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He took over a program with 3 D1-A wins the previous season, and who lost 9 of its 11 defensive starters. He began recruiting at a point in time when most programs had their full class committed. How many games should he have won? 1...2...? I hope he can turn it around. Like any HC, he gets 4 years to show what he can do.

Well they have 65 including practice squad, they don't have redshirts for freshmen that aren't physically ready, and they can sign free agents to replace injured players.

Great idea. We could each bring one or two of our sex dolls to the game and double or triple the attendance. Who said marketing was dead at our university!

Are these both supposed to be bad things or does one offset the other?

I'm obviously a fan of athletics. That being said I can't disagree with everything those academia faculty are saying. Had we kept athletics spending in check the last 15-20 years, we wouldn't be in a position to make such drastic changes now. There is no way we should be supporting 20 D1 sports when we're only required to support 16.

There's really no reason at all why we shouldn't be competitive in the MAC.

Do they ever like anything? They are routinely negative.

Yes, I'm not saying giving 5 year deals hasn't been the norm in the past. I just don't feel it should be the norm moving forward. It seems our logic is very similar behind this as I actually mentioned the WMU hire in my edited post. The guaranteed money is the bigger thing for me. If they wanted to sign a guy to a 5 year deal, but only the first 3 years were fully guaranteed, I'd have no problem with that. Ianello was the university's 3rd (behind Dambrot & Bowden) highest paid employee for 3 years despite working as an assistant at some other college. That can't happen.

Football Colleges that Plan to Be Open in the Fall

I don’t see how “he” failed. He didn’t recruit the seniors, juniors, or sophomores. We’re not going to see his recruiting until maybe 2021. Knee jerk reactions to how Bowden’s third to last recruiting class played will only ensure we stay in last place. The financial side has already been thoroughly covered.

There is certainly room for men's basketball attendance to improve, but out of curiosity what numbers would you be happy with? Right now we typically average 2800-3000 for the season and ~3500 for MAC play. With the bump to 20 conference games I'd expect attendance numbers to improve. I'm a season ticker holder and Zips basketball is by far and away my favorite Zips sport, but even I have trouble justifying making the time commitment to watch Akron basketball play random MEAC/SWAC/NAIA teams at home during OOC. There is no way I'd pay $15 for a single game ticket to one of those games.

Agree with all of that. My point is that the program is probably not entirely out of the woods, especially if we see an ugly season. Announced as a sell out.

I don't think this was the "I told you so" post you were hoping to write today, eh?

There was a nice sense of irony there. Thanks for noticing.

Okay, stupid question. But scholarships don't really cost the U any tangible $$, do they? Just on paper, right?. Sure, you can say the scholarship is worth $xx,xxx.xx, - and it is to the student; the diploma they receive is in fact worth that much $$. But from the U's perspective isn't the scholarship simply letting a student sit at a desk which would otherwise be empty? My dad was friends with someone who owned a country club. He let my family use the facilities free of charge. It was a great deal for us - and worth about $8,000/year from our perspective. But it didn't actually cost him anything because we wouldn't be going to the CC otherwise. Edit: @kreed5120 hit on this while I was typing.

Paragraph 1: The problem is the only news you hear about the university and probably a lot of universities like Akron is what they are cutting from their budget. What the Idaho president was saying was these cuts are self defeating in many ways and we could be in much worse shape today. Again, takes me back a couple of decades now, but Jack Welch was the "cutting" guy. Basically, he became famous for making obvious decisions look complicated by wrapping Six Sigma around them. Did it really take a 12 month Six Sigma study to figure out that after NAFTA, a company could make more money off of a $15 toaster made in Mexico vs the USA? Over time GE became a shell of itself and could not support itself after the endless cuts. Five years ago, the stock closed around $30. Yesterday it closed around $8.50. Cuts may be needed, but they are not the same thing as thought and should not be defined as a success. Paragraph 2: Lofty goals are a good thing. I can't think of a worse idea than to tell the general public they no longer need their money. A university will always need money and in big chunks. On a positive note, I like the administrative changes our current president has made at the university. The consolidation of administration will cut a lot of overhead without sacrificing the mission of education. It was a thoughtful direction. Unlike how cuts at GE impacted their customers in a negative way, these changes should not impact the students in a negative way.

So uh...whats the hold up on these last two scholarships?

He's 22 years old and going into his 5th season of post high school basketball (IMG, Akron, Akron, Walsh). Not likely. He may get more minutes due to experience in the program and improve his numbers, but at this point he is what he is.

Wow, in the Bowden years, I always wondered who would be playing DL, then, we would get a transfer or some commit that was unexpected or unknown. I am so impressed at how Arth is building the DL. we have some transfers in Cross and Mitchell, Logan Hawkins came from the Bowden era (I believe), we have youngsters in Allen, Sy, Wade, Wilson, and Julius Hawkins. I am hoping Meeks has a good senior season. But now, I see two future DL men that appear to be excellent. Let's welcome Reese and Jabbaar. They appear to be excellent additions. The future DL appears to be talented and deep and will help the Zips dominate. I hope that they can get 1-2 more DL commitments this year and continue to build for the present as well as the future. Keep it up Coach Arth. I do not know how may victories we will get in 2020 (if any), but you are definitely building up the talent base to a level that I have not seen years. Too bad that Bowden left the talent level so bare. Go Zips.

Scarborough was horrible at PR. That doomed him. Also, I remember it was his first Homecoming and he was walking the queen across the field and he has his 6 year old daughter with him. She was a cute kid dressed in an Akron cheerleader garb. I thought to myself...what a narcissistic jerk. Why would you show off and/or indulge your child and upstage the young woman/student who was being honored that day?

People like Pj get the right people in the boat.

If college coaches were getting paid based on profits they bring in, most of them would be volunteers

very positive comments about Joao in this article https://worldfootballindex.com/2020/05/mls-rising-stars-talent-eastern-conference/ small snippets from article “I think Joao Moutinho has a really high soccer IQ,” said former Orlando goalkeeper Miguel Gallardo, who now serves as the club’s broadcast analyst. “We know him for his ability to combine in small spaces, and also a great ability to get high on the flanks and deliver a quality cross with his left foot.”

A drop in the bucket. When I was done with prerequisites and switched to main campus, I was paying for busses, the bowling alley, the pool hall, the theater, the workout facility, the rock climbing wall, the indoor pool, who knows how much other stuff I paid for that I never used. And then, because I didn’t live on campus and didn’t use the busses I paid for, I paid to park. I know all about student fees.I incurred twice as much debt on the main campus than I did at Wayne.

I've seen a couple of the graphics guys I follow on twitter say they're moving onto other things. The guys that make the templates recruits tweet out on committing or visits and obviously more than that but.. I'm assuming support positions like that and who knows what else are casualties of this.

I suspect that the odd distribution of cuts was brought to you by Title IX.

They were trending towards being a decent MAC team at that point. Rembielak was finally getting some traction with decent recruits in the area. I didn't say they were historically good, but competitive in the conference at 13-15

Good questions. I would change them to not just UofA asking these questions, but G5 schools getting together and deciding exactly what in the heck they are doing with their athletic departments. I'm interested you use the word "sponsored" in your post above. In my opinion, this word is not used enough in discussing college athletics. In reality, schools are not sponsoring college athletics, the taxpayers are. Most schools do not make a dime with college athletics so the taxpayers are sponsoring the sports. G5 schools need to get together and decide how much of a burden they are willing to put on the taxpayers of their states and what those taxpayers get in return for their sponsorship. The people who sit around on this board arguing about the price of tickets are nuts. It will NEVER be enough to cover the costs. This is an intellectual hurdle G5 fans need to get over. G5 schools are part of larger communities. Hopefully, those schools are taking the opportunity to expose what their students do in the form of arts, engineering competitions, community service and yes sports among other things. Is the engineering team making money for these universities? If you read much of this board, if the engineering team isn't making money, it shouldn't exist. That line of thinking is complete bull crap and contrary to what the purpose of the university is, which is to develop the human mind and spirit. How many university mottos are, "Pecuniam Facere Moriatur" (Latin for Make Money or Die)? I don't know, but probably not many. With the right focus, the G5 schools can provide a lot to their communities and make the taxpayers more tolerant of and maybe feel good about where their money is going. What if all the taxpayers want is a nice day at a sporting event and this experience made it OK for them to rationalize some of their money going in to college athletics? From personal experience over the past 13 years, I have learned I will pay roughly $1,000 per year to watch football at a mid to low level ACC school with a 27,000 seat stadium that in every measurable way is not as nice as The Bid Dialer. My games involve the following: Two tickets sitting on the 48 yard line in a nice chair back seat that is in the shade because the sun falls behind the giant pressbox behind me by 12:30 on a fall afternoon. Parking less than 200 yards from the stadium in a clean lot with porta johns that are perfectly serviced for each game. 3-4 food trucks in the stadium in addition to the normal concession stands. Beer sales. Clean and ample bathrooms. Short lines to get in the stadium. And oh by the way, competitive games. After the game we go uptown in a city roughly the same sized as Akron, have some more fun and spend the night (tying the university to the greater area). Am I asking a lot?... Of course not. It's actually very simple. There is nothing going on at this place that could not be done at Akron or any number of G5 schools. They don't have bouncy houses for kids, fireworks or any of the other happy horse crap minor league baseball teams pee away money on in an effort to draw fans. The have a grass hillside people with small kids can buy tickets to and let them explore around if they want. How dare they offer simple, good clean fun as a solution! A friend of mine transitioned his career from working for a manufacturer to a distributor. A well respected roofer in the Carolinas told him, "David, All you have to do is not suck and you will be better than most". There are too many G5 schools that suck at what they do. It shouldn't be this hard. G5 schools have been going down the wrong road for years and this insanity has to stop.

Don't your insider friends share that with you?

dustin fox has done color on several zips football broadcasts on espn3/+ the last couple years. Lets hope his ignorance is rewarded with no more games ever again. I believe UA must approve broadcast personnell .

A thread for this discussion seems appropriate Men’s college soccer finds itself in a strange, fragile spot | Charles Boehm

Between buy games, CFP money, and tv money football generates the bulk of the athletic departments revenue. I'm not a big fan of the football program myself, but there is no denying that it's the biggest revenue generator for the athletics program. More than soccer and men's basketball combined.

The thing about tennis though is those courts can still be used by the students and community.

You're overlooking the fact that each student pays x-number of dollars in student fees that are to help cover the cost of athletics. If we have fewer students, we're collecting less in student fees. I'm not saying we should have cut athletics spending 23.7% just because enrollment fell 23.7%. I'm saying I don't feel we should have increased it 9.4%.

https://www.wtol.com/article/sports/major-changes-coming-to-mid-american-conference/512-0e4f0d45-546b-432f-89a1-67a5a6d8fe3c Mac tournament canceled...

I'm a soccer fan too, from the days of the Cleveland Cobras of the old ASL, to the Cleveland Force, Canton Invaders, and Cleveland Crunch from indoor pinball, the Cleveland Caps (I know the team owner), the Columbus Crew and CLE SC. I'm not abdicating shutting down the soccer program. I have no idea where you got that idea. This isn't us vs. them.

Facts aren't reasons. I would like to see what MAC schools could do if they put a compelling, more enjoyable product on the field at a time and day of the week when it was reasonable for fans to attend. It wasn't that long ago that they did and attendance was good.

It's not ideal, but at some point we have to be adults about it. I'm a Zips fan. But you're going to cut a National Championship team that has continued to compete for National Championships; and is far cheaper to maintain over a team that has surpassed over .500 once or twice in the last two decades? That doesn't even qualify as stupid. Let alone futile. Your last point is on the mark. I've always been a loyal Zips Football supporter, but even I stopped watching it. First stopped attending games, then stopped watching it....hell not even looking at the score of the game last year. I've been to more soccer games than Football games in the last 3 years. I consider my Alumni Season Ticket package to all sports as a donation, so if I miss a game I'm not worried about it.

Yup it amuses me too. It's the same old, tired, business bullshit I've heard my entire life. Just mindless justification for something that is observationally and objectively not correct. It's pretty damn obvious that Football is an abyss, and it's pretty damn obvious it's an albatross that's been artificially kept alive ONLY by the graces of pay-day games. The LAST HOPE for this program was by some miracle that Bowden would miraculously do something (in my opinion of course) and it never materialized. It's time to put the deathnail in the coffin and move on. 0-12 last year... If Akron cuts Soccer over Football I'm done with the University. I'll have my fond memories of the past and never step on the campus again. Because that would be just pure stupidity. I have far more fond memories of Akron Soccer than I do of Akron football.

https://www.beaconjournal.com/news/20200507/university-of-akron-president-expects-to-reopen-campus-in-fall-continue-with-division-i-athletics not much with details but promising. Division 1 so assume football remains. And get kids back on campus!!

14.6 ppg, 10 rpg. (Shhh, but it may only be 9.5 rpg.) 😂

The club is now under different ownership. So it's back to the unwashed masses for me 😭😭

That kid needs some serious conditioning. Seems like an odd choice for the System.

When It rains it pours. It’s no wonder nobody has any pride in this school. Constantly treading water.

Jamal Davis to Packers

That's dated 4/25