Test

I'm having trouble getting posts onto the board over the last 24 hours. This is a test.

What next?

I just don't get it. I've seen it happen but don't understand how UA could vastly improve the campus and its athletic facilities, and yet the football program fields likely one of the few worst teams in all of FBS. We all know that Bowden and his staff brought initial hope for a turn around. I was ecstatic during the early games when the offense scored a ton but now the Zips are back to rock bottom. So, even with the coaching of a highly successful staff this is a one win team. Factory of sadness indeed.

I can't stop thinking that there is something deeper and more "broken" than the coaching staff, some structural explanation for the fall of this program. If UA cannot win more than one game a year playing in the MAC, with Terry Bowden as the head coach, in a newer stadium, on a newly attractive campus with A+ facilities, where does hope come from?

Akron, in spite of the newer facilities, does not appear to be an attractive choice for FBS-type players. I don't know how the 2013 recruits look, but if Terry and his staff are unable to recruit some serious winners, this coming year, the question will be why players won't come here? Why could UA recruit better when they played in the Rubber Bowl than they do now? What is it that is so unappealing to potential recruits?

For those who would answer simplistically that "we cannot recruit because we lose games," that cannot be it. All of these other MAC programs find a way to be at least be middling. Can't has turned it around, and quickly. Ball State was up, down, now up again. They all compete, except for Akron. For those who are in touch with the program on a deeper level, what do the kids who refuse to be recruited by Akron say about why they will go just about anywhere but here? That's what I want to know.

Lastly, I will wait to see what Terry does with this first full recruiting class. If Terry Bowden, who could sell snow to Eskimos, can't sell seriously good players on playing for him at Akron, and I mean right now, then I will become extremely skeptical, again, about long term prospects for UA football. If Terry can't make it happen, that tells me that there are deep, troubling, structural issues that will not be resolved by the hard work of a solid staff. I have no idea what might be lurking under the surface, but something is keeping good players from wanting to give it a go at Akron. Someone PLEASE help me understand.

750+ yards gained

Watching the game on ESPN3. Box score shows 753 yards gained by the Zips today with a couple of minutes left to play. Spectacular. It's amazing to be entertained by a Zips football team. I can't wait to see how they look against other MAC squads, assuming they don't suffer major injuries against Tennessee next week.

Go Zips!

At the nadir

It is my opinion that this is the low point for this program in the Div1-A (FBS) era. As we deal with having been spurned by Winters in favor of a D-II program, am I the only one who will not be surprised if, 5 years from now, UA is a FCS program? There are schools that maintain tiered status (big time basketball, small time football) and it certainly seems possible that UA could decide that the 25-year big-time-football experiment has failed in Akron. I know some will flame me for bringing this up today, but how much lower can UA football sink before structural/competition changes are contemplated?

LA Times article mentions HC search

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-ucla-f...0,6992720.story

See linky. Johnson, who is preparing to coach UCLA in a bowl game and will leave UCLA thereafter, admits that he
has been contacted about the UA job. The article also mentions Paul Winters as a leading candidate. Nothing new but thought I'd post it.