins for the scapegoat.

[Captain Kangaroo]

Great post, Skip. It's so easy to look at things and say "someone did it, why can't we?" Realistically, you have to look at it and say that 1 out of 100 did it, so we at least have a 1% chance.We look at Boise State football or Butler basketball and say "that could be us" while others look at UA soccer and say the same thing.Yes, it's possible if everything goes right. But everything rarely goes right.And then the search begins for the scapegoat.

You build success with great people. With visionaries. With calculated risks. With money, spent wisely. With intestinal fortitude.The Zips spent a ton of cash on a football practice facility and a stadium, and thought that was all that was necessary. There's a reason Notre Dame has sucked for two decades -- it's more than money.I assume I will be dead before the Zips figure out a way to be competitive at any level of D1 football again. It's too easy to be cheap, unimaginative, short-sighted, low-aiming, and K.e.n.t.-esque. Good old K.e.n.t....they suck, so why should we try to be better? Let's play them in the Toilet Bowl every season, and hope for a win or two against 1-AA programs. Yippee.Losing 23-of-27 sucks. Does anyone else care?

[GP1]

I assume I will be dead before the Zips figure out a way to be competitive at any level of D1 football again.Losing 23-of-27 sucks. Does anyone else care?

Wow, this is a glib post. Right on the money though.Although, I sure hope the Zips will be competitive in the MAC before you kick the bucket. If not, that will be a lot of wasted Saturdays. 23 of 27 is just depressing. I have a close friend here in Charlotte who is a K-ent grad. He says the same things we do. He badly wants their football team to be good and is at the point now where he just doesn't care. I'm almost to that point. If they don't care, why should I care? Why would I donate money if they don't care?...It's flushing good money down the drain. If they don't care, why would I go watch a game?...It's almost an insult to sit there and watch such a bad team.See everyone later. I have some things to do.

[Dave in Green]

CK, do you believe that UA has demonstrated all of the positive qualities you mentioned in soccer?If so, how could they not understand that the same applies to football?

[skip-zip]

Great post, Skip. It's so easy to look at things and say "someone did it, why can't we?" Realistically, you have to look at it and say that 1 out of 100 did it, so we at least have a 1% chance.We look at Boise State football or Butler basketball and say "that could be us" while others look at UA soccer and say the same thing.Yes, it's possible if everything goes right. But everything rarely goes right.And then the search begins for the scapegoat.

You build success with great people. With visionaries. With calculated risks. With money, spent wisely. With intestinal fortitude.The Zips spent a ton of cash on a football practice facility and a stadium, and thought that was all that was necessary. There's a reason Notre Dame has sucked for two decades -- it's more than money.I assume I will be dead before the Zips figure out a way to be competitive at any level of D1 football again. It's too easy to be cheap, unimaginative, short-sighted, low-aiming, and K.e.n.t.-esque. Good old K.e.n.t....they suck, so why should we try to be better? Let's play them in the Toilet Bowl every season, and hope for a win or two against 1-AA programs. Yippee.Losing 23-of-27 sucks. Does anyone else care?

I think many of us have this same common understanding. I'm seeing "it takes more than money" and "if everything goes right". And here's another example that we lived through right here in Akron. I was still on campus as a student when Gerry was hired as the coach in the mid 80s. I totally bought into the what the administration was selling....that bringing in a high profile coach could send Akron to the upper echelon of college football. And we did get tons of media attention. And we did get some great players.And the community got interested. And our number of wins began to climb. And we did have several winning seasons.But, the deficit in scholarships took awhile to overcome.At times, injuries became a problem, and the depth wasn't there. The grass practice fields didn't come for years,Players were still using classrooms in the back of the JAR as a weight facility. Stadium ideas never materialized. When our prez eventually left to go to Auburn, I had a bad feeling that the commmitment and the vision had come to an end. So again, some things came together, but not nearly enough to give the improbable dream a chance to become reality.

[Doug Snyder]

You build success with great people. With visionaries. With calculated risks. With money, spent wisely. With intestinal fortitude.

I respectfully disagree. To build a long-term successful company that is repeatable you need great systems, processes, talented and committed leaders built for AVERAGE people. Wang had great people. Do you think Jo-Ann Fabrics have had great people for decades?? It is HR speak thet you need "great" people and as a manager you will always say that....but you really need great systems and processes. That is what makes the US great. Average people can achieve great things. Building anything that requires great people will eventually fail. Great people will look to move up and out.That is the one thing I like about ICoach. He is consumed by building a repeatable process. Whether he is capable is another thing. His window for success is closing and we have yet to see signs that his plan is working. Truthfully though...I never expected us to win the first 3 games. So for me...the true evaluation period starts this week. We need to win 5 games and start to be competitive even against better teams.

[Dave in Green]

Doug, you make a great point about systems and processes. The one thing that stood out to me the most about Ianello when I did a long and deep internet search into his background is that he has strong organizational skills. In retrospect, organizational skills do not necessarily equate to short-term success, but are more long-term oriented.Best case scenario is that Ianello's organizational skills translate into a long-term winning program. If this is what UA is banking on, then they're not going to terminate him at the end of this season even if the program is still not producing consistent wins. If they're measuring him on the basis of the strength of the long-term systems and processes he's putting into place, then he gets three full seasons for sure.The great thing about going for short-term results is that you know pretty quickly whether or not you've been successful. While there are some indicators to measure progress toward successful long-term results, the only sure way to know is to be patient and wait for them to play out.If the long-term systems and processes are successful, it means that many years of success should follow.Needless to say, if the long-term systems and processes fail to produce results, you've doomed yourself to many years of misery.No wonder all Zips football fans are on edge.

[Captain Kangaroo]

That is the one thing I like about ICoach. He is consumed by building a repeatable process. Whether he is capable is another thing. His window for success is closing and we have yet to see signs that his plan is working. Truthfully though...I never expected us to win the first 3 games. So for me...the true evaluation period starts this week. We need to win 5 games and start to be competitive even against better teams.

I work quite a bit with ISO processes. ISO Certification is absolutely necessary if we are to sell product to anyone. QS Certification is required if we are to sell to the Automotive industry. These processes are all a bunch of crap.The certifications assure nothing but that we follow a consistent process. The process could be horribly flawed, but as long as we follow it, and document that we follow it, then the Auditors are happy and our certification is renewed.I believe Ianello has a process. And there is no doubt that he will stick to that process come hell or high water. My only hope that he can adapt came last week when he pulled several red shirts. It was the first time he's shown he was tired of getting absolutely waxed. Until that point, he has shown that he's favored his process over scoreboard. I can't ignore the first 3 games. They were an abomination, regardless of the opponent. We didn't even see the red zone until 11 quarters into the season?! No one expected to win, but we were flat-out embarrassing. To quote Animal House: "This party has reached an all-time low."Turning around Akron Football requires a special person, with outside-the-box thinking and some level of genius. An unimaginative Process Guy is not what we need. Ianello needs to change his process. Running clock and kicking field goals when you're down 14 points is a horribly flawed process.Our only hope was 49-0 woke him up. I doubt it did, but it's a Zips fan's only hope.

[GP1]

Doug, you make a great point about systems and processes. The one thing that stood out to me the most about Ianello when I did a long and deep internet search into his background is that he has strong organizational skills. In retrospect, organizational skills do not necessarily equate to short-term success, but are more long-term oriented.

What if his philosophy is wrong or he simply doesn't know what to do? I actually think he knows exactly what to do with his pro style offense; however, his philosophy is wrong in believing a low level college program can win with it. Process can't be the only thing that is important or anyone can do something as long as they have a sound process in place. You actually have to know how to do something before you can do it to be successful.I worked for two extremely large Fortune 500 companies and had promotions at both. One was great. It had a management team in place that had been in the industry for 25-30 years. The guys knew exactly what to do and why to do it. If they were wrong, they were man enough to admit it and change directions quickly. I learned more from these guys than anyone I have ever worked for. We made money hand over fist. Everyday, I think about those guys and still stay in touch with them now that I own my own business. I get better advice from them than anyone.The second company was a Six Sigma company. Six Sigma is part of the reason this country is in such bad shape. You don't actually have to know anything about your industry in order to be a manager if you are at a Six Sigma company. Honeywell did it with their "fast track" program. All you have to be able to do is follow the process and the process can NEVER be wrong because it is the best process in the word. Everyone is stepping over each other to see who can become a bigger a-hole than the king of all a-holes, Jack Welch. Basically, if a guy can put together a Six Sigma study with "action plans" and has only been in the industry for two months, he is just as valuable as the guy in the industry for 25 years. If all you need to be able to do are action plans, cause and effect tables, etc. there is no value in the long term employee. That's why American companies can't find their asses with both hands. My old boss just got let go as the VP of Sales at Solyndra. He didn't know anything about the industry but could put together spreadsheets like nobodys business...a complete joke because he had no idea what the numbers meant. He knew even less about solar panels, but somehow got to be VP of Sales there because he was in the national sales manager club....he'll get another job as national sales manager, if he doesn't go to jail with the rest, because he was NSM at other companies. See how it works?This is a true story. When I started working for the Six Sigma company, I would sit on the phone (muted at my house) and laugh out loud during conference calls at how they all talked in Denver. Six Sigma uses a specific language and if you don't speak the language, you are not part of the "in" group and you are basically out. The language is pretty easy to learn though. One day during a conference call, they were all talking in their Six Sigma babble and I e-mailed a counterpart who had been in the industry 30 years (anyone who has sat on conference calls in corporate America understands the e-mailing that goes on during calls). I told him I felt a guy with a Masters Degree like I have should be pretty smart, but I didn't understand what everyone was saying. He responded very simply, "Don't worry, they don't understand what THEY are saying either." He had absolutely zero respect for the corporate people and didn't even pretend to have any when he was around them. It was really funny to watch.Getting back to the Zips and how this all applies...Coach I doesn't have the experience at a MAClike school to make it successful regardless of how good his process is. I'm sure he is a good guy and all, but he doesn't have the experience at our level necessary to succeed. I'm not saying we need a 55 year old coach, but someone who has coached at our level and understands the challenges AND has had success at our level is what is most important. Can anyone say Keith Dambrot? There are lots of guys like KD out there who never get a chance and would make great coaches at a mac school.