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Embracing the present, hoping for the future


DannyHoke

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  • The Zips rushed for 9 feet (3 yards), net, on Saturday in the 21-0 shutout loss to Buffalo, the Bulls only road win of the season.
  • Right now Akron is historically bad in football, as we have lost 12 games in a row, a losing streak which is officially the worst such streak in the 65-year history of Akron Football, besting the 11-game tabs  of 1950-51, 2010, and 2012
  • The University has a new President who has only started his job in the last month. Athletics issues are not on his top 10 list, as Trustees have told him we are on the right path.
  • The Head Football Coach is in year one of a new contract and is not going anywhere anytime soon. Trustees love him and his supposed "academic approach" to D1 football.
  • The Athletic Director is in the next to last year of his contract, and is not likely going anywhere because the President has bigger issues to tackle than a bad football team, which unfortunately, is not a big deal here as we have been bad for so long that no one really cares. Same goes for the staff under him.
  • The 2019 season has 5 games left, 2 of which are at home. Less than 2,000 people will actually be in the stands for these Tuesday night games. The AD will announce a made up paid number, as they announced 16,909 on Saturday which is a completely made up figure. No one cares about this.
  • Focus now is on building for 2020, recruiting https://247sports.com/college/akron/Season/2020-Football/Commits/ and thinning out anyone on the roster not about 2020 and beyond.

 

These are the facts, and they are undisputed.

 

You can either get on the Gold Sweater bus, and hope for a better future, or get off.  It's rolling on either way. 

 

 

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Edited by DannyHoke
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I doubt the President and Trustees are as disinterested as you portray them. At the end of the day, they have to be results-oriented and we are talking out of both sides of our mouth if we fired Bowden based on results and don't hold Arth and William's accountable. 

 

Recruiting for the worst team in D1 will be an uphill battle and the transfer portal shows a lack of confidence in Arth. Tge suspension of Nelson and Sands, who should be leading the team is also not a good sign. 

 

The Zips need a miracle to resurrect the program. Arth wiped out all of the gains we made under Bowden. I do not know where we go from here. It's not like we have a marquee QB to build the program around. Gibson looked OK, but he is not going to be an all-star.

 

What are some practical measures that can be taken to improve the quality of play?

 

 

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This season is what it is. Unsure why we have to have this constant crap every week. Considering the original poster, not sure why I am wasting my time saying this, but hope we can see some encouraging signs out of young players as the season winds down, the staff is able to plug holes via JUCO/transfer portal, and shows the ability to learn from their mistakes. Next year they aren't going to get as much benefit of the doubt. Somewhere between 0-12 and 2-10 won't cut it. Need to see real progress.

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It is an unsatisfying consolation prize, but much of the rest of the season is about "watching our backups against their backups."  Down the road, meaningful experience by upcoming players may yield good dividends.

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1 hour ago, NWAkron said:

Sands who usually averages -1 per carry is a leader?  Kato with all his taunting penalties is a leader?  The trustees don't care about the athletic program?  And a visit from Mr. Rogers?

The thread has jumped the shark.

 

It's called sarcasm.

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Why?  Over & over again, i am so thankful for Bowden getting us out of the basement but he hit cruise control & we are here because of him. We are playing with Bowden recruits & Recruits we got after signing day.  This sucks because are senior coaching staff didn’t want to hit the recruiting trail anymore

If you look back I wanted a new OC but once the decision was made I wanted Getsy.  For being an x QB here, being in NFL around Rogers & an OC in SEC but would have cost some money.

With that being said we gotta give him a chance to recruit as we can see he wasn’t left much & playing true freshman is never a good thing

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A full recruiting season would be a hell of a start.  If we want to criticize the AD, we should be critical of him taking so damn long to make a hire.  I guess part of the reason was that lovely South Carolina makeup, but the new staff was left with nothing for recruiting.

Edited by clarkwgriswold
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15 hours ago, clarkwgriswold said:

A full recruiting season would be a hell of a start.  If we want to criticize the AD, we should be critical of him taking so damn long to make a hire.  I guess part of the reason was that lovely South Carolina makeup, but the new staff was left with nothing for recruiting.

 

Not saying Les Miles will eventually pan out at Kansas necessarily, but I would have liked to see something like that. Don't sit on a lame-duck for too long.

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I took a look at the hire dates of new coaches at some similarly positioned universities:

East Carolina- 11/27

Western Kentucky- 11/28

BGSU- 11/28

CMU- 12/2

UMass- 12/3

Austin Peay- 12/4 

Utah State- 12/9

Akron- 12/14

 

Waiting not only reduces your pool of candidates but ties their hands when they get the job.  I'm curious to see how this staff does with a full calendar of recruiting.

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Iowa State hired Matt Campbell on the day after he lost the MAC championship.  It is a really cool story.  And it doesn't hurt to have Big 12 money and Iowa cost of living. 

 

Here are some excerpts from an article in the Des Moines Register about it:

 

Pollard was in position to pounce on Saturday.

“I didn’t know who else was in line to meet with him, but I do know that nobody is probably waiting to interview with him on Saturday morning, so I knew we were first,” Pollard said.

They talked – as Iowa State finished the season with a loss at West Virginia. [the previous coach had been fired but allowed to coach one last game]

“One of the things that concerned me with Matt was that he could have a lot of other opportunities,” Pollard said. “I wanted to be first – that’s where the speed part came in.

“We needed to be engaged and ready to go.”

It’s a seller’s market, with all the head coaching jobs that are open right now. Pollard had to act quickly.

“I knew if we had to wait a week in this landscape, it probably wasn’t going to turn out the way I wanted it to turn out,” Pollard said.

Pollard got his coach.

“We spent several hours getting to know one another, and we got to that spot where you ask yourself, where do we go from here?” Pollard recalled.

Would you like to be Iowa State’s next football coach?

Campbell looked at Erica, his wife. They talked briefly.

“And he reached his hand across the table and shook my hand,” Pollard said. “We hadn’t even talked about compensation yet.

“That doesn’t happen in this day and age.”

Credit Pollard for being quick, decisive and prepared.

 

 

In another article Campbell talks about being so impressed with the fans and tailgating when he came to coach Toledo's game here in Ames.  Yes, I'm taking credit for him coming.  

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Fleck played D1 ball and recruited/coached for 6 years in D1 FBS before coaching for a year in the NFL and then getting the WMU job. He coached under Tressel, Novak, Kill and Schiano and was on a coaching staff that played in the BCS National Championship Game.

 

Campbell recruited/coached for 7 years in D1 FBS, including 4 bowl games, before becoming the interim head coach at Toledo. Head coached under Brandon at BG and was a part of the 2007 MAC East Title.

 

Arth coached for 7 years in D3 and had two losing seasons in FCS before being bought out to become the head coach at Akron. Arth has never been to a bowl game as a coach and has not coached under anyone who has won a game coaching at the D1 level.

 

Again, undisputed facts.

Edited by DannyHoke
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I have not posted much this fall. Depression may have something to do with it. Here are some thoughts on our football program. You may like them and you may hate them, but they reflect what I have seen and feel.

  • Our team is bad. They have poor talent and are not prepared each week. We are young and that may change in years to come, but for now we are bad.
  • Arth is not ready for D1 football. The coaching staff is not ready for D1 football. Should we fire Arth? Hell no. Give him time to grow into the position. We do not have the money to swallow a hire that may prove poor. But it also may prove good if Arth has the smarts to correct the team's weaknesses. That is the same problem Bowden had. He failed to make the changes he needed to make. Think Milwee. It cost him his job. I'm glad he's gone.  Arth has to surround himself with better coaches. His first change must be to get a better O-Line coach. Coach Z has proven to be incompetent in solving our atrocious line play. Friend or no friend of Arth he has to be replaced/reassigned. Can Arth make the hard calls for the betterment of his program?
  • If we have a turnaround it will be slow and painful. This program is bad and will take a lot to heal. It can be done, but only with laying the fundamentals that are not sexy and are not readily apparent. Athletes will not come here until they feel they can win. Forget the crap that we are sold that athletes want to come here so they can play early. They eventually don't care about winning and they will play down to that expectation insuring losses. 
  • We love Akron and can see it's potential. Recruits only love themselves and see us as losers, which we are. We will not get the better ones until we can show that we are committed to winning. The jury's out on that.
  • Football must succeed at Akron for other athletic programs to flourish. We aren't dropping football so let's find a way to win. The schools we consider our peers are doing OK (Toledo, Miami, OU, NIU, CMU) so we need to emulate them. 
  • Our AD and his staff need to be given time to see if this hire (Arth) can work out. If not, they need to go. I did not like the secretive process they employed, not because I felt the alumni/supporters needed to be informed. On the contrary I think the alumni/supporters need to be left out. But I do feel that in the hiring process there needs to be a feedback mechanism that opines whether the staff is on the right path or not. This hire seemed to be solely focused on one candidate, the guy they wanted and that's it.

We are in a world of hurt. It pains me to know that Akron football is the worst in the country. Yet if Arth can turn it around I am willing to give him the time to do so. Still I look at Ohio State and see that since Woody Hayes in the late 50's losing is not tolerated. I hope to see a culture emerge at Akron that feels the same way. 

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9 hours ago, 72 Roo said:

Arth is not ready for D1 football. The coaching staff is not ready for D1 football. Should we fire Arth? Hell no. Give him time to grow into the position. We do not have the money to swallow a hire that may prove poor. But it also may prove good if Arth has the smarts to correct the team's weaknesses. That is the same problem Bowden had. He failed to make the changes he needed to make. Think Milwee. It cost him his job. I'm glad he's gone.  Arth has to surround himself with better coaches. His first change must be to get a better O-Line coach. Coach Z has proven to be incompetent in solving our atrocious line play. Friend or no friend of Arth he has to be replaced/reassigned. Can Arth make the hard calls for the betterment of his program?

 

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.

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This question is for those who know more than I do (this is not rhetorical): Is there a big difference (schematically) between D-1, D-2 & D-3 ball?  I.e., a big difference besides the difference in the size & speed of the players? 

 

Mount Union seems to run a rather sophisticated offense (right?).  Well, Arth had built up John Carroll to the point that they were on par with Mount Union.  I'd have to imagine Larry Kehres Jr. breathed a big sigh of relief when Arth left John Carroll, just as I'm sure he did when Lance Leipold left Wisconsin-White Water.  Is Mount Union's offense sophisticated only relative to D-3?  Would the same scheme sputter at the D-1 level?  What do you think Arth needs to learn?

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20 minutes ago, Blue & Gold said:

This question is for those who know more than I do (this is not rhetorical): Is there a big difference (schematically) between D-1, D-2 & D-3 ball?  I.e., a big difference besides the difference in the size & speed of the players? 

 

Mount Union seems to run a rather sophisticated offense (right?).  Well, Arth had built up John Carroll to the point that they were on par with Mount Union.  I'd have to imagine Larry Kehres Jr. breathed a big sigh of relief when Arth left John Carroll, just as I'm sure he did when Lance Leipold left Wisconsin-White Water.  Is Mount Union's offense sophisticated only relative to D-3?  Would the same scheme sputter at the D-1 level?  What do you think Arth needs to learn?

 

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.

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