Strength of Schedule

[Big Zip]

I know it is always believed the MAC gets a raw deal when it comes to bowl games, but if you look at the SOS numbers for this year -- the arguments legs are going to be weak. The highest ranking MAC school this year is Ball State at 80. Akron comes in smack in the middle of the pack at 96 --- whil Can't State has the worst with 109.

Virginia is our highest ranking SOS school at 21 and Penn State comes in at 38. MTSU does us no favors at 114 nearly the end of the list.

All this does is underscore the importance of the PSU and Virginia games every year --- a victory helps Akron and any other MAC school's cause immensly. Every year MAC schools pull off these wins (except Akron) and get respect.

My question is this -- would Akron be better off being an independent? I know the ability to play in a conference is huge, but if you think about the scheduling you could put in place if you weren't in the conference. If you wanted to schedule MAC schools for some of your games - you could. Perhaps you could then pick and choose which ones you schedule -- home and home. Point being -- you wouldn't have to play the EMU, CMU, Buffalos and Ohios of the world. You could schedule BGSU (down this year), Toledo (down this year) etc. You could fill in with the big dogs of the world and get yourself a more respectable schedule with a higher SOS.

The second question is -- what happens when Marshall and UCF leave the conference -- they are ranked 3rd and 4th in SOS for the conference this year. If you replace them with an MTSU (which I've heard talk) you get worse. Maybe you can two to four more teams and make a one league conference. If they did that would Akron be one of the teams left? I would guess our ultimate goal should be to get out of the MAC unless the rules change and teams are forced to play home and home with the lowe Div. 1 schools.

Last thought -- will we even be Div. 1 after this year -- can we average 15,000 fans? Is it tickets sold or bodies in seats? I don't think the NCAA has come up with the penalty yet -- I would have thought it would have been moving you back to the previous division, but I read some where they weren't sure yet.

8 days till kick-off!

[Z-P]

BZ..........thought provoking post

I for one like the MAC, and being part of it.

You're too quick to dis Ohio, CMU, EMU and Buffalo. Ohio had great teams in the Grobe era, and has facilities to do it again. They have a very long and quite favorable FB tradition. CMU had us for lunch until the last 2 meetings. They also have a pretty strong recent rep.............however most recently not too strong. I have a funny feeling that EMU is going to get it together this year or next..............and you may have to eat your words...........Buffalo? Just don't know about that program. It's kind of an enigma. They have facilities, a quality school educationally, big metro to draw from but no pulse. They pulled 30k if memory serves me correct for a home game vs Syracuse a year ago or so.........right?

Keep this in mind.............when lots of people dis the MAC (or mid-majors in general), the name they pull out of their incorrect memories to call out a grim program always seems to be us. They come up with the lame "like the Akron Zips or something"...........know what I mean? I've heard it too many times...........even on TV. So we get zero run in anyones book.

With that in mind, who's going to schedule us if we leave the MAC? Where will we be able to play after Oct 1st every year?

Appreciated the report on the Golden Ticket Night last night.............sucks to have a job on the second shift sometimes...........

ILFSITF

Oh, one more thing.............on my Mercur radio last night I bumped into Todd Porter (Canton Rep) interviewing Lee at about 7:15PM. Lee's soooooo good in that regard. He was very professional, quite complimentary and appreciative of his time at Akron, but somewhat "conservative" ............. more conservative than the past.........with his outlook this year for Ashland.............I was glad I caught it, and wish those guys well.

[Captain Kangaroo]

My question is this -- would Akron be better off being an independent? I know the ability to play in a conference is huge, but if you think about the scheduling you could put in place if you weren't in the conference. If you wanted to schedule MAC schools for some of your games - you could. Perhaps you could then pick and choose which ones you schedule -- home and home. Point being -- you wouldn't have to play the EMU, CMU, Buffalos and Ohios of the world. You could schedule BGSU (down this year), Toledo (down this year) etc. You could fill in with the big dogs of the world and get yourself a more respectable schedule with a higher SOS.

The second question is -- what happens when Marshall and UCF leave the conference -- they are ranked 3rd and 4th in SOS for the conference this year. If you replace them with an MTSU (which I've heard talk) you get worse. Maybe you can two to four more teams and make a one league conference. If they did that would Akron be one of the teams left? I would guess our ultimate goal should be to get out of the MAC unless the rules change and teams are forced to play home and home with the lowe Div. 1 schools.

Last thought -- will we even be Div. 1 after this year -- can we average 15,000 fans? Is it tickets sold or bodies in seats? I don't think the NCAA has come up with the penalty yet -- I would have thought it would have been moving you back to the previous division, but I read some where they weren't sure yet.

8 days till kick-off!

Leaving the MAC would be suicide. Football-wise, we couldn't schedule anyone (MAC schools would avoid us). There's no way we could get anyone to come to the Rubber Bowl. We'd lose our guaranteed bowl slots (if we finish #1 or #2). We lose the potential of a championship game. We incurr HUGE travel expenses (compared to the regional MAC). The only reasonable independents are ND, Navy and Army. Yes, Navy and Army are on Akron's level...but they can get decent schedules because they're nationally prominent and have a large following. I'm sure the Zips learned their lesson in the 80's...D1-A independent is suicide.

Furthermore, our other sports would die. They get stuck back with the CSU's and Wright States of the world. That's worthless.

Like Z-P said...don't be too down on the schools you mentioned. The MAC is cyclical. BG dominated in the early 90's. Then they sucked...now they're good again. BTW: Toledo is by no means in a "down year." EMU was the best program in the MAC about 10 years ago. Ball State was a Championship team in the 90's too. CMU has a couple wins over Michigan State about a decade ago...but they coming back to respectability. OU beat Minnesota and Maryland only about 5 years ago. Other than Buffalo and maybe Can't...the other schools will come around again.

In addition, with Marshall leaving, our chance to get through the MAC East to a MAC championship game greatly improves.

The MAC is the perfect fit for Akron. The conference's level of play is better than ever. The top 2 teams are guaranteed bowl bids. National TV games are becoming commonplace. Travel costs are minimal. The MAC championship hoops games are in our back yard. The list goes on...

Leaving the MAC now would be like dumping your wife after she got a sweet boob-job. The MAC is looking better than ever...stick with it.

Good topic.

[Zipsrifle]

I have to say that I give Marshall the credit for what happened last year in the MAC. I've only been following the MAC for about ten years, but it seems that Marshall raised the bar for all other MAC teams except maybe Toledo. It was either get better or get stomped. If I were a Toledo fan, I'd be pissed, they get no respect. They are consistently a good team.

No way should Akron leave the MAC. CK is right, we'd be DI-AA in no time. The only way I can see Akron leaving the MAC is if we become consistently better than the rest of the MAC teams for an extended period of time, say 7-10 years. By then we'll have some tradition of winning and I don't think we'll have a considerable slide backwards. Remember '99 and '00. Pretty good years, MAC East Co-Champs in '00. Things looked to be moving up till '01. I think we were a "Buffalo" prior to '00 and now are percieved as a level or two higher. Not a team you blow off, but a team that you can probably expect at least a shot at a win against no matter who you are.

Marshall and UCF moving on, well, I hope that CUSA actually turned out to be a weaker confrence than the MAC. I think that Marshall will continue to excell in football, wait and see on FUC. I think they get more attention than deserved. They had a great year their first year in the MAC, but were bottom dwellers last year. We need CUSA to be weak so that we can snatch a few players from them in order to help our move up.

As for the attendence thing, I think we'll make it. I know that again this year I'm going to be draggin everyone and their brother to the games. I'm hoping that the MTSU game will be similar to the Can't State game last year. If we can get 30,000 at that game and don't SUCK the rest of the year, we're covered. If we don't have a good turnout on the 11th, we'll be in trouble if we have an "average" year.

I really don't care much about the SOS right now. We couldn't win the games we needed to last year with a super easy schedule, why should we make it harder? We need wins to increase attendence. In addition, I saw something on the Buffalo site that shows that the rule doesn't have much teeth right now. The link doesn't work there anymore but still some good reading.

Buffalo More Worried than we are!

[Big Zip]

It seems as if everyone agrees the MAC is the best place for Akron to be at this time and I can't really argue with you, but the key is how do you strengthen the conference going forward -- not that you've lost your biggest dog in the fight. Say what you want about Marshall they did bring the level of play up in the MAC and recognition. I don't think the conference can afford to go backwards at this time.

I do understand the whole cyclical thing about the MAC, but if the time isn't right to drop Buffalo from the conference now --- when is? I really think a smaller conference might benefit the MAC immensly.

Another thing that would benefit the MAC is getting the ADs together and mandating no Div. 1AA or Div. II schools on the shedule. For every big win there is always that one small school beating a MAC school to take away from it. This year's OCC for the MAC schools is not bad:

Miaimi -- Indy State, Michigan, Cincy

BGSU -- Okalahoma, SE MO St., Temple

NIU -- Maryland, S. Illinois, Iowa State

Marshall -- Troy, OSU, Georgia

UT -- Minnesota, Kansas, Temple

UCF -- Wisconsin, WVU, Penn State

OU -- VMI, PItt, Kentucky

EMU -- Florida, E. Illinois, Idaho

Can't State -- Iowa, Liberty, Rutgers

WMU -- Tenn. Martin, Va Tech, Illinois

BSU -- Boston College, Purdue, Missouri

CMU -- Indiana, Michigan State, Se MO St.

Buffalo, Syracuse, Nevada, Connecticut

The goal for Rick Chryst should be to secure a Conference USA/MAC opening week match up. Every Conf. USA school plays a MAC school the first week -- make them put their money where there mouth is. I know it won't pay the bills as much, but the possible rep enhancer is huge -- do the same thing with the Moutain West. Sit down after the season with their ADs each year -- determine the following year's favorites and match them up accordingly. Use some unbiased prognosticators to help if you like Example:

If you took this year's preseason rankings on FoxSports to make the match ups your first week would look like this:

Miami (28) vs. Louisville (18)

BGSU (36) vs. TCU (35)

NIU (55) vs. Memphis (39)

Marshall (65) vs. UAB (47)

UT (67) vs. Southern Miss (59)

Akron (86) vs. Cincy (60)

UCF (89) vs. Tulane (74)

OU (95) vs. East Carolina (77)

EMU (100) vs. South Florida (83)

Can't (103) vs. Houston (84)

WMU (104) vs. Army (107)

These games are alredy happening with lowe echelon Div. 1 schools why not put some meaning behind it. I'd love to see any number of these games -- you could bill it as some kick-off classic type of thing every year. You could draw media from both conferences to the press conferenc to announce the match ups for the following year.

[zipboy]

Great topic BZ. You raise a great point, how doe the MAC get stronger with Marshall leaving. Anyone that we bring in will be making a step up so I don't think we get stronger by adding to the league. The current programs including Akron need to get stronger. I don't see Buffalo, EMU, Akron etc getting booted out of the league. Buffalo showed in basketball last year, they could give some serious exposure to the league and receive support from their fan base. They also have great facilities, hopefully they turn it around.

I think that we will see a lot more 2 for 1 with bigger schools where the MACs home game is on a neutral site like Browns stadium, Ford Field etc. If we get those bozos on a neutral site, I like the MACs chances. It is important to follow up last year with a strong year again by the conference.

Great idea on CUSA, but it will never happen. I remember LO saying last year that CUSA was told to stop scheduling the MAC. The MAC had something like a .750 winning percentage against CUSA. That's the kiss of death, a conference perceived as being stronger gets their lunch handed to them over and over. Good luck to Marshall, but I still they think made a mistake in leaving.

[Guest ZIPMAN]

BIG ZIP

HEY DAWG WHAZ UP? AS ALWAYS A GOOOOOOOD POST. YOUR RIGHT ABOUT THE MAC CONFERENCE IT HAS TO BE STRENGTHEN.....YOUR IDEA ABOUT LEAVING THE MAC CONFERENCE DOES MAKE SENSE AND PLAYING SCHOOLS HIGHER UP THE CHAIN PERHAPS LET'S SAY FROM #35 TO #1. IT WILL BE AID TO RECRUITMENT IF THE PROSPECTS KNOW WERE PLAYING TEXAS, UCLA, GEORGIA ETC INSTEAD OF MIDDLE TENN, YOUNGSTOWN STATE, INDIANA STATE ETC....ALL LOT OF OHIO KIDS WANT TO PLAY AGAINST BIG SCHOOLS AND THE ONLY SHOW IN TOWN IS THE SUCKEYES WHO PLAY THE BIG SCHOOLS CONSISTENTLY. D'ANDREA FROM AVON LAKE IS STRUGGLING TRYING TO MAKE THE 3RD STRING TEAM FOR THE SUCKEYES.....I TALKED TO HIS "OLD MAN" AT THE ROUNDHOUSE AND HIS KID WOULD HAVE PLAYED FOR A MAC SCHOOL ANY DAY IF THEY PLAYED CONSISTENTLY THE LARGE SCHOOS.....AN IDEAL SCHEDUE FOR THE ZIPS WOULD BE THIS: SEPT 4TH PENN STATE, SEPT 11TH ALABAMA, SEPT 18TH VIRGINIA, SEPT 25TH TEXAS, OCT 2ND MICHIGAN, OCT 9TH, MIAMI HURRICANES, OCT 11TH OKLAHOMA, OCT 18TH, BYE, OCTOBER 25TH UCLA, NOV 6TH, IOWA, NOV 13TH NORTH CAROLINA AND NOVEMBER 25TH TEXAS A&M........THAT SCHEDULE AS INDEPENDENT WOULD GIVE THE SUCKEYES COMPETITON FOR RECRUITING.......AND IT'S CONCEIVABLE

THAT DA ZIPS COULD HAVE A WINNING RECORD PERHAPS 8-3 AGAINST THESE ABOVE TEAMS.......AND BE IN THE SUGAR BOWL OR ORANGE BOWL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

ARE YOU FEELIN ME ZIPS????

YOUR BARTENDER AT DA ROUNDHOUSE,

I REMAIN

DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA ZIPMAN