LoyalZIP

Here's what you need to do Danny. Get a time machine and fly back in time to the previous staff, and watch some practices and talk to the players. Then fast forward to the present and look at all the same things. Voila! The players care, the coaches care, people around the program care. That's not something I saw last year when I would go to practice and spend time around the players. But I'm seeing it now. If people don't want to believe me, then don't! It certainly could change again. As I said, I am not yet a big fan of this coaching staff, but they are doing things right in some places and I will give them credit. Organizational culture in sport isn't defined by a win-loss record in a team's first season. Stop being so myopic.

Don’t love Arth yet and I may never, but I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt for now. I backed Terry as hard as I could for as long as I could, but man he lost me fast and I don’t see myself ever missing what he and the program eventually turned into. (Not referring to the division championship, ya buzzards, nor do I have to) The biggest difference that gives me hope right now is that this staff was able to sign a higher-rated class than the previous staff pretty much ever did, and that’s without signing a single player before February. That is pretty amazing whether you are a person who is not cutting the new group any slack because you don’t think Bowden should’ve been fired or not. If you can’t agree with that, I’m sorry, but you might as well go be a Kent State fan. Another difference I see is the lack of FBS coaching experience. The pressure is on like never before, and it helped to have guys like Stroud and Amato here when that group first came in. Their contributions were incredible. That’s the most frustrating thing about this group to me. Off the top of my head, and it’s the last one I’ll list because I can’t think of anymore, I see a team that’s got some fire to it that I haven’t seen in a while. I’m not talking about 3 defensive touchdown fire or wagon wheel fire, I’m talking about desire to play football for 60 minutes. Those early Bowden teams did it, but the last couple of years those teams rarely played hard for 60 minutes. Small thing, but could end up being a big difference maker. Also, rather irrelevant but could help with recruiting, the way this staff uses social media is really cool. It’s like a D1 program. Between the two of them I know of one constant, my love for Akron football. It’s a love I know a lot of people on this board (seemingly not all unfortunately) share with me.

I've been around this group and I was around the previous group. I gave them time, I will give these people time. Simple equation, really.

Culture is improving, non football things are improving, but the football is still bad. Kato isn’t the answer IMO. The whole O line is done after this year IMO. And the defense needs a year or two to get to the average level. My hopes are still high but damn!!! Trust the process & go Zips!!

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Per 247, I'm pretty sure Arth's first class, that he largely signed AFTER the early signing period, was more highly rated than any class Bowden signed. We won't need transfers if that continues to improve.

For some perspective, Last time I was at Infocision Stadium (not the spring game), it was a pretty nice November Saturday, on Senior Day for one of the more decorated senior classes in out history. Against a much worse team (than UAB) in Bowling Green that had fired its coach in the middle of the season, I saw the Zips players AND coaches quit while one player fell asleep on the bench as the Zips failed to reach the end zone against statistically one of the worst defenses in FBS, as the coaching staff decided to take a couple of time outs home down only two scores against, again, one of the worst defenses in FBS. Today, I saw a very young and inexperienced team play their asses off and play like idiots a lot. I saw a young coaching staff that isn't used to FBS ball. I saw a kicker leave 4 huge and easy points on the board in the first half. I saw a head coach screaming at the referee to reset the playclock quicker with just seconds to go because he wanted to give his boys a chance. And I didn't see any players or coaches quitting. How refreshing. Everyone knew we wouldn't be worth a damn this year, and shoot the run game stuff is probably going to drive me up a wall this year. As is the young DBs getting toasted. It felt like we ran as many positive plays today as we did the entire second half of last season, but there's still a very long way to go. Trust the process. Hopefully the boys are still doing well in the classroom as well. By the way, rooting for Charlie Frye to fail miserably next week feels weird, but you've gotta do what you've gotta do. GO ZIPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Agreed. I'd rather something like this happen in, say, 5 years when we're on a road trip to, say, Miami on a November Tuesday night while in the midst of a MAC East title race.

Honestly, that wasn't as hard to watch as I thought it would be. It's one thing to get blown out when you're blatantly not playing hard or committing dumbass penalties left and right and losing your cool, but for how young and inexperienced both the team itself and a lot of the staff is (as far as FBS goes), I definitely think this is one where you can walk away with your head held high. Some of the same football problems are still there, and the defense looks like we were expecting. As much as I hate to "throw away" a season, unfortunately that's what this one is ultimately going to come to. Line play is still very questionable and Kato still has a long way to go to reach his full potential. He made better decisions with the ball but still has to make quicker decisions. He's still missing a few throws and in year four, you'd expect that to be gone by now. I think his maturity has come a long way in 8 months, but he's still very raw, and might not be the answer, but we'll have to wait and see! Brandon Lee and Michael Mathison look nice, Dre Williams, Boogie, and Stewart are all really good as well. There's a lot of potential on that side of the ball, as there were a couple of small flashes today. As far as the defense, not having two of your most experienced guys hurts, especially with one being arguably the best player on the team. Also, Arth mentioned postgame that 3 of the starters in the secondary were true freshmen, and man could you tell. Special teams was 'meh,' I like Fitschen's leg but kicking worries me, as does punting. That was a lot of all over the place rambling, so sorry about that. I'm just pumped to have the Zips back!!! Trust The Process!!!!

Would anyone else be doing any better? Akron is a pretty difficult job to begin with and throw in the fact that it was like starting over, and I just doubt there are many guys out there that could be doing better than this right now. Maybe they would have won a couple more of the close games and played into a bye in the tournament, but the results would largely be the same. I'm not championing Groce as a great coach for Akron yet and I may never be able to, but I have a hard time imagining any of the other guys they were looking at would have us any better.

As much as I'd love to be an optimist and say that last year's group would have been leaps and bounds better than they actually were, I'd expect this to be a pretty tough season. I have faith that this staff will eventually have us competing for the division annually at some point, but I also realize that almost everyone is still new to FBS ball and it could take them a year or two to get a feel for what success looks like at this level. And that's going to be especially hard to do at a place that's won very little in its history. But again, even after a couple of months, the program has a different feel to it and the culture is a lot better than the previous staff had. BUT, WE WILL SEE!!!! @Illinois--L, Even though Lovie is totally out of place, he does have them moving in the right direction. This would have been winnable in the past couple of years, but I have a hard time believing a completely re-tooled team that lost a lot on the defensive side of the ball will go on the road and beat a Big Ten team in August. I'd love to see a 2-game win streak against Big Ten teams, but I just don't see it happening. vs. UAB--L, I don't know anything about UAB going into 2019, but they have had a couple of nice seasons since bringing the program back. It's pretty hard to hang 37 on NIU and they did it in the bowl game last year. I'll be conservative and call this one another loss. @ C. Michigan--W, I'm taking a risk predicting a win here, but that CMU team last year was absolutely miserable. We're sandwiched in between trips to Wisconsin and UMiami for them, and they open with Albany. The thing that worries me is they've got a damn good coach (IMO) and he knows that this one could be one of very few chances to win. It should be a damn good game. vs. Troy--L, The Davern Williams bowl goes to the Trojans. This is a good program and we should've won at their place in 2017, but we crumbled when it counted most. Anyway, I again don't know too much about their squad for this coming season, so I'm going to make my prediction based on the fact that Troy is a really good G5 program and we're not ready for them. Again, we'll see. @ UMass--W, They just lost their best player on offense and they just suck in general. That 2012 loss still pisses me off to this day. Plus, we may be one of the hardest games on their schedule by the time they get to us. Just win. vs. Kent--W, Kent didn't make any real progress last year despite what that cocky bald dumbass coach of theirs thinks. Make it 5 in a row. vs. Buffalo--L, As much as UB loses, Leipold's done a nice job recruiting there and I think they'll be pretty good once again. Good enough to get him a better job? Probably not. But certainly enough to avenge their 2017 loss at InfoCision that could have been a win if he wasn't an idiot and simply kept running the ball. (Our former coach got into it with GT in the post game presser because he wouldn't admit that we stopped them because they stopped running) @ N. Illinois--L, I don't think NIU will be very good this year and I'm not sure Hammock was a great hire for them. But, it's still the defending MAC Champions and they've got players. @ BGSU--L, I kind of wish we had Loefler, but I'm not complaining too much. Pelini, though he left, showed the league these guys can play if they're motivated and I think they will be as they're at home and we may be one of few shots at a win. vs. E. Michigan--L, Creighton's done a great job here. They play hard, they play pretty good defense, they play disciplined, they just haven't made the jump to "contender" yet, and I think we'll see them take a nice step this year. For the first time ever since moving to InfoCision, no shame in losing to EMU at home. @ Miami--L, Who knows. Martin's done enough to hang onto that job somehow and even though they aren't great, they also don't suck. So they'll win this one. vs Ohio--L, I hate Ohio too, but I also acknowledge that they're really good and they have the best quarterback in the league. At this point in the season, we can win this one, but I'd be surprised if we did. So for me its: 1) 3-9 2) Kato Nelson 3) Alvin Davis 4) Ohio

What the hell is Banks doing? He's been awful tonight.

Worst loss of the season.

I just don't get it. These players are so much better than this. There's no reason they should be blowing leads like this constantly.

Gross (Groce)