Who are these Zips?

They are excited in ZipLand...why? Because they have a brand, spanking new Stadium coming on board next year to replace this piece of doo-doo...



Yes, this is the last time the Falcons will play in the esteemed Rubber Bowl, a place that's more fun to say than to see. I picked that pic because you can see that the light poles are inside the stands, inexplicably.

I saw Simon and Garfunkel play the Rubber Bowl once...it was a fine show, and the place seemed OK then. But, you know, it was dark and late at night.

What else can we expect from the Zips?

The Zips were picked to be very bad this year. I guess I would say that they are better so far than people anticipated.

• They beat an awful Syracuse team, but did it on the road.
• They beat an awful Army team, also on the road.
• They played UC really tough, but that was in Akron.
• They beat Kent at Kent in 2OT's last week. (beating Kent without Jarvis is not too much of a feather in your cap).

They also lost to Wisconsin and Ball State, neither of which would be unexpected.

Offensive football starts at QB, and Akron's Chris Jacquemain is someone mentioned in the Brandonpresser as being underrated. Based on MAC Report Online's exclusive QB ratings, he is the 8th ranked passing QB in the conference (Tyler is #4, for reference).

His ratio is a little worrisome (10/9), though he threw three picks in the first half of the Kent game, putting his team in the hole right away. (He also threw four picks against Ball State).

Akron is 10th in the conference in rushing, (BG is 11th however). That is helped a lot by more than 200 yards against Syracuse. They ran for only 58 against Kent. They have lots two of their high profile runners to injuries.

Whatever. That all adds up to 5.4 yards per play, which is actually not too bad.

They are +4 in turnovers and have picked up the most turnovers in the conference (16). They have recovered 12 fumbles so far....wow.

On defense, they do not have a strong running defense...in fact, they are last in the MAC. (This is partly due to Wisconsin ringing up 400+ on them, but both Ball and Kent were near or over 200 yards for the day).

Of course, what worries me that we might not match up too well with them for just that reason, because our running game has been relatively anemic and is not healthy on top of it. If AT is healthy enough to contribute, then we might be able to run the ball at them. Their pass defense looks good statistically, but that might just be because teams are too busy running on them. (Wisconsin threw the ball only 10 times against them and Army only 13).

Overall, this team is better than they were supposed to be, its on the road, and after the EMU game, all bets are off on our Falcon team. Now, for sure, they have the motivation to pick up the pace, and on paper, I think we should win this game. However, I expect a full-out struggle and a game that is still in play in the 4th quarter.