skip-zip Posted December 23, 2016 Author Report Share Posted December 23, 2016 5 minutes ago, K92 said: YSU has a Sagarin rank of 60. Akron has a Sagarin rank of 139. If you're trying to say that YSU is better than more than half of the teams in I-A, I would disagree. Akron didn't have a 139 in October. See post. And I also based it on the I-A team having the home field. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LZIp Posted December 23, 2016 Report Share Posted December 23, 2016 Maybe Youngstown St should take our spot in the MAC. They are better in basketball and football! Merry Christmas! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K92 Posted December 23, 2016 Report Share Posted December 23, 2016 6 minutes ago, skip-zip said: If you're trying to say that YSU is better than more than half of the teams in I-A, I would disagree. Akron didn't have a 139 in October. See post. And I also based it on the I-A team having the home field. How many points is the raucous capacity crowd at Infocision worth? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
94zipgrad Posted December 23, 2016 Report Share Posted December 23, 2016 (edited) 3 hours ago, LZIp said: Maybe Youngstown St should take our spot in the MAC. They are better in basketball and football! Merry Christmas! I think your joking but there is serious talk in Eastern Michigan about dropping out of D1 & I have no idea if true but have heard YSU would have interest, ESPN did a show on Eastern Michigan dropping, it was interesting Edited December 24, 2016 by 94zipgrad Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zipgrad01 Posted December 23, 2016 Report Share Posted December 23, 2016 (edited) 1 hour ago, K92 said: How many points is the raucous capacity crowd at Infocision worth? ??? right We couldn't stop VMI, who isn't even a top half 1-AA team. Edited December 23, 2016 by Zipgrad01 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue & Gold Posted December 24, 2016 Report Share Posted December 24, 2016 2 hours ago, K92 said: There are 29 FCS teams ahead of Akron in the Sagarin rankings. Our D was an absolute abomination this year, and the last couple games our QB was a 3rd-string WR. The above stat sounds about right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balsy Posted December 24, 2016 Report Share Posted December 24, 2016 On 12/19/2016 at 0:26 PM, Blue & Gold said: Amen. Worst decision. Ever. I don't agree. No-one is viewing YSU as an bastion of academic excellence since Tressel arrived. The selection process for the president of the University of Akron that time was a lazy, haphazard disaster that yeilded a former football coach and The Scar as the top two prospects. If that's not the halmark of a haphazard, lazy search than I don't know what is. The replacement for that lazy, haphazard disaster was another lazy, haphazard search that is TBD...I'm surprised no-one is really talking about that on this forum at all. 2 hours ago, K92 said: There are 29 FCS teams ahead of Akron in the Sagarin rankings. And no buddy cares. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K92 Posted December 24, 2016 Report Share Posted December 24, 2016 (edited) . Edited December 24, 2016 by K92 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kreed5120 Posted December 24, 2016 Report Share Posted December 24, 2016 We would have played YSU in September before injuries decimated our team. A team that pounded Marshall and hung with a pretty decent App State. Akron collapsed mid season after the Woodson injury, but that wouldn't have been the Akron team YSU would have faced. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skip-zip Posted December 24, 2016 Author Report Share Posted December 24, 2016 7 minutes ago, kreed5120 said: We would have played YSU in September before injuries decimated our team. A team that pounded Marshall and hung with a pretty decent App State. Akron collapsed mid season after the Woodson injury, but that wouldn't have been the Akron team YSU would have faced. Exactly. That was precisely what I pointed out. 5 hours ago, K92 said: How many points is the raucous capacity crowd at Infocision worth? Home field means a lot, regardless of the projected attendance, when determining the favorite in a college football game. That's exactly why I prefaced my remarks that way, assuming that the I-A teams would always be the home team. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue & Gold Posted December 24, 2016 Report Share Posted December 24, 2016 (edited) 11 hours ago, kreed5120 said: We would have played YSU in September before injuries decimated our team. A team that pounded Marshall and hung with a pretty decent App State. Akron collapsed mid season after the Woodson injury, but that wouldn't have been the Akron team YSU would have faced. Exactly. If we would have played early in the year we would have won. Late in the year? YSU would've gotten the W. I with they'd just buck up & come here to play without expecting a return game. We're not going to play a D-IAA on the road even if they win the I-AA national championship. The more rivalry games we have the better. We've already got two good rivalry games with Kant & Ohio (I wish we'd cultivate more of a rivalry w/ Toledo as they seem like another natural one). YSU would give us 3 good rivalry games per year. I guess I'm looking... searching... scouring... wishing for anything to help attendance. Edit: And... on the other hand, YSU & any of the Top 15 1-AA teams are pretty tough & maybe I'd rather just play a 1-AA cupcake & get the easy W towards bowl eligibility. Edited December 24, 2016 by Blue & Gold Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue & Gold Posted December 24, 2016 Report Share Posted December 24, 2016 How is it that WMU was able to schedule winnable OOC B1G games against Northwestern and Illinois while we got Wisky? Here's a Hustle Belt article about Old Dominion's "road map" to success. "Instead of the body bag games for a payday, they scheduled regional games on a 2-for-1 against teams like Virginia Tech, NC State, North Carolina, and Wake Forest." I like that strategy. Or at least quit scheduling games where we're simply lambs to the slaughter. Schedule more along the lines of Western Michigan, who played winnable B1G games this year against Northwestern and Illinois, while we played Wisconsin. Next year we play at Penn State and the following year we play at Nebraska. Two very difficult places to play. We are, however, set up for success in 2019, where our OOC schedule is presently @ Illinois, and then at home -vs- Troy and UAB. That's more like it. But we don't have a WMU-type yellow brick road to glory till then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LZIp Posted December 24, 2016 Report Share Posted December 24, 2016 (edited) We need to not pretend that WMU has it all figured out. The stars aligned perfectly for them this season. Last year they played MSU AND OSU. Two "body bag" games. We have also played or will play Pitt, Syracuse, Indiana, Iowa St, and Illinois. Hardly "body bag" games. edit: i went ahead and looked at next years schedule for WMU. USC and MSU. Edited December 24, 2016 by LZIp Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kreed5120 Posted December 24, 2016 Report Share Posted December 24, 2016 I thought that's why we signed the deal to play at Illinois. Fans here of course complained that it wasn't a home and home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LosAngelesZipFan Posted December 24, 2016 Report Share Posted December 24, 2016 (edited) First, I am so jealous that W Mich is coming out here to play USC. God Dammit I want to see an Akron team play either USC or UCLA. (I guess I'm equally glad that this team is not coming out here right now given the year...) In terms of scheduling, it's never seemed like we had much of a plan a'la ODU, one that strategically scheduled games that advanced the program in multiple ways (games that were winnable, would attract local interest or give us visibility in a recruiting targeted recruiting area, etc). To me the ideal is to consistently have other city schools-- Syracuse, Pitt, Cincy, Louisville, Memphis-- with a mix of lower tier B10 and ACC, all 2 for 1s so we get a nice mix at home. Then every few years play a "body bag" game but not always the same ones-- sick of going to Penn State, Wisconsin, and Nebraska. Would love to see some Pac-12 games mixed in occasionally. I have to think that for kids from the midwest, going to play UCLA at the Rose Bowl would be alot more interesting than Wisconsin and Penn State over and over. Does anyone feel any reason to really hope/believe that TB has the program in a place that it can do what W Mich has done or that there is a plan to go from "not being terrible and occasionally being decent" to being a team that is consistently a big winner? I love that TB has stabilized the program, and I don't discount how big a challenge that was post-iCoach. I'm not saying it's time for him to go at all. I am wondering whether he has the passion/energy/desire to drive the program to the next level. And I think given the economics of UA, the question has to be asked is the program worth $8-12 million per year. If you're making that investment and it's yielding significant marketing and culture benefits, then the answer is "yes". If you're making that investment and actually getting the opposite of positive awareness-- if the program itself is reinforcing negative perceptions-- and it's at a time of overall fiscal 'crisis' (thank you Scarphoon for making a manageable financial brush fire into an out-and-out dumpster fire next to a Mexican fireworks stand)(too soon?), you have to think about seriously about that investment. Edited December 24, 2016 by LosAngelesZipFan 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LosAngelesZipFan Posted December 24, 2016 Report Share Posted December 24, 2016 And just for grins/grimaces... https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/10/25/knight-commission-meeting-worries-over-spending-and-stability-football-bowl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K92 Posted December 24, 2016 Report Share Posted December 24, 2016 Nice post, LA. I think there are some on this board that think Bowden can still get the team to MAC East Championship level. It's time to put up or shut up though. 14-0? That's never going to happen. As far as the financial situation the G5 schools have gotten themselves into. . . It's a mess. Millions of dollars being spent on programs that most of the students and alumni do not give a tinker's damn about. There are a few exceptions but for the most part I think most mid-majors are in the same boat as Akron. There needed to be some sensible thinking on these athletic budgets years ago but that did not materialize. If it was up to a vote of the students that attend these mid-majors to continue to subsidize these programs through the money that they borrowing to go to school, they would be mothballed immediately. You and I and the other folks on this forum represent a very small minority that care about the University in any manner, nevermind athletics. It makes me very sad because I love the place and I wish everyone could feel the same warm feeling I have toward the institution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LosAngelesZipFan Posted December 24, 2016 Report Share Posted December 24, 2016 (edited) Yeah, it's a really bad situation that is just getting worse, as the article above reports (most eyepopping factoid: In 2005, revenue generated by the Power Five leagues was $570 million. According to the Knight Commission, that revenue will be $2.8 billion by 2020). At a time when universities are more important than ever given the pace of economic change driven by technology and globalization (I highly recommend Tom Friedman's new book "Thank You For Being Late" where he talks about this being the Age of Acceleration), we have basically turned them into a sports league/fetishistic fashion statement rather than engines of economic opportunity. I still think our only way to gamechange this is to merge the Akron and Kent football teams (at least)-- that'd immediately save $5-8 million that could be better deployed for greater impact in NEO. I know, I know... there would be a chunk of people that are diehard Akron and Kent fans that would HATE that idea...would rather have no football team than a combined one...those 43 people between Akron and Kent that would really hate this idea (half of whom are on this board) should get together for a dodgeball game, or canasta, to settle their differences. To your point, basically no one else in the world would care or notice. And in a few years a combined program would hopefully gain some traction with a student base of nearly 70,000 and 500,000 alums within easy driving distance in a football talent rich area. Edited December 24, 2016 by LosAngelesZipFan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K92 Posted December 24, 2016 Report Share Posted December 24, 2016 I think the state legislatures really need to step up and eliminate some of the redundancies in the state schools' curriculuae. There is no need for BG, Toledo, Kent, Akron, Ohio, Miami, Cincinnati and OSU to offer so many duplicated majors. That itself, would be a big fiscal win. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kreed5120 Posted December 25, 2016 Report Share Posted December 25, 2016 (edited) I'm 100% with you K92. No point in paying 2 VP $200k to do the same job 15 minutes apart. Not to mention all the other overhead. They should just split up Akron and Kent's programs and let each school keep what they are best at. Keeping overlapping classes mostly to only electives. As for the football program its challenging to cut the budget when $4M per year is committed to a football stadium that outside of a big time high school football game will never be more than half full. Other states have passed laws, Virginia I know for sure, that limit how much the schools are allowed to subsidize. Ohio should honestly look into it. Edited December 25, 2016 by kreed5120 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LZIp Posted December 25, 2016 Report Share Posted December 25, 2016 Take this crap to another thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K92 Posted December 25, 2016 Report Share Posted December 25, 2016 1 hour ago, LZIp said: Take this crap to another thread. Merry Christmas! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
72 Roo Posted December 25, 2016 Report Share Posted December 25, 2016 "You and I and the other folks on this forum represent a very small minority that care about the University in any manner, nevermind athletics. It makes me very sad because I love the place and I wish everyone could feel the same warm feeling I have toward the institution." I believe that on ZNO there is no "very small minority" that love our university. I know that is not what you said but i want to point out that most of the people on this board are passionate about the university and its athletics. I know I am and have been for many decades. I'm grateful for these people and only wish that our passion was contagious and would grow like wildfire. To all of you who care I am thankful for your commitment. Merry Christmas. The best is yet to come. Keep the faith and keep demanding excellence. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LZIp Posted December 25, 2016 Report Share Posted December 25, 2016 10 hours ago, K92 said: Merry Christmas! You would be one of the last people I would think of that would agree for some sort of consolidation with Kent. Merry Christmas Keener and to the rest of Zipsnation. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K92 Posted December 25, 2016 Report Share Posted December 25, 2016 16 minutes ago, LZIp said: You would be one of the last people I would think of that would agree for some sort of consolidation with Kent. Merry Christmas Keener and to the rest of Zipsnation. You would be correct! There are some other common sense money saving solutions though. You just sounded irritated and I wanted to spread some holiday cheer. I hope everyone has a great Christmas. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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