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In Cleveland, hope dies last

Archive for the category “Kent State”

22 Feb 2015

From the editor’s notebook …

kent state beats ohioThe Kent State men’s basketball teams has reclaimed its rightful place as the best in the Mid-American Conference after Saturday’s road win against Ohio University.

The victory earned the Golden Flashes a sweep of the season series with the Bobcats and, coupled with Bowling Green’s loss, puts Kent State at the top of the East Division standings. The Golden Flashes are also tied with Central Michigan and Toledo for the best conference record at 10-4.

Senior Devareaux Manley hit five three-pointers on Saturday to move into second place on the school’s all-time three-point list with 211, and he is just one away from tying the school’s single-season record of 89 set by Randal Holt two years ago.

The win puts the Golden Flashes at 19-8 on the season and leaves them just one win away from their 15th 20-win season in the past 17 years. They are currently just one of 20 Division I programs to have won 20 or more games 14 times in the past 16 seasons.

Kent will be back in action Tuesday night when they go for a season sweep of Miami University. The Golden Flashes have only swept both Ohio and Miami in the same season twice — in 2002 and 2006 – and both those years Kent won the conference’s regular-season and tournament titles.

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02 Feb 2015

From the editor’s notebook …

johnny breaks cleveland 1With today’s news that Cleveland Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel has entered a treatment facility, we have reached the point where we no longer know what to think, feel or do in regard to Johnny Football.

The one thing we do know is, just like Josh Gordon before him, we hope that Manziel can find a way to chase away whatever demons are plaguing him.

We also sincerely hope that Manziel is taking this step because he truly wants to getter better, either mentally or physically, and he’s not doing this because his handlers believe this move will help his image. We know that sounds cynical, but that’s not the way we mean it.

And just like Gordon before him, we hope that general manager Ray Farmer and head coach Mike Pettine are working hard to figure out the quarterback situation and are going into the upcoming off-season with no expectation that they can count on Manziel.

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12 Jan 2015

On the playoffs and the downside of veteran QBs

Denver Broncos vs. Indianapolis ColtsIf Sunday really was the last time we see Peyton Manning on an NFL field as an active player – and it yesterday wasn’t the end, it certainly is coming soon – then the Denver Broncos are about to learn the same hard lesson that teams, including Minnesota and Kansas City, have learned before.

It is also a lesson that the Cleveland Browns and certain corners of the fan base should heed.

When you sign an aging veteran quarterback, no matter how good they are, rather than develop a quarterback, and don’t end up winning a Super Bowl, you run the risk of setting your franchise back even further than you were before you signed said quarterback.

The Chiefs learned that lesson back in the day with Joe Montana, the Vikings learned it a few years ago with Brett Favre, and now the Broncos are about to learn it as well.

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13 Sep 2014

From the editor’s notebook …

jd martinez indiansIf the Cleveland Indians come up short this season in their quest to return to the playoffs, there will be plenty of moments and miss opportunities for Tribe fans to point to as they review the season.

The biggest one may be J.D. Martinez of the Detroit Tigers.

Friday night, Martinez had a three-run homer and a triple as the Tigers beat the Indians for the fourth time in the past five meetings. On the season, Martinez is batting .327 against the Tribe, with six home runs and 18 RBI.

It’s not just the Indians that Martinez has been tormenting as he has clearly taken a liking to the American League Central. He’s batting .432 against Kansas City, with five home runs and 15 RBI; .324 against Minnesota; and .319 against the White Sox.

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20 Aug 2014

From the editor’s notebook …

hoyer starting quarterbackCleveland Browns head coach Mike Pettine made if official earlier today, naming Brian Hoyer as the team’s starting quarterback.

The decision ends what we can only hope was not an ill-fated quarterback competition between Hoyer and rookie Johnny Manziel. Now Hoyer can work exclusively to get not only himself but the offense ready for the season-opener on Sept. 7 against Pittsburgh.

“(Brian) was the clear leader from the beginning,” Pettine said in announcing the decision. “We’ve maintained all along that if it was close, I would prefer to go with the more experienced player. Brian has done a great job in the meeting rooms and with his teammates on the practice field and in the locker room.”

Pettine probably made the right call (we’re pretty sure he did, but we won’t know until the season starts). Even though it is only a few games, Hoyer has more experience running an NFL offense than Manziel. Hopefully having him play most of Saturday’s preseason friendly against St. Louis, combined with giving him all the first-team reps in practice from here on out, will help him shake off the rust from not having played since injuring his knee last October.

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27 May 2014
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From the editor’s notebook …

manziel las vegas“There is something un-American about a young man not wanting to spend time with the ladies.” – Joe Namath

When the Cleveland Browns selected quarterback Johnny Manziel in the NFL Draft a few weeks ago the team knew what it was getting itself into with Manziel, who is a modern-day Joe Namath in terms of publicity.

Last week it was Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback report that Manziel “never had a playbook” while at Texas A&M. Of course, the Aggies had a weekly game plan with actual plays that Manziel was expected to learn and execute, which, as Eric Davis pointed out one morning on the NFL Network, is the same as having an actual playbook! (That is one of the reasons we enjoy the NFL Network over ESPN; instead of trying to be the loudest (and stupidest) person in the conversation, Davis, Steve Wyche, Terrell Davis and the rest of the rotating panel on NFL A.M. actually talk to one another in an effort to make sense.)

Then, over the weekend, came the news that Manziel spent his holiday in Las Vegas; hanging out with New England’s Rob Gronkowski, attending a UFC fight, joining in at a pool party and generally doing the kinds of things that people do when they visit Las Vegas.

Manziel also did one more thing over the weekend (at least according to him) – he studied his playbook as he prepares for the next round of OTAs with the Browns.

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Posted in Cleveland Browns, Kent State, Liverpool and tagged , , , ,
23 Feb 2014
1 Comment

Browns need to take serious look at Dri Archer on draft day

dri archer brownsAs the Cleveland Browns continue to try and rebuild an offense that has averaged just a little more than 16 points a game for the past six seasons, there is a dynamic playmaker sitting in their backyard that would look good in Orange and Brown.

We’re talking, of course, about Kent State running back Dri Archer.

Archer had a solid weekend at the NFL combine (for what that is worth), bench pressing 225 pounds 20 times and running official 4.26 in the 40-yard dash (holy crap!). And while that may not have been fast enough to break Chris Johnson’s record of 4.24, it’s still pretty darn fast.

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Posted in Cleveland Browns, Kent State, Liverpool and tagged , ,
20 Nov 2013

From the editor’s notebook …

thumb.aspxIt has been a rough year for the Kent State Golden Flashes in football, which is why it was nice to see the team close out the season with a big win Tuesday night against Ohio University.

The Flashes ripped off 34 consecutive points to close out the 44-13 win over the Bobcats (with the play of the game clearly being Nate Terhune’s touchdown on a fake punt). And while a 4-8 record and fifth place finish in the MAC’s East Division is not the way that first-year coach Paul Haynes wanted to see the season go, finishing the year with consecutive wins should help to ease the sting a bit.

“To send our seniors out the right way on a two-game winning streak is good for our program going into the off-season,” Haynes said. “It’s very important, because we can sit there and break them down a little bit more in the off-season, and then we will build them back up. For them to have the confidence to play so well is huge going into the off-season.”

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07 Jul 2013

From the editor’s notebook …

Michael Brantley, Nick SwisherA look at a few items that warrant attention but not necessarily a full post …

The Indians still have some fight in them

They made it a lot harder than it had to be, but the Cleveland Indians finally hit back against Detroit on Sunday.

After losing the opening two games of the series in rather unpleasant fashion, the Tribe bounced back on Sunday to beat the Tigers, 9-6, thanks to Michael Brantley’s two-run home run in the bottom of the eighth inning. Brantley had two home runs and five RBI on the day, the fifth anniversary of the C.C. Sabathia trade that brought Brantley to Cleveland.

The win was just the Tribe’s sixth against Detroit in their last 20 games dating back to last season and it was made harder by the Tribe’s increasingly ineffective bullpen.

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06 Feb 2013

Paul Haynes wraps up his first recruiting class at Kent State

thumb.aspxKent State coach Paul Haynes announced his first recruiting class on Wednesday.

The Golden Flashes’ first-year coach signed 21 recruits – 12 for the defense, nine for the offense – with nine of those players coming from Ohio, an area that Haynes should know well from his coaching days with Ohio State and one that he will need to work to keep the Flashes near the top of the Mid-American Conference.

Just as importantly, 10 of the 11 players that had committed to former coach Darrell Hazell stayed true to Kent.

“The first day we got together as a staff was Jan. 11-12, somewhere around there,” Haynes said. “So we just hit and ran. But (we) did a good job building relationships with the guys who were already committed and also searching for new guys.

“I think between my relationship with coach Hazell and me leaning on the (coaches) who were already here, I knew the kind of guys (Hazell) had recruited were the type of guys we wanted. So really, it (came down to the recruits) wanting to stay with us. Once that happened and I had a chance to meet them and the new position coaches met them, the (players) saw that it was a lot of the same. So it was a good fit.”

We particularly like that several players, including Chris Overton, the Nate and Nick Holly, Kris White, Jake McVay and Demetrius Monday, all have Athlete listed as their position. You can never have enough athletes, after all.

Rivals.com ranked Kent State’s class as tied for the sixth-best in the MAC, five spots ahead of the University of Akron and big-name, big-money coach Terry Bowden. Toledo had the best recruiting class in the conference – for what that’s worth.

No one really knows if any of these guys will pan out, and the next coach to say they had a poor recruiting class will be the first, but the day is what it is.

So, good job coach. Now let’s turn these guys into players.

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