Game 4—Appalachian State Mountaineers

[Blue & Gold]

Sounds like K.e.n't starting QB, Malik Miller, is out for the Akron game.

 

His backup, George Bollas - a local product of Aurora HS - was simply unstoppable at the HS level, but hasn't shown the ability to throw with enough accuracy to be a successful QB at this level.

 

 

[72 Roo]

The university will not solve the student attendance problem until they change the culture, the hardest thing to do in any organization. They keep trying stop-gap measures which don't get at the heart of the matter. There should be a coordinated and concerted effort to let students know from the moment they step on campus that they should be involved in sports and extracurriculars. That effort should continue throughout the year. Students will come to games if they feel they belong (I'm home) and they have a sense of ownership (this is my school/team). 

 

I agree that the games are horribly managed from an event point of view. But that can change. One simple goal should be held for all involved, make the games fun and students will show up. I agree that students need to be given more input on how to mange the game day experience. Some of my best memories of life at UA come from things the students created not one administration planned.

 

We thought if we built a nice stadium they would come. They didn't. We thought if we built more dorms they would come. They didn't. We have the parts to solve this issue but no one is putting them all together. Matt Newhouse brings hope but he can't do it alone. The university needs to have a total commitment to engaging, educating and empowering the students to attend games. Sure we are still suffering from Ianello and the Scar, two total incompetents. But we have to move past them and say it's up to the university community to bring the students out. All on this board want that but we can't do it alone.  

 

See you in Detroit.

[kreed5120]

I feel Akron has been trying. Hell the previous 2 seasons they gave away free tuition. What other schools do that? The culture at Akron is people don't have school pride. Akron is just that place they will spend 4-5 years of their life. That's what needs to get changed, but Akron needs to do something that makes people feel proud to be going there. Right now kids just joke about how they are living in the hood and how much of a financial mess the campus is.

[Captain Kangaroo]

1 hour ago, kreed5120 said:

I feel Akron has been trying. Hell the previous 2 seasons they gave away free tuition. What other schools do that? The culture at Akron is people don't have school pride. Akron is just that place they will spend 4-5 years of their life. That's what needs to get changed, but Akron needs to do something that makes people feel proud to be going there. Right now kids just joke about how they are living in the hood and how much of a financial mess the campus is.

The new interim Dean has stopped by our tailgate at each game so far. Seems like a nice guy with a lot of positive energy. We need more key people at UA like him. Student apathy at UA is a massive ship to turn around, but it can be done. 

 

If Mike Waddell were still here, there'd be 3,000 students at each Zips home game. I guarantee it. That's where I hold out hope for Newhouse. He knows what's possible. And I don't think he's a mercenary, looking to pad a resume and move on. I'll guess he's here for the long haul.

[Balsy]

3 hours ago, skip-zip said:

 

Our home opener was a 6:30 game.  

 

It's not a new phenomenon that college students have jobs.  I did too.  And I can't recall missing many home football or basketball games when I was around in the early 80s.  Are all of these Students working both Saturday during the day and Saturday at night?  The football games aren't always at the same time.  And mysteriously, plenty of them still find a way to walk into the gates to collect their free tee shirts.  

 

Maybe at times, there are conflicting schedules.  But if "Saturday jobs" is the excuse, why are they also mostly absent from those weekday evening football and basketball games?  We're talking about a University of 25,000 students with possibly only a few hundred going to a sporting event that's FREE ?  There's no excuse for that.  

 

I don't dispute the fact that things can be done to attract more students.  But conflicting schedules with their Saturday jobs doesn't account for the 99% of the student population who's not participating.   Even if HALF of them have Saturday jobs, there's still 13,000 students who are not participating.  It's beyond pathetic.  

 

You and I have gone over this before.  Weekday games: because who the heck wants to go to a game after class?  And (a lot of them still work weekday jobs as well).  Comparing the modern college student to how it was in the 80's is absurd.  Times change.  College is more expensive.  There's 100x other things to do with your friends than go sit at an Akron football game, that is now nearly 4 hours, that has been historically terrible.  School groups often have their meetings in the evenings.  

 

I don't agree.  ThI'd say that the vast majority of the student population DOES have some other commitment that would be prohibitive to coming to games.  That's not saying they would come if the commitment wasn't there, but thats not the point.

 

What have alumni, faculty, staff done to make games a welcoming atmosphere for students?  Have they even bothered asking students (seriously) about why they're not more involved?  Have they tried to include students in the conversation/decision making?  How many alumni engage current students and get them excited about these events?  How many staff talk up things on campus with their students?  It's a cultural problem.  And it's not the current student's problem.  It's the decades of alumni, staff neglecting the culture that has caused what we see today.

 

 

[skip-zip]

33 minutes ago, Balsy said:

 

You and I have gone over this before.  Weekday games: because who the heck wants to go to a game after class?  And (a lot of them still work weekday jobs as well).  Comparing the modern college student to how it was in the 80's is absurd.  Times change.  College is more expensive.  There's 100x other things to do with your friends than go sit at an Akron football game, that is now nearly 4 hours, that has been historically terrible.  School groups often have their meetings in the evenings.  

 

I don't agree.  ThI'd say that the vast majority of the student population DOES have some other commitment that would be prohibitive to coming to games.  That's not saying they would come if the commitment wasn't there, but thats not the point.

 

What have alumni, faculty, staff done to make games a welcoming atmosphere for students?  Have they even bothered asking students (seriously) about why they're not more involved?  Have they tried to include students in the conversation/decision making?  How many alumni engage current students and get them excited about these events?  How many staff talk up things on campus with their students?  It's a cultural problem.  And it's not the current student's problem.  It's the decades of alumni, staff neglecting the culture that has caused what we see today.

 

 

 

There's things that can be done to make this situation better, for sure.  I hear what you're saying in your last paragraph, which is also being echoed by others, as you can see above.  HOW to change the culture is the challenge.  And, if it can be done, it's going to take some time and patience.  

 

But I'm still going to challenge you on this issue of "students don't have time to go to game like they did in years past".    Are you indicating above that they might be "too tired" after class?  Come on man.  That's pretty ridiculous.  They aren't too tired to drink until 2am, I'm sure.

 

You can say that the 80s is different than it is now, but much of that is pretty relative.  Tuition was much cheaper, but we also worked for $3.65 per hour, and were maxed out at 2k per year on student loans.   School group meetings??  You think we didn't have those back then?   Absurd to think that there's "100x more things to do today". Seriously, you are reaching to the sky with excuses like that.  However, I do think that internet is certainly something that's added to a student's repertoire to be lazy and not walk down the street to a game, which we didn't have back then.    

[Blue & Gold]

I've got a friend who is a student at UA & works at a restaurant.  Every Saturday she works from 12-8, so that pretty much consumes her entire day.

Edited September 27, 2016 by Blue & Gold

[kreed5120]

32 minutes ago, skip-zip said:

 

There's things that can be done to make this situation better, for sure.  I hear what you're saying in your last paragraph, which is also being echoed by others, as you can see above.  HOW to change the culture is the challenge.  And, if it can be done, it's going to take some time and patience.  

 

But I'm still going to challenge you on this issue of "students don't have time to go to game like they did in years past".    Are you indicating above that they might be "too tired" after class?  Come on man.  That's pretty ridiculous.  They aren't too tired to drink until 2am, I'm sure.

 

You can say that the 80s is different than it is now, but much of that is pretty relative.  Tuition was much cheaper, but we also worked for $3.65 per hour, and were maxed out at 2k per year on student loans.   School group meetings??  You think we didn't have those back then?   Absurd to think that there's "100x more things to do today". Seriously, you are reaching to the sky with excuses like that.  However, I do think that internet is certainly something that's added to a student's repertoire to be lazy and not walk down the street to a game, which we didn't have back then.    

 

Say what you will but tuition has been rising at a much more rapid rate than inflation, meanwhile, minimum wage today hasn't kept up with inflation. Back in 1979, the average year of college cost 385.5 hours of minimum wage labor ($1,117.95). Today it costs 2,229 hours ($16,160.25)...

 

https://newrepublic.com/article/122814/how-many-hours-would-it-take-you-work-todays-college-tuition

Edited September 27, 2016 by kreed5120

[Ham]

When I was in school, Greek Week was a big deal.  Independent student associations were involved.  Why not get some type of competition going with these groups around Homecoming?  If we get them in the stadium even for one game having fun,  some of them will catch the bug and come back.  If the AD staff started soon, next year's Homecoming could start us in a new direction.

[Captain Kangaroo]

1 hour ago, Blue & Gold said:

I've got a friend who is a student at UA & works at a restaurant.  Every Saturday she works from 12-8, so that pretty much consumes her entire day.

I think in a 25,000 seat stadium you'll find a few thousand that have work commitments, But that leaves 20,000 sitting at home playing X-Box. 

 

Have an X-Box competition at halftime. Have a competition among students leading up to game day, and the top 2 get to play each other on the InfoCision Jumbotron at halftime. Or have representative kids/teams from the various sororities and dorms play. Make it a season-long tournament. Their friends would probably show in decent numbers.

 

Find a game with an association to whatever the band's playing. 

 

Try SOMETHING...

[Balsy]

4 hours ago, 72 Roo said:

See you in Detroit.

 

Completely agree with you 72Roo.  

[Balsy]

1 hour ago, skip-zip said:

But I'm still going to challenge you on this issue of "students don't have time to go to game like they did in years past".    Are you indicating above that they might be "too tired" after class?  Come on man.  That's pretty ridiculous.  They aren't too tired to drink until 2am, I'm sure.

 

You can say that the 80s is different than it is now, but much of that is pretty relative.  Tuition was much cheaper, but we also worked for $3.65 per hour, and were maxed out at 2k per year on student loans.   School group meetings??  You think we didn't have those back then?   Absurd to think that there's "100x more things to do today". Seriously, you are reaching to the sky with excuses like that.  However, I do think that internet is certainly something that's added to a student's repertoire to be lazy and not walk down the street to a game, which we didn't have back then.    

 

When I wasn't in class, I was working.  Either on homework, studying, school groups or at work.  Now this is of course, anecdotal, but I was so busy my first three years I went to 1 football game and about three times as many basketball games.  I simply didn't have the time, and I was bummed out about it.  It wasn't until my senior year I lightened up my work load (and class load) so that I could be able to attend games.  I had to make an effort to be involved with athletics.  So I'm speaking from personal experience.  For the drinking until 2am...I mean it's easy to understand that one...you work during the day and drink during the night.  

 

I missed several games because of meetings we had on campus.  So yeah, it is a thing.  I was involved with three different groups, all meetings on different weekdays (not to mention work and labs thrown in there).  I remember streaming the boxscore to my computer several times just so I could see how the Zips were doing because I couldn't be there in person.  So no, I'm not stretching to the sky on that one.  And I could gladly come up with a 100x (hyperbole of course) different things students would be doing with their friends instead of sitting at a 4-hour long football game.  It's actually not absurd in the slightest.  Generation X vs Millennials I suppose.

 

But at the heart of it all, is the culture problem; the UA culture problem.  If it is something that mattered to people (which they then pass on and inspire others to be a part of) than people would make time to be a part of it.  It mattered to me, so I tried to make time for it (by lightening my schedule).  I was one of the weird ones, making time for Zips athletics...

 

 

[skip-zip]

1 hour ago, Captain Kangaroo said:

I think in a 25,000 seat stadium you'll find a few thousand that have work commitments, But that leaves 20,000 sitting at home playing X-Box. 

 

That's the point I am trying to make. 

 

Sorry to a few of you others who are laboring over this issue, but this notion that college students today are all working tirelessly and going to class, and have no time for any other activities is BULL.   This may sound exaggerated, but at times, I feel like I am literally tripping over the masses of students who are sitting all over that campus playing on their phones.   

 

2 hours ago, kreed5120 said:

Say what you will but tuition has been rising at a much more rapid rate than inflation, meanwhile, minimum wage today hasn't kept up with inflation.

 

Please note that I don't expect a college student to work enough to pay for school with a minimum wage job.  I didn't do that either.  But, you also fail to mention that today's students can also borrow 3 times the amount of money that us old folks were able to borrow, and their starting salaries are not 15-20k when they graduate, like me and my fellow classmates 30+ years ago.    It's all relative, like I said.  

 

[kreed5120]

24 minutes ago, skip-zip said:

 

That's the point I am trying to make. 

 

Sorry to a few of you others who are laboring over this issue, but this notion that college students today are all working tirelessly and going to class, and have no time for any other activities is BULL.   This may sound exaggerated, but at times, I feel like I am literally tripping over the masses of students who are sitting all over that campus playing on their phones.   

 

 

Please note that I don't expect a college student to work enough to pay for school with a minimum wage job.  I didn't do that either.  But, you also fail to mention that today's students can also borrow 3 times the amount of money that us old folks were able to borrow, and their starting salaries are not 15-20k when they graduate, like me and my fellow classmates 30+ years ago.    It's all relative, like I said.  

 

 

Able to borrow 3x as much, but based off my numbers college costs have rose 14.5X between 1979 to 2015... A 20,000 starting salary in 1985 equates to $44,380 when adjusted to inflation. 

 

There is no disputing the fact that today's college kids come away with way more college debt than kids of past generations even after adjusting for inflation. I was making $12/hr my 5th year, which my scholarship didn't cover, working 30 hours a week and I still had to take out a good amount in loans.

 

PS. The point shouldn't be to maximize debt borrowing. It should be to minimize it.

[Buckzip]

Akron is still considered a commuter school by many. 

 

For the most part kids aren't coming from far away on mom and dads dime for school. 

 

Bring back the Acme-Zip game. Promotions do help. 

[ZachTheZip]

Speaking of commuter schools, does anybody know if the students that live in the big apartments downtown count as commuters?

[Balsy]

30 minutes ago, ZachTheZip said:

Speaking of commuter schools, does anybody know if the students that live in the big apartments downtown count as commuters?

 

Yes they do.  And, from what I heard most of those are not full.

[Balsy]

4 hours ago, Captain Kangaroo said:

I think in a 25,000 seat stadium you'll find a few thousand that have work commitments, But that leaves 20,000 sitting at home playing X-Box. 

 

So only 20% of college students are working jobs on the weekends?  You're more disconnected with modern college students than you realize.  In fact it's probably closer to 20% of college students (or the ones on campus) are not working jobs while the other 20,000 are.  I don't remember a single peer of mine who didn't have a job both during the week, and on the weekends, except two: who were both premed and now NeoMed students.

 

3 hours ago, skip-zip said:

Sorry to a few of you others who are laboring over this issue, but this notion that college students today are all working tirelessly and going to class, and have no time for any other activities is BULL.   This may sound exaggerated, but at times, I feel like I am literally tripping over the masses of students who are sitting all over that campus playing on their phones.   

 

 

Please note that I don't expect a college student to work enough to pay for school with a minimum wage job.  I didn't do that either.  But, you also fail to mention that today's students can also borrow 3 times the amount of money that us old folks were able to borrow, and their starting salaries are not 15-20k when they graduate, like me and my fellow classmates 30+ years ago.    It's all relative, like I said.  

 

 

And the notion that all college students are just lying around like lumps on a log playing on their phones equally BULL.  You're using your own bias to make assumptions of the current student population, as opposed to actually trying to understand who they are.  The same problem that decades of administration and alumni at UA has done which has lead to the cultural problem.

 

My father did.  My father (went to college in the 70s) was able to work a SUMMER job and pay for tuition.  For both semesters.  Now the cutting of funding to higher education is a completely different issue, that perhaps deserves it's own thread.  

 

"Sorry to a few of you others who are laboring over this issue"  well...you all are going to keep laboring over trying to understand the student attendance issue because you don't care to hear from the people who are most in tuned to it.  You'd rather rely on your own, 30+ year bias as opposed to relying on new information/perspectives.  Ironically, the same problem I hinted to earlier.

Edited September 27, 2016 by Balsy

[Hilltopper]

Balsy you are just as guilty about making generalizations as those you accuse. Not every student is living on Raman noodles, working a full time job and in debt up to their ears. Many have wise parents who saved for their childrens education or at least help out financially. It's also possible to get some very large scholarship dollars with ACT scores as low as 25 or 26. Just because school was a struggle for you doesn't mean it is like that for everyone.

[Balsy]

7 hours ago, Hilltopper said:

Balsy you are just as guilty about making generalizations as those you accuse. Not every student is living on Raman noodles, working a full time job and in debt up to their ears. Many have wise parents who saved for their childrens education or at least help out financially. It's also possible to get some very large scholarship dollars with ACT scores as low as 25 or 26. Just because school was a struggle for you doesn't mean it is like that for everyone.

 

Everything you just described was me.  I commuted to save money, my dad is an accountant who had 2 years paid off (credit wise), and scholarships with my ACT scores.  I still worked a job, actually several, so I could graduate with 0 debt, pay for my car, among other things. which I did do and graduated with no debt.  I'm not making generalizations, i'm stating observations made going through college.  The job I worked made good money for a college student (18-21) but I OFTEN worked weekdays and weekends, and almost always conflicted with athletic events.  

 

School wasn't a struggle for me at all.  Finding time to be involved with athletics (which I wanted to be involved with) was.

[Dr Z]

 

[kreed5120]

Yeah, there were definitely some kids going to school on mommy and daddy's dime. I knew some, but that was the far minority. Hell one of the guys I knew his mom/dad made him transfer out of Akron after he was held up at gun point. They threatened to cut him off if he didn't.

 

I feel those kids are found in larger numbers at traditional campuses like OSU, Miami, and OU.

[Blue & Gold]

^^ It's telling when your Defensive POTG is a S (Guizer) and the highlights all show him making plays ~10 yards downfield.

[Sergeant Zip]

Podcast from 9/23 with NFL Network's Daniel Jeremiah where he previews the App State game with Akron and his recruiting visit to UA (starting about the 48:30 mark)

[g-mann17]

4 hours ago, Sergeant Zip said:

Podcast from 9/23 with NFL Network's Daniel Jeremiah where he previews the App State game with Akron and his recruiting visit to UA (starting about the 48:30 mark)

That recruiting story Daniel had is probably the exact reason it was so difficult to get any momentum as a program.  I remember playing in the Rubber Bowl, and we would get to use Akron's locker room, and I just always thought it was the visiting team's locker room and they had some hidden gem stashed away somewhere for Akron.  Then we got to play as the "away" team, and I realized the visiting locker room was actually a large cinder block closet.  That was around the same time his recruiting visit would have been.  Damn depressing, not to mention the crappy astroturf we had in the nineties.  Just plastic carpet on top of concrete, it was a nightmare to play there especially in late October/November.

 

Damn shame we didn't set things up correctly from the get go.