Captain's Log #6

[Captain Kangaroo]

Random, as usual:* Great day for football...FINALLY. No cold, wet rain to be seen...just sunny and in the 70's.* Nice tailgate party. Had 15 or so Zips fans in the schoolyard. It was an "urban" setting, amongst an older student housing area, but close to the stadium and paved, with a port-o-let. Several excellent local microbrews were unearthed. Helped to dull the pain of what was to come...* As usual, the 2006 hot/cold Zips were true to form. Unfortunately, the heat only lasted about 15 minutes. The frigid cold drug on for 45min.How about these stats:39 total combined offensive yards in the final 45 minutesSeven consecutive 3-and-outs beginning in the second quarterFive of the seven 3-and-outs went for negative yardage* In the history of college football, there can't be many teams that rolled up 180 yards in the first quarter, then ended up below 220 yards for the game. That was horrific to behold. Cinci has a good defense...but that is utterly ridiculous.* The defense only made Cinci punt three times, but did create 3 turnovers. At games-end, after being on the field almost the entire game, they needed to make one more stand and couldn't do it. I can't blame them too much.* Defensively, out least-imposing players again stood out. Someone told me last year, when I asked "Who'll replace Jay Rohr?" that "It will be someone stronger and faster." It doesn't appear to be the case. John Mackey has stepped one of Rohr's shoes. Groza stepped into the other. Both these guys "bring it" every down. Grant and Reed do too, with a nod to Jason Nedd and his 11 tackles Saturday (shows why he passed Chevin on the depth chart). BUT - Our D-line is really bad. And we're coming up with ZERO blitz packages to get any pressure on the QB. AND - We're missing a ton of tackles. In summation - We have a few guys on D that you can bank on play-in-play-out, and some guys that lost their fire somewhere along the line. Or, that simply aren't that good.* Offensively...holy hell. The collective O-line continues to struggle. Crouch is the easy scapegoat...and justifiably so...but he's not the only guy not pulling his weight. When Luke has time to throw, he is deadly. You can see it in his pin-point TD tosses to Jabari and his bombs to Harvey. But there is a cumulative bad effect when he's heavily pressured. Luke ain't the most elusive QB in the MAC. If there's a breakdown, he's usually going to get hit. And we have way too many breakdowns. When a breakdown occurs, Luke's only outlet has be a swing pass to an RB for no gain. No WR's or TE's seem to be in a position to help him out. Jabari, for all his progress, seems to quit on his routes with some regularity. Lindsay and Harvey are freshman still learning how to be a WR. That combination of "green" WR's...plus no protection...plus and immobile QB...plus some conservative playcalling...plus a TON of simple mistakes...is adding up to some terrible football.* The running game? How is a back as good as Kennedy getting 29 yards in a game? It is because our OL isn't getting any push up front and he's forced to swing it wide...often for negative yardage. It seems like we're way too predictable. The defense knows what's coming before we snap the ball. Maybe it takes them a quarter to figure it out, but after that, we're sunk. Our best offensive plays are when an opposing DB is called for interference. If it weren't for that, I seriously wonder if we'd ever move the ball?* Once again, the opposing QB leads the team in rushing. How old is THAT becoming?* At games-end you saw some new faces on D...Kabir...Pendleton...Balaam...at least we were subbing to try some fresh faces. * Tired of going for 4th-and-anything when we're in field goal range. Kick the ball.Is Luke too immobile...does he hold on to the ball too long...is our OL total swiss cheese...is our playcalling so vanilla it should be sold at Strickland's...is there an inter-team competition for "Most Missed Assignments" and "Most Crippling Penalties?" It really makes you wonder. Despite some nice individual efforts, we're playing terrible, Jeckel and Hyde football right now. I hope the off week is put to good use, because it couldn't come at a better time.We still have a very good shot at an 8-win season. That hasn't been seen in Akron for 2 decades. We still have a decent shot at a bowl game if we run the table. K.e.n.t is one QB hit away from losing every remaining game this season, so the MAC championship is still a feasible goal. We haven't beaten Miami in forever, so a win against them would be HUGE...there's a lot of season remaining for the Zips...a lot of football to be played. It will be interesting to see how the team responds. We could go 4-8...we could go 8-4. How we adjust over the next two weeks will dictate which is more probable. If we don't make some major changes in personnel, philosophies and mental preparation we're on a collision course for sub-.500.39 total yards over three quarters...after we took a 14-0 lead. Terrible.

[ZipAlumn]

Random, as usual: ..... We still have a very good shot at an 8-win season. That hasn't been seen in Akron for 2 decades. We still have a decent shot at a bowl game if we run the table. K.e.n.t is one QB hit away from losing every remaining game this season, so the MAC championship is still a feasible goal. We haven't beaten Miami in forever, so a win against them would be HUGE...there's a lot of season remaining for the Zips...a lot of football to be played. It will be interesting to see how the team responds. We could go 4-8...we could go 8-4. How we adjust over the next two weeks will dictate which is more probable. If we don't make some major changes in personnel, philosophies and mental preparation we're on a collision course for sub-.500.39 total yards over three quarters...after we took a 14-0 lead. Terrible.

With all due respect ... I know that hope springs eternal, but what are the chances. Despite being 0-5 Miami played Northern Illinois tough, and had a chance to win or tie at the end of the game. They played with an enthusiasm that I don't see on the Zips. Maybe part of our problem is that, early on, the expectation was that we would win the MAC, go to a bowl game, and finish somewhere around 9-3 or even 10-2. So far we have "talked a good game" ... we just haven't been able to play one ... with the exception of Penn State.