Some thoughts on scheduling

[ZachTheZip]

I'm sure that we can all agree that having only 5 (or in last year's case 4) home games a year puts the team at a disadvantage competitively, and the fans at a disadvantage for lack of oppurtunities to see thier team play. The new stadium is supposed to fix that, right? The answer is: Yes, it will. But it won't help us grow the fanbase, and it won't help us bring in recognizable big-time teams (I'm talking about the upper-tier Big 10, they wouldn't be caught dead playing us at home) that would stir interest in our games. In order to gain fans on the scale that we would need in order to create success, we need to play teams like OSU, Penn State, and Michigan either at home, or in Browns Stadium. Now here's my idea: avoid playing OSU until we're ready. Play Penn State because we can compete with them fairly well, like we did in 2006. Penn State might even play us at home if they get the right deal. The biggest thing, though, we can possibly do is play Michigan at Browns Stadium. Why? Because we can tap into the OSU fanbase who will inevitably show up to root against them. We could fill Browns Stadium and have a home crowd advantage at the same time. The atmosphere would be great for the players - It's what they've dreamed of since peewee league.It would allow us to tap into the Cleveland market, which would be awesome. In fact, someone should contact the Cleveland sports commission about it. I know they screwed up the Patriot bowl, but who would want to see Akron play Army?Just some thoughts.Here's my question to you: What innovative ideas do you have that could help us grow the fan base, schedule better, or both? Everybody's always complaining, but I rarely see any ideas beyond "We need to schedule better, and have more home games".

[timmyboy]

I'm sure that we can all agree that having only 5 (or in last year's case 4) home games a year puts the team at a disadvantage competitively, and the fans at a disadvantage for lack of oppurtunities to see thier team play. The new stadium is supposed to fix that, right? The answer is: Yes, it will. But it won't help us grow the fanbase, and it won't help us bring in recognizable big-time teams (I'm talking about the upper-tier Big 10, they wouldn't be caught dead playing us at home) that would stir interest in our games. In order to gain fans on the scale that we would need in order to create success, we need to play teams like OSU, Penn State, and Michigan either at home, or in Browns Stadium. Now here's my idea: avoid playing OSU until we're ready. Play Penn State because we can compete with them fairly well, like we did in 2006. Penn State might even play us at home if they get the right deal. The biggest thing, though, we can possibly do is play Michigan at Browns Stadium. Why? Because we can tap into the OSU fanbase who will inevitably show up to root against them. We could fill Browns Stadium and have a home crowd advantage at the same time. The atmosphere would be great for the players - It's what they've dreamed of since peewee league.It would allow us to tap into the Cleveland market, which would be awesome. In fact, someone should contact the Cleveland sports commission about it. I know they screwed up the Patriot bowl, but who would want to see Akron play Army?Just some thoughts.Here's my question to you: What innovative ideas do you have that could help us grow the fan base, schedule better, or both? Everybody's always complaining, but I rarely see any ideas beyond "We need to schedule better, and have more home games".

Bringing in the larger schools like Kentucky, Syracuse, Indiana is a good start for a team that hasent showed the ability to win on a consistant basis in the MAC. It may take a few straight years of winning for teams to think about coming to akron to play for the simple fact of what happened this year with the Buckeyes. They played Akron,Cant State and YSU and everyone was saying they didnt deserve to be in the title game. Schools are starting to shy away from playing school who arent able to win games because they dont want it to look bad on their program if they win by a smaller margin then they should. LSU is opening up this year with APP ST. Had APP state got blown out by michigan, i dont see LSU playing them this year but app st showed that they can play with the larger d1 schools.

[Captain Kangaroo]

Since you bring up the topic of scheduling...I hear rumors that the Florida State Seminoles could end up on the Zips 2009 schedule (away). That would be a sweet road trip. Regarding getting upper-tir B11 teams @ home...forget it. It ain't happening. Michigan can get 110,000 paying customers to see them play 1-AA schools. UA would need to charge $2,000.00 per ticket to get anywhere near close to the $$ required to get OSU or Michigan to come to our 30,000 seat stadium.Like other MAC schools, we need to get the Syracuse's...Rutgers'...Purdue's...Iowa State's...Cincinnati's..Minnesota's...teams of that ilk to make an attractive non-conference schedule. Or, we waste our brand new stadium and play a neutral-field game in Cleveland againsts a top-tier school. I want to tailgate in Akron and watch games in Akron once the stadium is built. Why spend 55 million dollars, then play games in Cleveland's stadium? Why screw the local merchants who invested in business around the new stadium by giving Cleveland our $$.As far as innovative ideas to grow the fan base - Play better, win games and do so for an extended period of time. That will draw fans. I think the Zips' 2009 team will be excellent...we'll have the new stadium to showcase them...and the bandwagon will spontaneously erupt, much like the Motor City Bowl's "instant" Zips following. And for once, I think people will pay for their tickets and we may actually start crawiling out from the red.

[skip-zip]

Some good thoughts.First, regardless of what some people were saying on this site, I knew the Patriot Bowl was going to be a failure. We played a bad program, on a holiday weekend, and were counting on the "NE Ohio Casual College Football fan", most of which don't care about anyone except Ohio State, to show an interest. I really think someone missed the boat on calculating the chances of this being a success. A game at Cleveland Stadium against Michigan would certainly be a great draw. So would a game against Penn State. They are both close enough to bring their own fans, and the Suckeye fans would show up too, since a Big-11 team is involved. But what are the chances of those schools going out of state for such a game? To me, there's just a HUGE difference between getting Ohio State to play a game in Cleveland, and getting Michigan or Penn State to play a game in Cleveland. I have no problem playing Ohio State. The last two times we've played them we've lost by 14 points, and 18 points. Keep this in mind. I've been around Akron football for 30 years, and have seen some very good people work hard to try to make these kinds of things happen. It's not easy. In fact, trying to grow a bottom echelon D-1 football program into something special has to be one of the hardest tasks in sports. So, what do we do?I'd like to see if we can take things one step at a time and take these games against the Kentucky's, the Cincinnati's, and the Syracuse's at our new stadium. AND...I'd like to see if we can duplicate Bowling Green's feat of getting the Suckeyes to play them in Cleveland. Beyond that, playing games in Akron, or in Cleveland, against top-rated programs are really a remote possibility, until we can get nationally-ranked, or ever become fortunate enough to enter one of those bigger conferences.

[Quickzips]

If you really think there is any chance of us getting Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State or other top tier BCS schools to come play us at home, or even at CBS, you need to go take your temperature. Those teams aren't going to lose the revenue that their 80,000+ seat stadiums generate for themselves and they aren't going to take any kind of risk of going on the road and losing to a MAC team. It offers no benefit to them. The best you can hope for is maybe a Wisconsin or an Iowa to take a deal like that (they have in the past although I think if they ever lost one you'd never see them do it again). No, for the time being we are best off trying to schedule the Kentucky's, Northwestern's, Illinois', Syracuse's, Indiana's, Duke's and Vanderbilt's of the BCS world on 2 for 1's. Try and get at least one home game a year against the lower level BCS schools. The ideal OOC schedule in my book would look something like this:1 Home game a year against a lower level BCS team (Kentucky, Syracuse, Northwestern, etc.)1 Home game a year against another mid-major team (someone from CUSA, the Sun Belt, the WAC, etc.)1 Road game a year against one of the big boys who won't come play us at our house (OSU, Florida, Penn State)1 Road game a year against another mid-major team (someone from CUSA, the Sun Belt, the WAC, etc.)You try and win the home games on a consistent basis. Try and win the road mid-major game at least 50% of the time and hopefully you can knock off one of the big boys on the road here or there.Just trying to be realistic here.

[Lee Adams]

If you really think there is any chance of us getting Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State or other top tier BCS schools to come play us at home, or even at CBS, you need to go take your temperature. Those teams aren't going to lose the revenue that their 80,000+ seat stadiums generate for themselves and they aren't going to take any kind of risk of going on the road and losing to a MAC team. It offers no benefit to them. The best you can hope for is maybe a Wisconsin or an Iowa to take a deal like that (they have in the past although I think if they ever lost one you'd never see them do it again). No, for the time being we are best off trying to schedule the Kentucky's, Northwestern's, Illinois', Syracuse's, Indiana's, Duke's and Vanderbilt's of the BCS world on 2 for 1's. Try and get at least one home game a year against the lower level BCS schools. The ideal OOC schedule in my book would look something like this:1 Home game a year against a lower level BCS team (Kentucky, Syracuse, Northwestern, etc.)1 Home game a year against another mid-major team (someone from CUSA, the Sun Belt, the WAC, etc.)1 Road game a year against one of the big boys who won't come play us at our house (OSU, Florida, Penn State)1 Road game a year against another mid-major team (someone from CUSA, the Sun Belt, the WAC, etc.)You try and win the home games on a consistent basis. Try and win the road mid-major game at least 50% of the time and hopefully you can knock off one of the big boys on the road here or there.Just trying to be realistic here.

reality would be good..the first thing that HAS to happen is in the athletic depatment..they have to cut the attitude that the team is to be sacrificed to the likes of OSU, PSU and on and on for CASH... we all know money is necessary but history shows us that in this town in doesn't put butts in the seats when you lose to OSU,PSU etc etc..WINNING is the best PR the AD can get... they could get Cincy,Pitt..how about an SMU...Rice..teams from the mid level that people recognize...then beat the best MAC teams!!! play for something meaningful in October and November...you will never get 30K consistently... but if you win in a new stadium consistently you can haul in 20K maybe 25K...this year and next are critical....

[Blue & Gold]

I agree. I'm tired of playing the elite BCS schools. The odds of us winning those games are nil. I'm all for scheduling middle-to-lower BCS schools and mid-majors. Why not SMU, Marshall, Memphis or Tulane from C-USA, or any of the Mountain West or WAC schools. I'm all for being competitive and winning. Winning will build the fan base; people like to be associated w/ a winner. If we win enough, and build up the program enough, the occassional Top 10 BCS opponent will be okay. I say we go for being recognized as an elite mid-major program before we start scheduling the perennial Top 10 schools. If we could be associated with Hawaii, Boise State, Marshall (the old Marshall) and be ranked in the lower part of the Top 25 I think we'd max out the stadium every week.

[skip-zip]

Blue and Gold...after reading the last few posts, you are the only one who touches on the ONLY thing that would elevate our football program enough to start drawing in significantly larger numbers of followers......NATIONAL RANKING.Winning MAC football games doesn't mean a whole lot to the Akron-area college football fan who does not already have an interest in Akron football. NATIONAL RANKING will be the only factor that will start to pull those people in.So, what do you do??Unlike basketball, where you play 30+ games, you can't afford to lose football games and still get national ranking. So, a formula like Quickzips suggests would probably get it done. So, if you can run the table in the MAC in a given year, and beat a couple of recognizable programs from BCS conferences, you may just be able to get into that top-25 spot.

[gozips19]

the WAC and MWC are pretty much out. it costs way too much money to travel to Akron if they aren't getting paid. That leaves Akron with CUSA, the Sun belt, IAA, and the service academies. those are the schools the should and are trying to get. but factor in conference presidents and schools at our level scheduling upper tier schools early in the season; it makes it very hard to fill a schedule. with the new stadium Akron will finally have a bargaining chip!

[ZippyforPresident]

Although it's a paycheck, I'm not a fan of scheduling games against top tier BCS programs, and with the new stadium coming I see no point in trying to schedule games at Cleveland Browns stadium. The objective is to build support for the football program amongst the student body, the alumni, and the surrounding community, and with a new on campus stadium that's a big step in the right direction. In my opinion our scheduling should somewhat resemble what coach D is trying to do with the basketball program, playing other mid majors and teams that are around our level that will play in AKRON for a home and home or at least a 2 for 1. Although there are more options in basketball I feel that idea might not be entirely out of the question for the football program. I think that creating a relationship with the Big East can be a good idea. The travel isn't too far for the most part and the Big East is a conference that is consistently putting teams into the top 25 nationally. Although we had a rough time vs. UConn last season I think a good MAC team can play with just about any Big East opponent. The main point however, which many of you have touched on is that we need to WIN GAMES. The key to putting butts in the seats is to establish a winning tradition which can only be done by winning the games you play. You've gotta beat the MAC teams if you wanna get a following. Win in your conference and schedule out of conference opponents that are solid or recognizable programs that aren't too far off from our level, who will play in our house, and you can establish a winning tradition that can be built off of. But the key is to keep the "home" games in Akron and to win IN AKRON. When people go to the games they want to see a winner, they want to expect to win, and see something that they can be proud of and unite over and say "that's right, that's my school, and I'm proud of it." I dunno, that's just my opinion.

[Quickzips]

Although it's a paycheck, I'm not a fan of scheduling games against top tier BCS programs, and with the new stadium coming I see no point in trying to schedule games at Cleveland Browns stadium. The objective is to build support for the football program amongst the student body, the alumni, and the surrounding community, and with a new on campus stadium that's a big step in the right direction. In my opinion our scheduling should somewhat resemble what coach D is trying to do with the basketball program, playing other mid majors and teams that are around our level that will play in AKRON for a home and home or at least a 2 for 1. Although there are more options in basketball I feel that idea might not be entirely out of the question for the football program. I think that creating a relationship with the Big East can be a good idea. The travel isn't too far for the most part and the Big East is a conference that is consistently putting teams into the top 25 nationally. Although we had a rough time vs. UConn last season I think a good MAC team can play with just about any Big East opponent. The main point however, which many of you have touched on is that we need to WIN GAMES. The key to putting butts in the seats is to establish a winning tradition which can only be done by winning the games you play. You've gotta beat the MAC teams if you wanna get a following. Win in your conference and schedule out of conference opponents that are solid or recognizable programs that aren't too far off from our level, who will play in our house, and you can establish a winning tradition that can be built off of. But the key is to keep the "home" games in Akron and to win IN AKRON. When people go to the games they want to see a winner, they want to expect to win, and see something that they can be proud of and unite over and say "that's right, that's my school, and I'm proud of it." I dunno, that's just my opinion.

If the objective of playing a big time BCS school is just to get the paycheck and bring some money into the program then you're probably right. It probably isn't worth it. However if we are really serious about building this program into a top mid-major you have to play one of them a year IMO. After last year it is pretty obvious that the Michigan's, OSU's, Florida's, USC's, Texas' and the likes of the BCS world aren't bulletproof. They can lose games and they can lose them to teams that the rest of the country would (probably rightfully so) consider to be of a significantly lower quality. You may never win a game like that, but even if you can go toe to toe with them and put the fear of god (or the roo) into them it is of a huge benefit. Look at Appalachian State this year. How many people would have given two shits about that team without them beating Michigan? Not many. Fresno State has gained a reputation through the years by going into places like USC and making the big boys fight for their lives. Thats what I eventually want to see out of the Zips. Go into the big boys house once a year and go for the upset. If you get it, the program takes a big step forward. If not, hopefully you can give them a good enough scare that you learn something for next season and you still walk out of there with your payday.As far as playing games at CBS, you're right. Once the new stadium is built there isn't really much of a reason to go up there and play. If we could by some stretch convince a big time program to come play us there it MIGHT be worth it, but since that isn't all that realistic it's a moot point.

[roodog97]

IMO there is more than just a paycheck when scheduling upper-tier BCS conference teams (though I agree money is the deciding factor). I always thought it was also used to obtain recruits. I'm sure JD tells his recruits that they will get the chance to play against the big boys if they committ to Akron. It was clear our guys were charged up going into the game against OSU. Maybe there are some former players on this board who can answer whether they would have rather played against a likely win Sunbelt opponent or a likely loss upper BCS opponent.

[RACER]

the zips need more home games peroid.quit scheduling away games against bcs teams.every year we have only at most five home games.like ck said we will have a new stadium so why play at cleveland.you can argue about kd schedule,but at least you get to see the zips play at the jar.i dont understand why every year we play on the road.everyone says akron and the mac school do it for the money.if that's the case how are we building a new stadium if we are broke? if you cannot get a return game do not schedule the team.every year we start out 1-3 and that kills our fan base before we even get into mac play.i guess the akron admin just does not get it.

[skip-zip]

Quickzips...Roodog...I'm with you on this. I keep hearing people all the time on here say things like "playing big-time schools is not worth the paycheck". But the point is, there is so much more to gain than just the paycheck. Even after the new stadium is built, I would ABSOLUTELY be in favor of playing at Browns Stadium again down the road, if it means that we are playing someone of some significance. If that's what it takes for the Buckeyes to play us outside of Cowlumbus, we should jump at that opportunity. In addition, we have to understand that winning MAC GAMES is not going to have a significant impact on area college football fans who are not already Akron fans. Things we accomplish on a NATIONAL LEVEL are the only factors that will significantly impact that cause. And that means winning the MAC games, playing and beating some schools from higher level conferences, and looking competitive against a top-ranked opponent. If we can ever get to that point, just watch how many people in this area will proclaim that they have "always been a Zips fan".

[Lee Adams]

the zips need more home games peroid.quit scheduling away games against bcs teams.every year we have only at most five home games.like ck said we will have a new stadium so why play at cleveland.you can argue about kd schedule,but at least you get to see the zips play at the jar.i dont understand why every year we play on the road.everyone says akron and the mac school do it for the money.if that's the case how are we building a new stadium if we are broke? if you cannot get a return game do not schedule the team.every year we start out 1-3 and that kills our fan base before we even get into mac play.i guess the akron admin just does not get it.

completely agree here..after scheduling 3-4 road games to start the year in places you can't win...not only have the fans forgotten about the team,the players are so beat up that it is hard to put your best team on the field for the MAC schedule...they may play their butts off in Columbus etc...but the tank gets low when you have to do that 3-4 times in a row...schedule 1-2 competetive games at home early so the fans see the team before they start watching OSU or the Browns every week...

[GoZips]

I see a lot of sound thinking and good ideas being posted. Let me add the glue that makes all this work.Prevail upon Mack Rhoades and others to schedule two or three HOME games each September. Here is the reasoning. The weather is still warm. Most teams winsat home. The opportunity to improve is raised exponentially. In recent years the Zips have rarely played more than one home game in September. This has tostop. You simply will not draw fans in October and November to watch a team with a losing record no matter what big name school they almost beat.

[xu9697]

It's not that complicated:6 Home, 6 AwayOnly 4 non-con games. It helps to look at a "5 year window" as an example. It basically is a 3 year cycle with "mid-level" BCS conference teams. 1 game deals (here) for I-AA teams (or whatever they are called). 1 for 1's with most CUSA teams, Navy & Army, etc.Year 1UK (begins 3 year cycle)Memphisat Syracuse (begins 3 year cycle)at PSUYear 2at UKSyracuseat NavyUMass (going to have to do it to keep 6 home games= East teams should be able to travel)Year 3at UK (ends 3 year cycle)Southern Missat Syracuse (ends 3 year cycle)Indiana (begins 3 year cycle)Year 4at IndianaNavyat MemphisFordhamYear 5at Indiana (ends 3 year cycle)at Southern MissEast CarolinaMinnesota (begins 3 year cycle)Year 6 would have to have to have at ECU and so on and so forth.You try to mix the WEAKER non-con home years with the years that Can't State is a home game= for example, years 2 & 4. This might be too weak in not playing big time opponents. But to get 6 REAL home games and get some teams with a little clout, this is a good look at the first 5 years. Let the new stadium (best in MAC), improved campus, etc. sell the program initially.