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Northeast Ohio, especially the Akron area, cannot support 2 mid-size football schools and be competitive, while that team in Columbus absorbs all the fan support in this area. I was just at Dick's in North Canton and they did not have a single Akron licensed item. Kent and Akron need to just merge their football programs into one school. NIL money would be easier to come by. People in Summit and Portage County would vote on a levy to increase taxes to pay for stadium improvements in Columbus before they would vote on improvements towards anything for Akron or Kent.

Spriggs to the portal. Not a surprise, just tough for us, because he’s yet another guy this staff developed when nobody else really came calling out of high school. Someone out there will pay him, no doubt.

That depends on which block of Palos Heights you are referring to.

I’d agree on that estimation

Thank god the game got to tomorrow. Would’ve been a deadly blow to attendance with The Game today

I'm rooting for them to fail even worse in their new conference.

That's not fair. They played Indiana (East) and Trinity Christian is among one of the finest basketball programs in Palos Heights, Illinois.

3rd worst SOS belongs to Miami OH. That's pathetic.

Hammock did it to himself. On3 and 247 disagreed with me, but I thought he cobbled together multiple recruiting classes that sat at or near the bottom of the MAC — outside of the offensive linemen, running backs, and a few other select individuals — and that lack of recruiting, especially at quarterback, has finally come home to roost. The funny thing is he spent the entire offseason bragging about how easy recruiting had become while he was scooping up a slew of DII and FCS guys. Can’t win without the horses to run the race.

Good way for NIU to finish its MAC run, 3-9 with their QB throwing for 27 yards in a loss to Kent.

NIU just choked vs Kent. Kent finishes ahead of Akron. Joe. Has. To. Go.

https://www.cleveland.com/sports/college/2025/11/akron-zips-mens-soccer-will-play-host-to-duke-on-sunday-in-ncaa-sweet-16-match.html

I think Akron will be top 80 or 90 to start.

This guy is a true Princeton genius. Sitting out this season to preserve eligibility while finishing his Princeton degree. He'll then get paid 6 figures minimum to finish his final season of eligibility next year.

Last year the first NET rankings were released the first Monday in December. If that remains true, we should see them Monday. Beware they are usually pretty puzzling the first few weeks since NET doesn't use preseason rankings to help smooth them like NET does. This will lead to a couple head scratching teams ranked very high. As we get into conference they will begin to sort itself out.

Yes, it pretty much means we've played much better than our record indicated based on our SOS. I think we would pretty middle of the road prior to the Yale game.

Correct but I'll have a better idea based on their ability to handle adversity on the road. It's a lot easier to stay in and/or pull away in close games at home than it is on the road. They have 6 guys who are offensive threats - 4 are double digit scorers and a 5th is averaging 9 ppg - and the 6th is a freshman sniper from St. Iggy. They have 3 more guys who play decent minutes but are not threats offensively. Based on what I've seen when I've watched their games, they are not as defensively focused this year compared to previous Kent teams, meaning they rely on hot shooting to win games. They've given up 100+ points twice and nearly a third time to 299th KenPom Cleveland State (95 pts in their 1st meeting on a neutral court). They're also quite small. Gillespie is 6'8" and Whaley is 6'7". Those are their top 2 post players by far. Whaley is also built like a North Pole Left Tackle - short and half the weight in the buttocks. Morgan Safford is their next tallest contributor at 6'4" and the rest of their guards are 6'2" or shorter. Without a lot of versatility and size, from what I've seen, they have 2 ways to win - hot shooting night or an off night from the opponent. Both are much easier to accomplish at home vs. on the road, so that stretch in late December will give us a decent idea of this analysis of them is accurate.

Just a note that Kenpom has us ranked 302nd in "Luck" with a -0.76. Don't really know how that number is calculated, but that must've shot way down after the yale game

Even then I don’t think we will truly know til January

Mac games are always tough except last year when we kicked everyone's butt.

I don't quite know how good Kent is. They haven't played a true road game, they haven't played a top 100 KenPom team, and 3 of their games have come against two teams ranked 268 or worse in KenPom (2 of those were Gillespie's best games). I'm going to reserve any (dead) flowers I may have for Kent until their @ Portland/ @ UMass/@ Purdue stretch (their only true road games).

Gillespie has had a strong start to the season, no doubt. But his line was interesting in the recent game vs. Cleveland State, which was the second time they played him/Kent in a week. 12 pts, 11 reb. 8 TO. vs. what he did the first time they played, 30/13/1. He's going to get his rebounds. But CSU cut his scoring more than in half, and forced him into a bunch of turnovers. Whatever CSU did, defensively, is now on tape for others to mimic. It will be interesting to see what his game (and Kent's) look like a month from now.

Kent State is tough, and Delrecco Gillespie is playing as well as anyone in the country. I think we're going to have to bring our B+ game to beat them & Amani's going to have to bring his A game.

I agree. I don't see us going 17-1 this year. I think it will be more like 15-3.

Feel pretty comfortable saying the Zips are clearly the top MAC team this season, as expected. But it must be said, overall, the entire league seems to be deeper with teams capable of pulling upsets or two over the course of the season, even without contending for the best team in the league. Games at Eastern Michigan, Bowling Green, and Buffalo all look like trap games right now, to go along with road games at Miami and Kent State. No way does it look like Akron loses all five of those. But are there one or two that give you pause. Just curious, because it looks like the fight for those last two MAC Tournament seeds is going to be pretty tight, which means one or two of these teams could be both desperate and dangerous.