Courtesy of Bobcatattack.com

[Captain Kangaroo]

"Has anyone looked at how bad Akron really is and how a weak schedule can really inflate the record. They are 5-4 with a loss to MTSU who is one of the weaker D1 programs in the country. They have beaten Can't (awful team), UCF (worst D1 team in the country), Buffalo (one of the 5 worst teams in the country), Ball State (challenging UCF and Buffalo for the worst team in the country) and Marshall ( total fluke and anyone that saw the game would have to agree). The Zips are just like us - a terrible football team that has beaten, not bad football teams (Marshall the lone exception) but AWFUL football teams. A loss to Akron would further emphasize how bad the football program is at the present time. It is extrmely humbling to see how bad most of the teams in the MAC are this year. The league has always been a "have and have nots" league but in the past most of the have nots weren't the worst teams in division 1A. Right now I really believe UCF, Buffalo, Ohio, Ball St, Can't St, Akron and WMich are average to below average 1AA teams at best. Teams like Furman, GaSouthern, Maine, N'eastern, SIll, James Madison, Delaware etc would dominate these teams. My question is - is our talent and the talent of these other teams that poor or is it coaching and committment?"

Reply: OU Fan still having trouble dealing with the fact that the Zips have been playing at a level far above OU for several years.

"The Zips are just like us - a terrible football team..." That's a good one!

[Big Zip]

The win last week was great, but the OU board isn't 100% wrong. This team needs to take OU to the woodshed and beat Miami before they will get any credit from the rest of the league. I still can't believe we beat Marshall and it's Wednesday night, but I know the Marshall game was the first win against a good team on the schedule and we didn't beat up on any of the bad teams on our schedule. The MAC is a weird place -- we haven't beaten anyone soundly this year, but Can't hasn taken Buffalo and OU to school the last two weeks.

I do have one question though -- do both teams in the MAC Championship get a guaranteed bowl invite? Motor City and GMAC? http://www.nationalchamps.net/2004/bowls/

I've read before that the GMAC Bowl gets a MAC or WAC team, but this site says MAC East Champs go to GMAC -- so far the last three years it has been Marshall twice and Miami once.

[Guest Quickzips]

Ok, here are some of the problems I have with that line of thinking.

1.) MTSU game was mentioned. For gods sake people it was JD's second game as a head coach. I can't tell you for sure but I think if you put MTSU's team at that time up against the Zips the way we are playing now. I think you can chalk that one up for the W column. JD and his staff have come a LONG way in just under a year. I'll even go as far as to say that if you put us up against the Penn St. team we played at the beginning of season again today that that game becomes ALOT closer.

2.)Ball St., Can't, CFU, Buffalo yeah their bad teams. I mean BAD teams. But you know what good teams don't lose to those kinds of teams, and we didn't. I don't think that necessarily constitutes us as a good team, but I think it certainly removes us from the list of bad teams.

3.)Marshall was no fluke. I hate it how every time you get a game like that you always here about how the winning team got so many good breaks. Yeah we did get alot of them, but bad teams don't know how to take advantage of them. A bad team would go 3 and out on the drive after Marshall fumbled into the endzone. Or they would botch the onside kick, or the QB takes a sack on the 4th and 10 play that turned into a TD. We didn't do that. Call it advantageous, but good teams know how to take advantage of the opportunities given to them.

[zipsbandman]

Good point quickzips. A lot of people may say that we got lucky in the Marshall game and that we barely beat the bad MAC teams, but we still one. OSU got it done the same way in their national championship season. It was not always pretty, but they knew how to win. Lee Owens was the exact opposite. He crushed bad teams and made our offense look fancy with big plays, but he lacked the ability to win critical games, and by this time we would be playing for moral victories.

Kudos to the Marshall fans, since they have been very gracious after losing such a close game. They could have made a bunch of excuses, but they realized that their team gave us opportunities and we were able to punish them for it. It takes dicipline to mantain composure at that point in a game like that.

Go Zips! Shut 'em up!

[JP Morgan]

F Ohio U and their "fans." In my book, they rank right behind the pompous, arrogant brie eating bastards at Miami OH. The elitist attitude of the alumni, students and fans of these Universities makes me sick!

Now there are exceptions, but for the most part they all suck!

[Captain Kangaroo]

Ok, here are some of the problems I have with that line of thinking.

1.) MTSU game was mentioned.  For gods sake people it was JD's second game as a head coach.  I can't tell you for sure but I think if you put MTSU's team at that time up against the Zips the way we are playing now.  I think you can chalk that one up for the W column.  JD and his staff have come a LONG way in just under a year.  I'll even go as far as to say that if you put us up against the Penn St. team we played at the beginning of season again today that that game becomes ALOT closer.

2.)Ball St., Can't, CFU, Buffalo yeah their bad teams.  I mean BAD teams.  But you know what good teams don't lose to those kinds of teams, and we didn't.  I don't think that necessarily constitutes us as a good team, but I think it certainly removes us from the list of bad teams.

3.)Marshall was no fluke.  I hate it how every time you get a game like that you always here about how the winning team got so many good breaks.  Yeah we did get alot of them, but bad teams don't know how to take advantage of them.  A bad team would go 3 and out on the drive after Marshall fumbled into the endzone.  Or they would botch the onside kick, or the QB takes a sack on the 4th and 10 play that turned into a TD.  We didn't do that.  Call it advantageous, but good teams know how to take advantage of the opportunities given to them.

You hit the nail on the head.

Jabari drops a sure TD to put us up 14-0...nothing said about it. A Marshall WR drops a TD pass...well, obviously that's the reason the Zips won. Josh Davis rips the Akron defense for 240 yards...so the Zips defense sucks. Hixson gets 200 yards receiving on the Herd...nothing said about it.

The fact is:

While OU got drubbed at Can't 41-16...the Zips never trailed vs. Can't. Can't scored late to make it close.

Akron drilled Buffalo. Held them to a TD over the last 3 quarters, if I'm not mistaken.

Akron never trailed vs. UCF. A late TD made it closer than it was.

The Zips manhandled Ball State. At one point it was 35-7, I believe. Again, late scores made it close.

If the Zips are winning...but not by enough points for your taste...too bad, I guess. As someone stated above...OSU won a national championship by winning close games. I love being 5-4 right now.

OU's D isn't too bad. Their QB is. If we get any sort of a pass rush on Hawk, we'll probably win by a nice margin. If we can't rush him effectively...we'll still win...but probably not by "enough." 6-4 going into the Miami game will rule...however we achieve it.

[Zipsrifle]

Excellent points by Quickzips. I am very happy with where we are right now, but I still don't think we can take any team lightly. Though I consider the Zips a better ball club than OU, I don't consider us that much better. They took Marshall to the wire and lost. We took Marshall to the wire and won. I think Can't has found something with Cribbs to make them successful as of late and that is why the blew them away. We never slammed the door on UCF or Ball State....time just kinda ran out. IMO, if OU brings their A game and we bring anything less than our A game, we lose on Sat. I just think that is the reality of it.

[Guest ***GUEST_Z.I.P.]

This is to answer -- or at least give my 2c on the second part of Big Zip's post above:

There is no hard and fast rule saying the champions of both divisions of the MAC get to play in bowls. In the past, Marshall and Miami were attractive enough teams as East Div champs to get the invite to Mobile. Akron would not naturally appear attractive to nearly the same degree. For that reason, one would have to consider strongly the possibility that with the choice, the GMAC Bowl would much rather have the #2 team from the MAC West than 7-4 Akron. I'd say Akron would have to win the MACC to ensure themselves of a bowl game. I believe the MCB has the first selection from the league, and the GMAC the second. The GMAC also has the option to work a swap with the WAC, whereby a MAC team might go to one of their (WAC's) designated bowl games.

But then, you have to also consider the Enquirer article sent by Mollautt. It's likely that both the PAC-10 and Big-12 will have too few bowl eligible teams to satisfy all their bowl commitments. Hey -- how'd y'all like to join the Z.I.P. in Frisco or Vegas, or even San Jose next month?

But we -- and most especially JD and his boys -- are a long way from any serious speculation. let's beat the Kitties first.

[Guest Guest]

I dont care if we win this game by 1 point, it still means we are in the driver seat. If we win the championship by 1 point we still win. So who cares!!!

GO ZIPS

[zff]

Do we really know how good or how bad this Zips team is????

I don't think we do.

The thing I know about this team is the play hard for 60 mins and never quit. After starting the season off so slow they could have just packed it in for the rest of the season but they didn't. And they never quit after being dwon 28 - 7 to the Herd.

A great coach once said if you play hard for 60 mins you you never konw what can happen.