New Coach - Same crappy team (*Thread from 2004*)

[Guest Guest]

Looks like JD forgot to teach the RB's how to run!

Same old stuff, just a new coach

[Guest Buckzip]

He forgot the entire defense how to tackle.

He forgot hot o even look respectable.

PSU isn't that good, Akron sucks!!!. Once again, Akron is the only MAC team that doesn't do the MAC proud in the big games.

[Guest Guest]

Don't fool yourself. You didn't lose to a pushover today! Penn State is back with a vengeance. The Linebacker's are pluggin holes, the secondary is a blanket, and the offense is running on all 8. Granted, you guys looked pitiful, but you lost most of your key talent. Frye can't do it by himself. You need a supporting cast. All I can say is, PSU posted the biggest win against a MAC team today. That includes UM against Miami of Ohio. Watch out B10. Someone is looking to prove something this year.

[Z-P]

OK..........

Here we go..........

Before I dump my bucket, IMHO, this game should be thrown out.......the next one is the tell-tale contest.............so it's too early to know much.

Guest........in this offense (which is all too similar to last years) Walter Payton or Emmit Smith wouldn't look good.........so get off the RB's. Frankly, I thought the guys did OK. They are primarily there to protect Charlie.....and they did as good a job as you could ask for.

We again look like we are going to lack any kind of offensive line........damn. Hope I'm wrong.

Where was 44?

Thought we worked our asses off in the summer to get stronger and faster. Why do we look so slow and have our hands on our hips in the 1st quarter?

That slug sitting next to UAM in the booth for the broadcast hit the nail on the head. We need YAC.............man oh man was Cherry good at getting downfield after his catches. Even Mike Brake added to his grabs big time when he pulled it in. We need this. 5 needs this.

Speaking of UAM, man did he do a great job or what? Out of sight. He had no help whatsoever.

I'm going to toss this out for your future discussion fodder...............think about Marino at Miami. When a team becomes "QB Centric" does it hurt itself? I luv 5, and am his biggest fan, but I'm just tossing this out for your consideration.

Here's what I mean.............our D sucks, right? Let's pretend you are JD coming in to the program. There sits one of the best frikin QB's you have ever seen in all your adult life. What do you do? Do you say, "what the hell, I think I'll spend all my time working on the defense"? Hell no. You take 2 of your best defenders and put them on offense to pump up the All World QB.................what happens to the D?

You get what I'm trying to say..............so run with it.

ILFSITF

BTW, I did see a lot of good things...........and after MTSU it will be easier to know what is really what..............toss this game out.

[Captain Kangaroo]

Just got home. That game was brutal. Worst I've seen in some time. Had a blast last night. Great tailgate. Great people. More tomorrow.

[Big Zip]

I'm done thinking about the game. Glad I decided to stay home and go to the "W" rally this morning in Lake County. At least the president spoke in the rain and didn't disappoint like the Zips.

Wow -- do you think the Zips did any tackling drills this year? How bad was the tackling? The best hit of the day Earl on Hunt -- the tv guys couldn't stop talking about it -- guess what he got five more yards because Earl forgot to wrap up. Tell me -- how do you come to a school where your best player is a linebacker and you decide -- you know we should move him to DE so he'll be completely non-existent. Nice move new coaching staff. Another thing --- 3-4 -- huh? Ummm that didn't work.

Frye didn't look too bad -- his lone long pass was severly underthrown and the receiver was open.

To be honest with you -- it looked like the same shitty coaching staff as last year -- shitting down their leg. How about that -- we might as well have kept Owens. This team was as ineffective as the team that last 77-27 last time we were there. Brookhardt slept in his office for this? How bad would they have been if he went home? I know it's one game, but these guys weren't even in the same league. Can't lost by less to a far better Iowa team. BG lost by less to the no. 2 team in the country.

Here's the positive I take from this --- JD's first game. JD obviously needs to get his own players in there -- an o line that has played that long together shouldn't suck that bad. These guys are not very good.

It's going to be a long season. I don't like to make predictions because they are most often negative and often come true so I'm just going to go to sleep wake up tomorrow and hope next Saturday comes quick to get these thoughts out of my head.

[Guest Guest]

Same old Zips, different season.

The defense sucks, the o-line sucks.

This team has no speed at all.

Other than Frye, I doubt there is one player on this team that would start at any other upper tier MAC school.

[Guest Zip88]

Marshall fans feel the same way tonite....Here's just one... for example...

HerdJC05

Green Buffalo Member

Joined: 25 Nov 2003

Posts: 448

Location: Milton, WV

Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2004 11:47 pm Post subject:

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I'm sorry, we're the worst team of all time and we'll go 0-11 this season. God help us, we're the worst team in the nation!!!!!!!!

[Guest ProScout]

I watched the game on TV - first Akron game i have missed in three years. Funny thing is that the tune is the same - Akron has some bad athletes on the field. It would not have mattered if the coaches had been flip-flopped in this game because is going to take more than one or two recruiting classes for Akron to become a competitive football team.

Here are my thoughts on the personnel groups.

FRYE is great, poised and polished. Too bad he has nothing around him. No recruiting for years will do that.

The offensive line is terrible. Hard to believe that this is a verteran group because they canot hold a run block to save their lives and the pass protection is sketchy. OL should be tall, 6-3/6-4 and about 280-290. This can be done at the MAC level.

The receivers are awful as well. Only Hixon and Arthur played worth a damn and they are a DB and QB. Goodwin, Ellington and Montgomery were non-factors and showed no leadership as veteran receivers.

The defense is just bad. Again, no recruiting for years will do that. I really feel for the new defensive coordinator because the 3-man front scheme was great. Needing only 3 big guys up front will work in the MAC and will bring more speed to the field. But this is not going to be a quick fix because thse kids on the tv on Saturday were not division one caliber players.

This team will be fortunate to win 4 or 5 games because the cubbard is bare except for #5.

[Captain Kangaroo]

A few thoughts to toss out:

The D was everything people have written..."slow"..."outclassed"..."small"..."took bad angles"...etc. I can add the following: No one on defense ever "stayed home." We overpursued on every play. The simplest cutback was good for at least a 20 yard, untouched scamper. Shedding an Akron tackler was as simple as spinning around once. I can't say our tackling was all that bad because rarely can close enough to a PSU ball carrier to tackle him? When we were close enough, the Zips defender typically ran next to the guy for 10 or 15 yeards before deciding if he wanted to make a hit or not?

What was up with the option plays where we had a clear shot to deck Mills, but instead let him make a play. Our defenders would give him a polite "shove" after he released the ball? No one wanted to make a hit? What's up with that?

Offensively: What was up with the 2nd-and-1's and 2nd-and-3's (goal line) where we threw 2 bad passes then punted? With our D as bad as it was, why didn't we simply get the 1st down on the ground and sustain a drive? We got decent yards against PSU's D on the ground all day?

I say shift Hixon back to defense if things don't improve next week. He would have caught those guys on the long runs...he did it all last season. No one else back there seems ready to fill his shoes.

Sitting in the stands watching that debacle, while the PSU fans danced around having the time of their lives totally sucked. We were outclassed from the 3rd minute of the game on. Thank God for tailgating.

It will be interesting to see what changes are made for next week.

Quick Report Card:

QB:B- (Never threw routes longer than 10yds until 4th quarter?) 2 INTs 0 TDs

RB:B (underutilized) Decent yards when given the chance. Biggs is tough.

WR: B (Caught most everything thrown their way, but shed no tackles thereafter and sprung no holes)

OL: B- Played decent. Frye's taken much worse beatings. Decent run blocking.

Punt: A. Sullivan Rules.

K: C-. Bad snap...great recovery by Sullivan. One fungoe.

DL: F. Totally manhandled. Never shed a single block.

LB: D+. Earl saves them from an "F" with a few big hits.

DB: F. No where near any WR's on any pass play. Horrid tackling.

Gotta play with the kid...haven't seen him all weekend...out.

[ZipDude]

Watched game on ESPN, first non attended game in 4 years. What is with waddell on the mike? My thoughts:

The MAC sucked in every game we were not the worst

PSU is back. JoPat has changed the attitude sand I think Hall has brought a lot to the table offensdively.

The 77 yard run set the tqble for the game

Where was 44, mever saw him and never heard his number

Defense was exactly the same as last year with no Hixon

OL has not relearned to run block although they did protect 5 ok as someone else has said ive seen much worse beatings

There is no talent at all on the D side of the ball

For any slugs going to the game did you get any nice comments about any of our players or our team while you were there??

[Guest Guest_Zipper]

Quick Report Card:

QB:B- (Never threw routes longer than 10yds until 4th quarter?) 2 INTs 0 TDs

RB:B (underutilized) Decent yards when given the chance. Biggs is tough.

WR: B (Caught most everything thrown their way, but shed no tackles thereafter and sprung no holes)

OL: B- Played decent. Frye's taken much worse beatings. Decent run blocking.

Punt: A. Sullivan Rules.

K: C-. Bad snap...great recovery by Sullivan. One fungoe.

DL: F. Totally manhandled. Never shed a single block.

LB: D+. Earl saves them from an "F" with a few big hits.

DB: F. No where near any WR's on any pass play. Horrid tackling.

Quick Report Card:

QB:B- (Never threw routes longer than 10yds until 4th quarter?) 2 INTs 0 TDs

> You can't throw deep routes if you have no receivers to catch them. Newsflush, Cheery, Sparks and Irvin are gone.

RB:B (underutilized) Decent yards when given the chance. Biggs is tough.

> Not called on because they are inconsistent. After thant 1st quarter fumble and being down 18 points you can't play a run-based offense.

WR: B (Caught most everything thrown their way, but shed no tackles thereafter and sprung no holes)

> The only guys who got yards after a catch were Arthur and the guy you want tp put back on defense after 4 quarters.

OL: B- Played decent. Frye's taken much worse beatings. Decent run blocking.

> What game were you watching. These guys cost us dearly in the red zone with penalties and missed assignments. They are what is keeping the offense bogged down in mediocrity.

Punt: A. Sullivan Rules.

> the snaps sucked.

K: C-. Bad snap...great recovery by Sullivan. One fungoe.

> Swiger is the kicker, not Sullivan. By the way, Swiger really sucks. Nice duck on the 2nd attempt.

DL: F. Totally manhandled. Never shed a single block.

> They suck. They have sucked. They will suck until new recruits are brought in.

LB: D+. Earl saves them from an "F" with a few big hits.

> Must be grading on a curve here.

DB: F. No where near any WR's on any pass play. Horrid tackling.

> Young guys in their first game will make mistakes. No recruiting for the past half decade revealed yet again.

[Guest Guest]

I am glad someone else noticed that Swigger sucks. I remember last year at the bowl, watching him come off after every kick like he just won the super bowl. I underatand being excited, but he isn't very good. All of his kicks wobble.

The defense couldn't stop a D3 team. I don't understand how a defense can be small, and slow. If you are small you should be quicker.

[Captain Kangaroo]

K: C-. Bad snap...great recovery by Sullivan. One fungoe.

> Swiger is the kicker, not Sullivan. By the way, Swiger really sucks. Nice duck on the 2nd attempt.

Sullivan is the holder. The holder is someone who holds the ball for the kicker on field goals. He made a hell of a play to get that ball in a position to be kicked. It bounced at least three times before it got to him.

[Guest bpd115]

I Hope you guys had fun in and around Happy Valley...

As I said before on this board (and in my breakdown of PSU)

This is not the same 3 - 9 team....and we proved it.

Good luck in the rest of your season.

[zipboy]

My 2 cents . . .

On the glass half full side

1.It was just 1 game. I am anxious to see what personnel changes are made over the next 2 weeks before MAC play starts.

2. The ball got spread around to a lot of people. Too bad they were all within 3 yards of the line of scrimmage.

3. The receivers caught everything thrown their way.

4. Sullivan can punt.

5. The league looked horrible except for NIU.

6. This team can't be this bad

7. First down plays usually netted 5-6 yards

On the glass half empty

1. All the above posts and then some. I have been to some bad losses over the past 10 years but never one as bad as yesterday. If I had gone to Iowa, that would rank up there. I know these guys try hard and they worked their a$$es off all off season, and JD has not seen his family in 2 weeks, so I don't want to rip on anyone. But my gosh, what the heck happened? Are we really this bad? Except for Earl, no one on defense competed. It was like Akron was afraid to hit somebody. We must be the best team at getting 9 yards on 3 tries before punting. Even when we got pounded in the past, the Zips would put up a fight, hit people, be physical. What a showcase for the program's coming out party and the Zips play about as bad as they possibly could play.

Regardless, I am here for the long haul and will be there Saturday. But a team does not get that much better over the course of a season. It may be time to play some of the younger guys. I saw that Cloud got in as well as Stokes and Grant. We need speed.

I hope for a good week of practice and a victory on Saturday. MTSU got hurricaned out so at least we have a game in under our belts. Go Zips!

[ZipDude]

i will waid back in now. I have not talked with any of my inside sources and those who should know so these are my IMHO's agains,,,gheesssshhhh:

I think their game plan was to run the ball. They abandoned it early on and went back to the "spread offense". Waddell was correct in saying that it was a good move untill they figured out how to contain it...they did. Generally they looked disoriented.

I am very surprised that the OL did not do better than they ap[peared to look to my relatively trained eye. I know Crouch got hurt in Q2 and that caused some probl but 71 looked pretty good for a rookie start to me. I do not know why guard to guard they were not stronger.

The raw rookie receivers were obvious. It matters not that Hixon is an athlete and he played WR in high school. Maybe it was nerves. Maybe it was bad coaching and preparedness.

Again, the defense just plai n sucks. Nop tackling n0o hitting no rush. You win with defense. Cannot blame this failure on JTresey, he be gone.

I wonder what was said in the locker toom at halftime and on the ride home. This was a butt kicking like i have not wittnessed since UCF two or three years ago. It was embarrassing and i remember what happened, back to basics, a lot of yelling and some boys got real moticated and played better.

No one ive seen has answered my question: Was 44 there? Did he play?? Whats up ??

I guess i will have to look at the particip[ation stats on gozips.

I'm out

[Guest Guest_Zipper]

The defense is really bad and that is not due to Tresey or any one person. Whomever was responsible for recruiting the 22+ bad players should get the hook for that. But wait, they did.

The Iowa game was the worst for me. 38-0 at the end of 15 minutes trumped this, but not by much. The 54 point lashing in 1999 atthe hands of Joe Pa was also not much fun. I have been to most of the games since 1997 and those turkeys take the cake.

Blackburn looks the part but I do not remember him ever being that overpowering as a player. He had two tackles according to the paper in Pittsburgh. Aside from Earl none of the LB played well at all and even Earl's big hit resulted in the PS player getting 3-4 more yards after contact.

Akron must again outscore opponents, which is a tough way to win consistently if at all.

[zipboy]

#44 played, at least he started. First play of the game, they go a 2 yard screen and #44 was in on the tackle. After that it was all down hill.

[Zipsrifle]

Just getting back and made most of my comments in another post. I agree that once we got way behind, we were desperate to get back in it and it showed. In addition, it was obvious that the athleticism on the opposite side of the ball was a few notches above ours. Most of our guys would be 2nd and 3rd team at PSU.

I was happy to see that Biggs and Ringer were about equal, I really thought we'd only have Ringer this year. Frye performed as expected, probably didn't have a lot of long passes 'cause everyone was covered and decided to get some yardage instead of an INT. I was also pleasantly suprised with the receivers, thought we'd drop a LOT MORE. Wish we would have/ could have run it more, seemed a bit one dimensional, but I guess that's what you've go to do when the other team scores every time the touch the ball. I really didn't expect the OL to be a drastic improvement over last year, I think they'll continue to improve as they become more familiar with the system but still won't be able to block that well....just too slow. The entire team was too slow. On one play, we had Robinson for a loss and he just ran around the defender?!?! WTF!

The D, well, I think that everyone has pretty much summed it up above. Couldn't wrap up, didn't cover. We looked like a bunch of birds flying into windows and you'd think that PSU had taken Crisco baths prior to the game. I think we'd better find a way to keep the offense on the field a LOT and use up the clock cause we're going to have to out shoot our opponents.

With that said, I'm sure that our obvious observations and more have been keyed upon by JD and are being Drilled into the guys. I have to believe that we won't be thrown into panic mode as early next week and that we will be on par as far as athleticism. We will have the advantage of having one week under our belt but also have little idea of what will be thrown at us. We got thumped by a Big Ten team and should learn from it and make our run in the MAC. If JD is the real deal, we'll upset someone late this season. This week is the real measure of the team.

[Lee Adams]

On 9/5/2004 at 1:26 AM, Guest Guest said:

Same old Zips, different season.

The defense sucks, the o-line sucks.

This team has no speed at all.

Other than Frye, I doubt there is one player on this team that would start at any other upper tier MAC school.

I went way back to check out some posts re: the 2004/2005 teams when JD and Joe came to town. Seems like some of the complaints then were similar to now. But,that changed. Bad D,bad O line(lol). Someone complained because they ran a 'spread' offense. Imagine.

What I can't remember is who was the Defensive coordinator those 2 years. As I recall those defenses weren't real good. And, didn't they play some kind of 'gimmicky' defense also.

If anybody can respond would appreciate it.

[GP1]

1 hour ago, Lee Adams said:

 

What I can't remember is who was the Defensive coordinator those 2 years. As I recall those defenses weren't real good. And, didn't they play some kind of 'gimmicky' defense also.

If anybody can respond would appreciate it.

Jim Fleming was the DC. He is now head coach at URI.

 

They ran a 3-3-5. It's widely used in college football now because of spread offenses. 

[lance99]

2 hours ago, GP1 said:

Jim Fleming was the DC. He is now head coach at URI.

 

They ran a 3-3-5. It's widely used in college football now because of spread offenses. 

I was going to say the 3-3-5 because I remember everyone here panned the defense during that time period.....

[kreed5120]

4 hours ago, Lee Adams said:

I went way back to check out some posts re: the 2004/2005 teams when JD and Joe came to town. Seems like some of the complaints then were similar to now. But,that changed. Bad D,bad O line(lol). Someone complained because they ran a 'spread' offense. Imagine.

What I can't remember is who was the Defensive coordinator those 2 years. As I recall those defenses weren't real good. And, didn't they play some kind of 'gimmicky' defense also.

If anybody can respond would appreciate it.

 

I wouldn't fret too much over game threads or things people say immediately after losses. Generally they're speaking with emotion instead of logic. Most people I've talked to believe Joe will right the ship. He inherited a roster that was bottom 5 FBS in talent. Even with the transfer portal it's going to take some time to build this roster

[GP1]

1 hour ago, kreed5120 said:

Most people I've talked to believe Joe will right the ship.

I believe he can. Time will tell. 

 

Everything is in line for Joe to be successful. Rick Neuheisel was talking last week about the importance of alignment between a President, Athletic Director and football coach. Joe has that going for him.