LoyalZIP

Agreed. I'm hoping that this supposed gear availability that Guthrie has talked about rolls out sooner than later. When the new logo and brand were released, different shirts, shorts, and sweatshirts were teased on social media, but still nothing. I will say, the selection at the bookstore and team shop has impressed me and is getting better. But still a long way to go.

Love it. I wonder if we’ll see them this year, I was under the impression that we just had the golf and white.

Great point. I have thought a lot in the past couple of years with all of our losing, just how much nicer it is to be a fan of a Mid-Major as compared to a P5. As a G5, you can lose like Akron has, and still have hope every year of at least fighting for a bowl game or trip to Detroit as there are different levels of rewards. If you’re in the SEC? Unless you’re Vandy, you are in a hopeless race year after year just hoping that maybe you can get lucky one time to even sniff the CFP. Doesn’t sound like much fun to me. But to each his/her own.

So far in the young athletic season, ZTV sports has really stepped up their student-run UA athletics content. In the final segment of each episode, they're spotlighting classic Zip moments. In the latest edition, they talk to Jared about the 2010 experience. While old news to many, I still love to re-live that moment in time any chance I get. And every time I do, I get more and more hungry to see the program do it again. I linked for the video to start at the final segment, but I would encourage you to watch the whole episode so the folks over at ZTV can see that we're enjoying the good content!

Just watched it. He said the days of Akron football rolling into town, or teams coming into Akron and expecting and getting an easy blowout are over. "Not on our watch." And the redshirting comment. This guy gets it! He doesn't mince words and actually gives interesting commentary just about every time he's in front of a microphone. My confidence in this staff grows by the day.

I agree, I am a fan of our 2023 opponents as far as being winnable games that set up the program for success. I hate that they only have 5 home games again, though. And this is false. Williams scheduled the game before he left, the releases for these games do not come out for many months until after they're scheduled. Guthrie was not happy that this game was scheduled, and has made that very clear. Williams wasn't going to fire Arth if he had stuck around, either. That info is directly from UA Sr. athletic administration.

Also a fair point. EMU is a good example to bring up. I think they've won the most games (as a MAC team) vs. Power 5 opponents since 2016 or so. Go check out who they've played, spoiler alert: no Blue Bloods! They've feasted on the likes of Purdue, Illinois, Rutgers, and Arizona State. Not programs with long standing success by any means. I like that strategy. But what has it meant for EMU? Still living in the shadow of Ann Arbor, same crappy stadium, same crappy attendance, and they haven't won a MAC title since Cain and Abel were eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch together on Saturday mornings. And Kent's 17-point loss to Georgia, 30-point loss to Oklahoma, and 25-point loss to Washington have them set up nicely for a big bowl game at 2-3 at just about the mid way point in the season. They were very battle tested in those ball games and it helped them gain 750 yards on Ohio so they could fumble the ball 5 times and need overtime to beat a below average Ohio team. I'm not really seeing this magical correlation.

Fair enough. But when that game was put on the schedule ~18 months ago, Larry Williams didn't do it to give Tom Arth (or whoever he expected to be the coach at the time) a chance to make a big splash win in front of the national audience. Williams was told to cut a huge chunk from the athletics budget. So in addition to making budget cuts within the department, he saw the football schedule as an opportunity to help. So he called around and got in touch with Tennessee. They agreed on $1.5 Million, but had to pay $500k of that to Army to buy them out. The Zips were going to host New Mexico State that week instead (the trip to Las Cruces in 2020 was canceled by COVID). So instead of a winnable G5 game in front of the home crowd, who has never seen Akron defeat a nonconference G5 opponent at InfoCision Stadium, the Zips lost a home game to get humiliated by Tennessee's first, second, and third stringers 63-6. Took away a chance for the people who actually care and love Akron football to see their favorite team in their beautiful, state of the art, Mecca of a football stadium in their hometown. I suggest anyone reading this thread, full of great discussion, to go back and watch Zips Live on Facebook leading up to the Liberty game. Joe describes in detail why these games at this volume are problematic.

Check out literally any of his media availability from that stretch in the schedule. He is fine playing P5s, as are all Zips fans, but loading up the schedule with blue bloods to “play the best” or whatever that means is not doing what you think it is, and that’s according to Joe Moorhead, head coach of the Akron Zips, former OC at Penn State and Oregon, former HC of Mississippi State. I’ll side with him.

Lost to Iowa, beat UT-Martin, Army, and Kansas in nonconference. No blue bloods on the schedule there either.

Fleck was able to do that because they set up their schedule well for success. They scheduled a pair of Big Ten bottom feeders, a G5, and an FCS. If they had scheduled Wisconsin, Ohio State, Tennessee, etc. early in the year, they most likely lose the game and there’s never a WMU Cotton Bowl to speak of. Everyone can believe whatever they want. I choose to side with JoeMo, who rightfully says this whoring out for money strategy is a joke. Let’s play one a year and give it our best shot, and then we can actually try to win some games and maybe possibly go into league play at .500 once in a blue moon. In Joe We Trust, Joe knows best.

I’ve been hoping UA can take a look at the 2023 schedule and figure a way to get out of the Indiana game, maybe even the Temple game to get a 6th home game. What do you think the likelihood is of this? I haven’t heard any rumblings.

Ohio Week Presser

The only 3-3-5 scheme that I know of that is notoriously successful is the one Iowa State has been running for the Campbell years. His DC Jon Heacock kind of came up with the particular scheme. He runs it because they’re physically overmatched by the traditional powers in that league and simply has to rely on his guys being smart about doing their job and then using speed to fill gaps on run plays. It’s quite interesting. Some of their biggest upsets over the past 5-6 seasons have been attributed to their ability to create coverage sacks while also not letting RBs get to the second level.

No mercy! 4-0 Zips shortly before half.