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The Big 10 pays out something like $63 million per school each year. You can afford a buy out when you're rolling into that kind of money.

UCLA and Virginia Tech decided today keeping their failed head coaches was more costly than getting rid of them. So I guess it's doable even when UCLA's stadium was 80% empty. Wild.

Speaking of Gaucho Dan, UC-Santa Barbara are playing #10 Marshall in Huntington right now I believe. Update: It's 1-0 Herd in the 25th mi ute.

Agreed. There is too much in it for him to resign.

Well I hope so. But I think the Zips are going to have to fire him. The new AD has his opportunity to prove he's serious about improving the program.

If Joe leaves, he'll be on staff somewhere as a coordinator or assistant making as much as he does at Akron.

4-6 D3 schools don't pay that much for coordinators, and what he's doing with this offense isn't going to get him interest from anything better than that

This is the day every coach firing fan lives for.

Against UAB the Special Teams did not show up and the defense showed up for only one half. That's disturbing, but I see three incidents in the game that are more troubling. First, with the Zips driving at the three and the two minute timeout coming up the offense is clearly waiting for the timeout to plot their next plays. Yet at 2:02 the center snaps the ball. Finley was surprised and barely covered the snap. A probable touchdown was lost. A field goal resulted. The lost points were the difference in the final score. Who was in control? Who was communicating?Who was listening? Second, Durham took the bait when a UAB O-lineman pulled him down after the whistle. Durham responded with a forearm shivers to the UAB player's chin. Right in front of a ref. We were hit with a personal foul and the drive, that may have been stopped, was renewed. On the sideline after the play Joe high-fived Durham, put his arm around him and joked. Where was the accountability? Finally, after a failed second half drive Joe tried to talk with a frustrated Finley. Joe walked after Finley talking while Finley walked away, never turning to his head coach. It took an assistant coach to turn Finley around to face Joe. An argument followed. Where is the respect for the head guy? Do these guys even believe in Joe? Joe may be an offensive genius, but there is not much evidence he is a capable head coach.

Said it before say it again. The problems with this program go beyond 1 coach or a few players. This is and has been an organizational problem for literally decades. And now with the changes in DI college football, programs like Akron etc. are just going to fall further behind. Agree with kreed can't put lipstick on a pig. A shame. A winnable game.

I think Joe walks away on his own after the season. He’s failed and he’s frustrated. He has no money to recruit, smallest budget in D1, no training table, etc etc. He can go somewhere else and make the same money, or more, as an OC. He resigns soon after the last game.

I agree that Joemo is a cancer and needed canned yesterday (said so since 2023) but I also understand the financial predicament... I still think we have to find a way to cut ties and not spend $$ doing it. Maybe have a 3L comb over the contact or something, idk. He needs to go though and I'm glad that's now obvious

You spend others money so easily.

I still think that donor money would be better spent on NIL. Donors only have a finite amount of money they're willing to give. $1 million in additional NIL could greatly revamp our offensive and defensive lines. Probably make both units at or near the top of the MAC. @LZIp made a comment the other day about how Akron is at the bottom spending in the MAC, but I pointed out those numbers don't include how much we're spending on Infocision debt financing. With it included we're actually near the top. It's not just about how much money you have to spend, but how efficiently you spend it. Paying a near 7 figure buyout to a coach has to rank at the absolute bottom of efficiency spending. At Akron we need to make our dollars go further, not further handicap ourselves.

I would say the penalty on the field goal by the defender. That directly led to UAB scoring at least 4, maybe 7 (if he missed fg try) additional points. That alone more than accounts for the scoring difference. In the other examples it's no guarantee Akron would have scored a TD and with how bad the defense played in the UAB they may have gotten a TD before half anyway.

You could see it on the TV. When the Zips were driving in the 2nd half right before the Finley score Akron called timeout and JoeMo was yelling and pissed. On TV you could also see the frustration between Finely and JoMo when he tried to talk to Finley and he walked away.

Joe's firing needs to be on the donors. Kaulig or someone needs to step up and fund the buyout.

During the last dozen years of Zips football we have seen a lot of losing and "dumb butt plays" like trying to catch a punt on the one yard line and then fumbling the ball or taunting penalties that have killed a drive. Last night we had three "dumb butt plays" that prevented us from winning because that is what losing teams do. Which dumb butt play do you think hurt the most: The special teams player that called out a cadence in a field goal attempt that led to a penalty and first down and then a touchdown instead of three. With 2:05 left in the first half and the ball on the UAB 3 yard line instead of letting the clock run down to the 2 minute warning we tried to draw them offsides and the center snapped the ball unexpectedly leading to a loss, and then a field goal instead of a touchdown. UAB then scored a touchdown right before the half. (Giving up a touchdown before the half is an Akron tradition) The unsportmanlike penalty when we had driven the ball to the 15 and instead of 1st and 10 we had 2nd and 19 at the 34. We did not move the ball after that play and missed a field goal. (Lets be real, we have seen that a lot in the last 12 years)

100% accurate.

I find it amusing that on the morning after that loss the athletic department sends out an email announcing 50 days until the basketball season

In 1987 we got our first D1 win against EMU three games in also. It was nice. Too bad it was our last for the year that ended up 4-7.

Uncle.

Delaware got their first FBS win as an FBS team yesterday, must be nice

I haven't read the finer details of Joe's contract, but it appears his base salary is $620K and he still has two years left on his contract. That's 1.24 million in total. The buyout language in his contract says we would owe him 75% of that total. That would amount to $930K. I can't see how Akron could financially afford to pay that when we couldn't even afford a training table that costs $3k-$5k. Furthermore, it's not like we have Nick Saban waiting on the sidelines wanting this job. The Akron job is among the bottom 5 jobs in all of FBS as we have poor funding and little to no NIL in a day and age where money means more than it ever did. Hell, if the University just gave Moorhead $465k in NIL each of the next 2 years (amounts to what his buyout would be), Akron would probably be in a better position competitively than paying that to him to not coach. The reality is whatever coach we bring in is setup to fail and in 2 or 3 years we will be asking to pay his $1 million buyout as well. At some point this chain needs to be broken. To clarify, I'm by no means trying to defend Moorhead. I just realize Akron has much deeper problems and trying to slap a bandaid on it by bringing in a new coach is simply not going to work. If they want to compete they need to better engage the community and in particular wealthy alumni and local businesses. These are 18-23 year old kids who are now hired mercenaries. They will go to the highest bidder and frankly we can't compete financially without external help.

Who cares if we even beat Duquesne, like it's awesome we beat an FCS team but that still makes us the WORST FBS team. No victory laps after beating the JV kids.