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Our View- Dec 15
Can Flyers become players on national stage?

     The University of Dayton Flyers basketball team has started off well in 2011, going 7-3 in their first ten games under first year coach Archie Miller. While there have been ups and downs, there are signs that good things are on the horizon for the Flyer Faithful, who are among the most loyal fans anywhere in college basketball.
    Miller has great pedigree as a coach, having learned first from his father, who was a coach; from Herb Sendek, his coach at North Carolina State, his brother Sean, now at Arizona, and other big names coaches he worked under, including Thad Matta at Ohio State.
   He has alreaady shown the ability to get in the door and talk to some top notch recruits, having landed two transfers, one from LSU and one from Georgetown, who will be eligible next season. In addition he has a highly regarded point guard from New York City coming in next season, who will work behind then senior Kevin Dillard for a year before presumably moving in to a starting role.
   Miller's style includes a motion offense, with emphasis on passing the ball inside to post players who can score. Constant screening away from the ball offers scoring opportunities for players moving without the ball.
   At the defensive end, Miller should continue the defensive intensity that previous coach Brian Gregory's teams were known for. Gregory was known to substitute freely, and apply pressure defensively all over the floor.
While that affected offensive continuity at times, the Flyers became one of the top defensive teams in the A-10, and also a top rebounding team, despite lacking a true post presence. Gregory elevated the pure athletic ability of the team as a whole, and Miller should continue that trend.
   Many times recruiting on the college level comes down to how a coach relates to a prospective player. A high school star is going to narrow his choices down to 3-4 schools, and the coach is going to have a major impact on which school is chosen. UD has everything going for it, except one thing.
   The Flyers have won just one NCAA tournament game since 1991, that being a victory over West Virginia in 2009. The following season UD won five games in the NIT, defeating North Carolina in the final in Madison Square Garden. That run was probably a factor in attracting the young point guard Javon Thomas from NYC. But the Flyers have not been able to establish a consistent tradition of playing and winning in the NCAA tournament. That is where the best college prospects want to play, the Big Dance on the national stage.
   Can Archie Miller, the fourth coach since legendary mentor Don Donoher left in 1990, return the Flyers to glory days of long ago? Time will tell, as the yearning Flyer Faithful wait patiently, again.

Our View- Jan 15

The BCS proves one thing.. college football is not the NFL

Another college football season is in the books with Alabama declared the Bowl Championship Series winner and USA Today coaches poll national champion. The Crimson Tide shut out former number one LSU 21-0 to win the BCS title game. But what was the aftermath of that game? More talk about tweaking the BCS, adding teams to form a ‘four team ‘ playoff format, to crown a more legitimate champ. Look, here is the issue. Led by ESPN, or as former Daytonian Dan Patrick calls the ‘mothership’, all the media pundits are trying to make college football like the NFL. It’s not, thankfully. The NFL has always been about championships.

Even before the Super Bowl era, there was the history of NFL championship games, involving the Browns of Paul Brown, Lombardi's Packers and the famous Colts victory over the Giants in the 1958 NFL title game, the first must see TV game in NFL history. In the Super Bowl era, the title game is the goal of all NFL teams. The regular season is a prelude to the playoffs and Super Bowl. Super Bowl Sunday has become a national day of honoring football and its rich tradition in our sporting history. College football is not about crowning a champion. It is about student athletes, ages 18-22, playing football on a college campus, a place of learning for young people. The players are performing for their peers, other students. The biggest games of the season for college teams are against their biggest rivals. The most popular weekends in college football are the weekends when the rivals meet: Ohio State- Michigan, Georgia-Florida, USC-Notre Dame, Oklahoma-Texas. It is these games that define college football, not a BCS championship game. The regular season in college football is the game, on the campuses where students eat, sleep, go to class and earn their degrees. It is tailgating by alumni, throcking to spirit shops and enjoying fall colors on a college campus.

In 1902, the head of the Tournament of Roses parade in Pasadena, California asked the University of Michigan football team to come out to California to play a football game against Stanford on New Year’s Day to help promote his parade. Little did he know that the game, which wouldn’t be played again until 1919, would begin a tradition of playing bowl games on New Year’s Day, six weeks after the end of the regular season. It has never really made sense for teams to stop playing in November and then after Christmas travel to a far away site to practice for another game. It’s almost like a different season. But a parade director wasn’t too concerned about whether it made sense for a football team. He was interested in promoting his parade.

Now the TV moguls want to again alter tradition. They are trying to make college football a copy of the NFL playoffs. Why? Well, television money of course. But the rich tradition of college football is on campuses and at universities across the nation. The alumni and friends of colleges follow their teams as they compete, learn, grow and battle their rivals, all the while entertained by the marching band leading the crowd in the school’s fight song. It’s the games that count. Not the national championships. College football is not the NFL.

Our View- Jan 1
The Browns need help....Jim Tressel?

Alright Cleveland Browns fans, I know you are out there. You may be hiding, but you are there. However far back you go in Browns history, chime in now; what should the Browns do to bring back their fans, some interest, some excitement, maybe some success? How about this: hire Jim Tressel. If not as head coach, then as a quarterbacks coach on the staff of new head coach—Mike Holmgren.

The Browns need some serious help. Pat Shurmur is not the answer. For too long the Browns have played with little passion, mediocre execution and moderate level talent. They have passed on superior talent in the draft to take players that have not panned out or were later traded.

They made a quality trade for Peyton Hillis, then saw him go in the tank in a season where all indications were he was ready to lead the Browns to the playoffs. Once again this season, there appears to be a dispassionate coach leading an underachieving team with Shurmur in his first year with Cleveland. Holmgren, with Super Bowl experience, needs to come down from the front office to the sideline.

Here is the Tressel theory, and it is out on a limb, yes. Jim Tressel is now going to coach in the NFL, or not at all. He made mistakes with Ohio State that cost him his college coaching career, which was noteworthy. He is a native of northeast Ohio, and has a history of coaching quarterbacks, and winning football games. His history is also in a pro style offense, not the ‘west coast’ offense that Holmgren and Shurmur run. Tressel won at Ohio State by running the football, playing solid defense and emphasizing field position. He also liked quarterbacks who were mobile and could throw the ball deep.

Tressel has some connections in the NFL, and visited the Browns camp last summer. Mike Holmgren should take the head coaching job, hire Tressel to work under him, and after three seasons, give Tressel the job.

The former Buckeye boss has the skills to handle pro players. He has spent his whole life coaching football and knows talent. He has great in-game skill in reading situations, play calling and use of time outs, replay review and personnel.

This is simply the right time to make this move, for the Browns and for Tressel. There are four good reasons to do it: Chris Palmer, Butch Davis, Romeo Crennel and Eric Mangini. Do you need a fifth? Oh, Pat Shurmur. Besides, what other options do the Browns have now? And what about this: After they move Holmgren to the sidelines and hire Tressel—trade a draft pick this year to the Raiders for ex-Buckeye Terrell Pryor. Would that stand the town on it’s head? Crazier things have happened. Look at Tim Tebow in Denver. Case closed.