kreed5120

There are very few Kehres out there. Most coaches who have success at a lower division want to chase the money, prestige, challenge, etc. that a higher division provides. This leads to the best coaches trickling upwards. The MAC isn't immune to this either. Look at all the coaches MAC schools have lost to P5 schools over the years. For this reason I'd say the average FBS coach is a better recruiter, in game adjuster, better at getting the most out of his players, and game planner than your average D3 coach.

I would have liked to see Arth keep some of the old staff, namely Mounds, but can understand why he didn't as who knows if those guys would have had some sort of resentment towards Arth. I do think it was a mistake Arth bringing in all his equally inexperienced cronies. He should have went out and gotten at least 1 experienced coordinator to be his right hand man. It probably would have helped ease his transition.

And that doesn't even highlight the fact our RBs have a combined 267 yards on 108 carres (2.47 ypc). Arth and the staff are really going to need to hit JUCO or attract some immediately eligible transfers to plug gaps on both the offensive and defensive line. Gibson having to run for his life every down is going to lead to him developing some bad tendencies and stunt his growth.

I've never argued that Arth was the right guy for the job. I'm just scratching my head here trying to think of what possible players you're referring to when you said "So many athletes that were impact players last year seem nearly silent or absent this year". If there are so many, you shouldn't have trouble naming them. Where is this untapped talent that I'm missing?

I'd love to hear who these "impact players" are that you're referring to. As mentioned before the entire defense is pretty much all new starters. Kato statistically is on pace to have a better season this year than last year. Our leading return back had a whopping 128 yards last season on 3.3 ypc. Our offensive line has been an issue for a number of years. The only returning receiver that really did anything for us last season that's disappointing this year is Andrew Williams. Nate Stewart, Burkhart, and Knight all already have more receiving yards through 6 games this season than they had all of last season.

I want whatever you're smoking. We lost something like 7-8 starters off of what was a fairly decent defense and would have still had an anemic offense with Milwee calling the plays. It's not even worth talking to you if you believe this would be a "good" (6+ win) team had we kept Bowden considering the talent we lost off of our 4-8 team. Akron could have hired Urban Meyer and we'd have still sucked this season.

Does anyone here really think that if we kept Bowden that this team would be good? We went 4-8 last year on a team that anyone with two eye balls could see had way more talent than this years one. One of those 4 wins came against an FCS opponent, which we didn't even play an FCS team this year. No, I'm not here to defend or make excuses for Arth. I wasn't thrilled with the hire myself. What I'm willing to say though is this team would suck regardless of who was coaching it as there is a clear lack of talent and depth on the roster. Considering Bowden offered ~75% of these guys scholarships a lot of the blame for the talent deficiency falls on him. Unless an unexpected win occurs this team is going to go 0-12. If you want to argue Bowden would have us at 3-9 that's fine, I'm not going to bother arguing with you. Either way both would be terrible seasons that I'd have no interest in watching. The Bowden blowhards around here talk so much about how the name was an asset for recruits, but every year we had a sub par MAC recruiting class. He had some early success in hitting on some transfers that helped mask some of his recruiting deficiencies, but then he quit hitting.

That must have taken quite a bit of time to produce. I solute your efforts. Akron certainly has been recruiting the northeast Ohio region, particularly Akron city, heavily over the past few years. The issue isn't quantity. It's a matter of getting quality. My comment last week about Toledo being the best team in the MAC last week didn't age well after losing to BGSU this past weekend, but their roster is loaded with NEO players who would most likely start for us. Mitchell Guadagni from Hudson being a prime example. It seems a lot of the guys we end up getting are players who are FCS level talent.

For a program like NDSU I think it's a situation of be careful for what you wish for. They kind of have a good thing going for them in FCS with fan support and being able to compete at the top of their division, which also brings them notoriety. Similar to what Mount Union has going for them in D3.

Not sure what you're arguing. What I said is factually accurate. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/acc/2019/06/10/terry-bowden-joining-clemson-football-coaching-staff-unpaid-intern/1411133001/

He's paying Clemson money to attend grad school.

By respectable I meant polls that are actually voted upon by people (coaches/media) that actually follow the league, not some random internet blogger.

Hard to say considering I haven't seen what he will look like in Groce offense or know how he will fit in with the other cast of players. Personally, I'd think Knapke, German, Sibande, or Graves would be the early season favorites. Edit: The more respectable preseason polls should be coming out in about 2 weeks. You should get a better sense of where people see him relative to others by then.

His sophomore year he was 4th in minutes played for a Dayton team that won the regular season A10 title. There was a coaching change his junior year and his numbers and playing time kind of took a hit. I can't recall who said it, but a poster on here who watched some of the practices last season said if he was eligible last season he would have been our best player.

We were in just about every one of those road losses last season. We just seemed to press too much at the end of the games and didn't close them out. We should be relying on a lot of juniors and seniors this season so hopefully they will be better adapt to performing under pressure. We'll soon find out.

They went onto play at Lehigh and Wyoming. I also think both only had 1 D1 offer. If anyone reputable believed they would turn out to be half as good as they ended up being they would have at least received A10 or MVC offers. Some guys just really develop and flourish after high school. Ja Morant & Steph Curry are other examples.

If he insists on playing in Akron on an annual basis, it would be nice if he'd actually schedule Akron once.

Our leading rushing is on pace to barely clear 200 yards, but at least the Plain Dealer found something Akron has done well at this season.

College ball just in general is a much different game. It's more comparable to the European game than the NBA. The NBA seems much more focused on individual performance and hero ball tactics. College ball is a much more team oriented game.

Every year some Akron player seems to be lighting it up at that pro am. The talent level at that pro am just doesn't seem to be that great. I'm not going to say he can't be a productive player for us as I honestly don't know. I want to see him do that stuff in practice or in D1 games before I start to get excited.

There seems to be a huge uptick in players transferring. There is no guarantee Gibson will even stay for 5 years. I'd say start Gibson if it's believed he gives us the best chance at winning.

I think you missed out on my main point which is that we need to do a better job of retaining the talent we have in NEO so they don't end up on other MAC squads. I don't care about stars either. It was just much easier to use that as representation than for me to look through 11 MAC rosters and pick out all the guys we've missed out on to other schools. Toledo looks to be the best team in the MAC this year and I'm counting 9 NEO players on their 2 deep depth chart. I'm counting another 3 from Pittsburgh which is another area we should be targeting. We'd be a better team today had we convinced a few of these guys to stay home. https://utrockets.com/documents/2019/8/25/Toledo_Depth_Chart_2019_Preseason.pdf

I'm in agreement with you that ~35 kids is a decent number to have. I have no problem losing out on 4* & 5* recruits to OSU, UM, etc. It's the fact other MAC schools are out recruiting us in our own backyard that I find frustrating. I'm seeing in 2017 the highest rated Ohio recruit we got was #96 in the state. I'm counting 10-11 NEO guys who committed to other MAC schools and have a higher grade than Akron's best recruit. I get we're not going to get everyone, but we have to do better than that. https://247sports.com/Season/2017-Football/CompositeRecruitRankings/?InstitutionGroup=highschool&State=OH

You must have missed the part where I said I'm not completely sold on Arth. Bowden wasn't going to have a winning record with this team. Have you not seen how little talent we have? This season would have lowered his winning percentage, not raised it. Once again you're back to comparing apples to oranges. If you want to exclude Bowden 1st year then you also need to exclude Solich first year not to mention you excluded his 7th season. In years 2-7 Solich record was 46-33 and he had a 10 win season. In those 6 years Solich had 4 winning seasons. Bowden had 1... The point I'm making is firing Bowden and hiring Arth are two completely different decisions. If Arth ends up sucking that doesn't mean firing Bowden was a bad decision. It means hiring Arth was the bad decision.

I'm sensing a lot of irritation on your part. A few mouse clicks might make your visits to this site a more enjoyable experience.