MAC Facelift

[zen]

but I think you guys are letting the fact that the Zips rack up lots of wins against horrible OOC teams, get to the finals of a bad conference and beating an unmotivated FSU team in a completely irrelevant tournament

this pretty much sums up your lack of credibility right here.You know that the FSU win would come up and so you try to negate it ahead of time due to 'lack of motivation'. wow. just wow.

[Captain Kangaroo]

Good questions. First a comment. The only thing MAC ADs see five years into the future is their next job.

Probably true. But since the "next job" is usually a BCS gig that triples their salary, who can blame them? That's also good incentive for them to do a good job while they're here.

Will the BE implode? Hell no! The league can sustain itself on being one of the best, if not the best, basketball conference in the country.BE Split? Into what? The trend in college athletics is to have mega conferences. They are as big as they need to be and the competition is pretty good. There is strength in numbers and if they split they lose strength. The only possibility of leaving would be Pitt or WVU going to the Big Ten and I don't think either school is in a hurry to do that. They will never give up the BB only schools either. It helps make them the mega conference for BB. They are big enough for football.

Do you think Syracuse likes being left out of the NCAA's in successive years? How about Rutgers, who hired one of the better college basketball coaches in the nation...and the guy was barely getting into the NIT? I can't imagine a lot of the BE hoops teams being happy with the meat grinder that is BE basketball. At some point the A-10 and some of the "western" BE teams are going to form another league.

Memphis leaving C-DOA? Memphis is a basketball school. If they leave for the BE, they lose their automatic bid to the NCAA each year and their guaranteed 22 wins as they may not be hands down the best team in the conference.

True...but Memphis football would LOVE to be in the BE. And that is a major reason they'd move tomorrow if they could. Memphis basketball could handle the BE.

Here is my question. Why can't we just try to be the best team in the worst league? I believe being the best team in a lot of sports in the MAC is an achievable goal. If we could get to that point, we should all be happy.

My question is "Why shouldn't UA strive to improve?" Why can Boise State...Gonzaga...Cincinnati (the school was athletically irrelevant for 25 years until Huggins arrived)...improve their lot, but UA should stand still?Believe me, after going 5-6 and 4-8 in the MAC I'm by no means saying we'd be immediately competitive in BE football. But with the right commitment, it would be a realistic 5-7 year goal. UConn was 1-AA only 8 or 9 years ago, playing in a band box. Now they're one of the better BE programs. You also sell Zips hoops short. There's no reason FSU should ever lose to a MAC team sheerly due to low motivation. They may not have been overly motivated...but the Zips were pretty good too. We backed it up with a solid run at NIT runner up UMass. Lack of a healthy PG was our "degree of separation" last season. Nothing else.No doubt the Zips have some work to do to prove their worthy of hoops recognition like the Butler's, upper-tier MVC schools and Gonzaga's of the world. But those schools didn't win overnight. Hey -- we lost to K.e.n.t. 3 times last year. We have work to do. But people was to plant a tree on Monday and begin eating fruit on Tuesday. It doesn't work that way.The hoops program is on the cusp of a "special" 5+ year run. Not the "nice," confetti-free, 20+ win seasons we've seen for the past 5 years, but real, confetti-dropping MAC tourneys with some NCAA tourney wins. Like everyone else, I wish it happened a few years sooner...but once the confetti hits the floor I'll forget all about it.

[ZZZips]

Hey Zipwatcher.......Add some more fuel to the fire!

[Z.I.P.]

I just wanted to get back to the original topic -- which I''ve just been able to read.I think the new logo has the classic look that will serve the league's purpose of separating itself from the rest of the "MAC pretenders" out there. (Looking forward to GP 1's reaction to that one ) On the other hand, I will continue to proudly wear my MAC T-shirt in the old colors. I absolutely LOVED the old colors, which were themselves truly unique. No sports franchise on the globe, that I have seen, wears green and red, and those shades of colors were the brightest possible. The "red" was actually that shade which is exactly midway between red and orange -- the same as what the Atlanta Falcons once wore (before Jerry Glanville destroyed the franchise) called "cranberry orange".I would now love to see the soccer program develop their own MAC-like crest for use in program-specific sales (a pipe dream of course with the current admin) of soccer related memorabilia, like team scarves. It would include the year 1954 that men's soccer began at UA. I think you can see some college soccer scarves at www.wearthegame.com .

[ZachTheZip]

Apparently each MAC school can change the logo to their own school colors. I like the gold and blue look on the JAR floor instead of the christmas colors.

[Zipsrifle]

The Zips are going to no other conference and nor should they. The MAC is a I-AA football conference with a 1-A tag on it (Look to see how MAC schools did in bowls. How did our league chamion do agains an average Clemson?). App St would stand a better chance in football in C-USA or the BE than UofA or even most other schools in the MAC.

Agreed. Our league champion in FB should be able to take a Big 10 team in the MCB.

Here is my question. Why can't we just try to be the best team in the worst league? I believe being the best team in a lot of sports in the MAC is an achievable goal. If we could get to that point, we should all be happy.

Agreed. Lets just win our confrence, consistently. I know it's coming in BB, but I would sure love other schools in the MAC to see Akron on the schedule and say, "L". Now they see us and say "W".

[RACER]

if FSU was not motivated to play why did the game go into overtime.if they did't care the game would have ended in regulation.spin it any way you want,but the zips beat an acc team on their home floor.you can make excuses just like the fsu fans did,but they lost.it's funny how when a bcs team lose to a non bcs team their fans make excuses like "the team is not motivated to play". crap.when they win though they have no problem letting everyone in the world know how great acc basketball is.

[Blue & Gold]

They were motivated to play. They're human beings. They're athletes. When you get athletes together they are motivated to win at anything and everything - bowling, golf, poker, uno, duck-duck-goose, etc., etc. Athletes are ridiculously competitive like that. It doesn't matter what you're doing, you want to be the best - let alone if you're playing basketball - the game in which these athletes find their identity. These guys are not professional athletes that play so many games throughout the season that they hardly know what city they're in on any given night. Pros do often take a game "off" here or there and then kick it up a couple notches for the playoffs. That's one reason I love college sports - those guys ALWAYS want to be out there and they're out for blood. And then to not protect your home court? Pleeeeaze, those guys were motivated as all get out. The Zips were just a better team.

[Zipsrifle]

How about this. I think we caught the FSU guys off guard. They expected to pull away early and cruise, instead, they got behind. Then, they caught up and we ran with them...they figured they would eventually pull away. Instead, we went on a run. This is when they got modivated, made a run and as they expected, we began to fold...but not entirely. Then Dials took over and ballgame. The part that concerns me is how we fold at the end. Hopefully in the future, we finish strong against these types of teams.

[Zip Watcher]

The Zips were a better basketball team than FSU. They WON the game.

[Dr Z]

The MAC revealed new conference logos today. it's an improvement over the christmas-themed logo with weird lettering of the past, but it seems like it would look better when used on uniforms of smaller sports (the shield reminds me of soccer and arena sports). It reminds me of a combination of the AFL, NHL, and various soccer leagues.Interesting side-note: the company who designed these logos, The Joe Bosack Graphic Design Company, was the same one that designed all the logos for UA athletics.

When it comes to logos, it is a simple matter of taste. A designer will present a few ideas to the client, and somebody that knows little about design will usually pick the worst one presented.It's been going on for years, check out the link below:Top ten worst sports logos (according to Joshua Khan)

[ditchrider1]

Didn't happen to see if the University of Akron managed to get the new stadium into the game did you?

I didn't. I wouldn't expect it, though.

I'm not, just wishful thinking. An outside hope that someone in marketing would have had enough foresight to send imaging information to EA.

Hello Unfortunately I do not think the new stadium will be in next years NCAA 2010 football game either. There is a site called Operation Sports where the developers of the NCAA football series were answering questions and someone had inquired about the addition of the new stadium in the game for 2010 and the developer had not even heard that we were building a new Stadium! questionhttp://www.operationsports.com/forums/ncaa-football/251243-adam-thompson-ncaa-designer-q-thread-86.htmlnot so promising responsehttp://www.operationsports.com/forums/ncaa-football/251243-adam-thompson-ncaa-designer-q-thread-88.htmland this was in June of this year. The poster forwarded the stadium website and the developer responded that it may not be done in time to add to the game. I also was reading info from another developer on the same site who mentioned that all new stadiums have to be completed by February at the latest to be able to make it into the game, and they will not use renderings to complete the stadiums, they want actual photos.It seems the more cooperative the school is the better.

[RowdyZip]

Didn't happen to see if the University of Akron managed to get the new stadium into the game did you?

I didn't. I wouldn't expect it, though.

I'm not, just wishful thinking. An outside hope that someone in marketing would have had enough foresight to send imaging information to EA.

Hello Unfortunately I do not think the new stadium will be in next years NCAA 2010 football game either. There is a site called Operation Sports where the developers of the NCAA football series were answering questions and someone had inquired about the addition of the new stadium in the game for 2010 and the developer had not even heard that we were building a new Stadium! questionhttp://www.operationsports.com/forums/ncaa-football/251243-adam-thompson-ncaa-designer-q-thread-86.htmlnot so promising responsehttp://www.operationsports.com/forums/ncaa-football/251243-adam-thompson-ncaa-designer-q-thread-88.htmland this was in June of this year. The poster forwarded the stadium website and the developer responded that it may not be done in time to add to the game. I also was reading info from another developer on the same site who mentioned that all new stadiums have to be completed by February at the latest to be able to make it into the game, and they will not use renderings to complete the stadiums, they want actual photos.It seems the more cooperative the school is the better.

Interesting boards about the NCAA game there...It's nice to see if you scroll down a couple pages to see a few compliments on the stadium renderings