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I wouldn't get too excited about the attendance. 2021- 8879 attendance, 44 degrees at kickoff 2023- 8113 attendance, 36 degrees at kickoff 2025- 8501 attendance, 32 degrees at kickoff

I say this and then Akron has its best crowd of the year on a Tuesday. So what do I know, haha But in general, attendance is still way way down on MACtion nights.

So I did look and you are right LZIP on paper we have at least 62 that could return. Out of those 62, I expect Durham, Dall, Laventure, Hull, Gant, King, Jones, Davis, and Reed at least to be gone. That would drop us down to 53. WR is strong if Mason, Williams, and Polk return, but Hills R-So, Sivon F, Louis R-So, Monz - R-F, Hauda - F, and Witherspoon R-F really have no experience (I'm sure they will get some transfers in that can contribute. Mason is awesome. If that kid was not so vertically challenge he definitely would have been at a Power 4 school. QB we have Roggow (6 snaps) and Broughton returning. (Brookhart will be a coach). It's funny Roggow is listed at 6'4 but he is likely if he is 6'2. I like how quickly he gets rid of the ball. I'm curious to see what the future is with him moving forward. I don't know what to expect out of the secondary. Reed is ranked 145 and has excellent size I think he will hit the portal. I liked when Somerville played Thomas and Kamara both have over 140 snaps and seem decent so we will see how they do at corner Safeties aren't rated high but they most likely will all be back. Linebackers Benege and Spriggs are both sophomores (Spriggs R-So) Spriggs is gone. Benege has 43 snaps Everyone is either a freshman or R-F Nittole 2 snaps, Hocker 38 snaps, Bosswell started the season but dropped off quite a bit. I do think that Reeves and James will be ready to go next year but that is a very young linebacking corps. TE, All three could come back. I think Cravaack has been great R-So, Whisner R-JR has done very well when he has gone in and Newell has been injury plagued all year so I think he will return he does not have anything to base leaving on. I did notice in the UMASS game that Kavals (FR D End) went in for the last two snaps as a tight end but it was only to take a knee so it probably doesn't mean anything. I can't see them moving him to tight end and keeping four there next year. But this is a very solid group to return. OL, King, Jones, and Davis will all hit the portal. I that McManus comes back for one more year. Out of Fox, Gould, Stopiak, and Kumfert nobody has more than 10 snaps except Mann who has 15 and Mobley who has 12. I don't know what is up with Shorr I never saw him play last year or this year but he is a big kid? RB, Gant gone. Patrick will be back I like him. He is explosive when he is on the field. Curry 17 snaps, Macon 15 snaps, Williams 52 snaps - Gee none and reed none so they will definitely need help there but I'm sure they can get another quality back there. DL. Durham, Dall, Hull, Laventure will all hit the portal. I was wrong Kai Murphy may come back he is a R-Jr, Mixon is a R-Jr. The twins aren't starters and are linebackers maybe they get moved there. Kavals, Brown-Demery, Bivens, Watkins all freshman with no snaps. I don't think Cheatom is coming back. And Duncan, Brown, Vega, Musiki, and Murphy have all been forgotten and all are walkons. I really don't think they will be back. Even if I was wrong and every single person returned and NO ONE hit the hit portal at all thats still 43 spots to fill with no qb experience returning, no OL experience returning except McManus. Gant and Patrick would be good but only if the OL is good. But I think if I remember correctly going into this year the defense was the big question mark especially on the line. Next year it looks like it is going to be the same on both sides the O line and the D line and the line backers are going to be very young as well. I'm not blaming Joe Moe or pushing for him to leave I'm not a hater... but whoever is here is going to have to be a coach with a "coaching staff". The team is going to be extremely young next year. I do think the important thing would be that the players that would be next year would be all Joe Moe's players and players that he has had so he should know what he has. That should be a good thing. If you brought in a new coach with a new coaching staff they are going to have to work with a majority of players that are left behind and not who they necessarily would have chosen. That sucks. Then they have to weed out the ones that they don't want and replace them which is going to take time and go through another rebuilding phase. The whole cycle just sucks and seems like an endless vicious repeat of ground hog day which i freaking hated after the first ten minutes....

CFP chair Mack Rhoades on leave from Baylor, playoff roles. https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/46953809/baylor-ad-taking-leave-set-replaced-cfp-chair

I mean, all of this is true. It's hopeless in Akron, of course, there's too many people that will tell you that you're wrong and that Akron can never compete. Just be glad Akron made things fun once, because it's really just going to be 4-8 at best every year even though there's a bunch of MAC schools that have the same exact problems but yet never consistently only win 2-4 games every year. But my comment was more "that game was insane and all the crazy was used up for this week."

Here is the instagram announcement from the young man mentioned above... https://www.instagram.com/p/DOwVIqdD-jk/

It looks like zips have another 2026 recruit

CMU loses to South Alabama by 2. Wouldve been a huge win with a 100 team disparity in Kenpom. McIntire for CMU is a sharpshooter

This is why I only support Akron basketball, albeit modestly. At least with basketball we're getting some return for what we're putting into the program. Makes me feel my dollars aren't just being burned.

Dont know about Tressel as Prez. but I get your point. Id throw another coache's name in there. Lee Owens actually had them being pretty competitive in the MAC. Recruited some really good players like Hixon,Frye,Blackburn,believe Dwight Smith and some O-linemen. Some of these guys went to the NFL. Believe Owens was fired after a winning season. Brookhart used Owen's guys added some pieces was over .500 in'04 and won a MAC championship in '05. Seems there has always been an AD or President who wants to mess with the program at the wrong time.

I watched both CMU/UB and Miami/Toledo. CMU sure got some juice lately. They were playing crazy D. Then there was Toledo and Miami. To be fair Miami was without its starting QB. BUT, as I watched Toledo particularly the QB Gleason I am thinking Akron isn't close to playing at that level consistently. Toledo coach has been there a long time. Keeps pretty much reloading. Miami has been consistent under Martin. We know about OU also. I see a completely different level of play watching those teams as opposed to Akron. Been that way for way too long. And, now we watch CMU and UB, two teams Akron beat both of which will likey be bowl eligible. Something terribly wrong with this program.

I agree 100%. I have given a good bit of money through the years and it has been Thrown away!! Burned!! I am not going to do it anymore. You build a brand new stadium on Campus and fire JD Brookhart for Ianello!!!!? (btw- JD is doing a great job with our WRs) We paid for 2 coaches back in 2018 and then had to buyout Arth's contract for $637K. At one point we had the Bowdens, Jim Tressel, Coach D and Gerry Faust on campus. We have arguably the best athlete on the planet in our backyard (and used to have the coach he loved). How do you f all of that up!!!? Just leave it to the University of Akron board. I promise you if we would have made Tressel President we would not be in this situation. It is fu##ing embarrassing that we suck so bad at football but even worse is if we were good enough to play in a bowl we couldn't because our GPA is so bad.

Good points. Somebody elsewhere made the observation about being good between the 20s but terrible inside the 20s.

That was one of things I loved about Freeman early on. Of course, Freeman’s list of accomplishments went through the roof and it was easy to take that quality for granted. Hopefully our guys just need to get some reps and work out any jitters.

I've stated this numerous times, it's not just about having the money but also knowing how to spend it effectively. Look at MAC basketball as the prime example. UMass has more money than Akron there as well, but Frank Martin mismanages how it gets spent. Meanwhile, Akron has reportedly the 2nd most NIL money, but Groce spends it wisely retaining players and identifying under the radar pieces that fit his style of play. Now if Groce had next to no NIL then we would be in a similar boat to our MAC peers and forced to turnover our roster every single year. Do you think we would be having the same level of success that we are currently under that scenario? If my earlier comments were construed that the only thing that matters is NIL then I must not have conveyed myself well enough. Both coaching and NIL are important in today's college landscape. A coach won't have sustained success without NIL. At the same time a program with lots of NIL, but a poor coach, will also struggle. Edit: If you have both a poor coach and no NIL then you end up like NIU basketball.

Since we didn't learn anything new, at least nobody got hurt. Onto actual Purdue (not Purdue Polytechnic).

It was late enough in the game that just prior to this Joe felt the need to attempt an onside kick.

Lacking a couple million dollars for NIL doesn't seem to be the issue. Look at UMass.

We actually (on paper) return a lot of experience next year. Like you said though, if there’s another big wave of players who transfer out, we are let again with a bunch of unknowns and will need to rely on kids who didn’t get time or newcomers. With that said, there’s reason to believe the staff was/is coaching for their jobs this season. I’d imagine due to that, their main focus is getting the best players on the field as much as they can rather than development.

I totally get it Cat and I do come off as though I am attacking one player. I guess the point I am trying to make is I think it is very poor coaching on the new D line coach. He plays four guys; Dall, Hull, Laventure, Durham. (Murphy and Mixon rotate in occasionally) That's it. The Frazier twins get some snaps here and there (D. Frazier 188, J. Frazier 88) and that's it. Cheatom came into the season with good numbers never gets on the field (39 snaps). The guy is crazy athletic and had good numbers for the number of snaps he played last year, as good as Dall last season. They bring in Murphy, Brown and Duncan as walkons. Murphy gets 11 snaps, Brown 15, and Duncan 8 snaps thats it. My point was that Durhams numbers don't justify the number of snaps that he has played and we know that Dall is gone and most likely Durham also, so there has been NO development at the edge position. The twins are not the answer going into next year. No fault of theirs, they are linebackers not edge rushers. I don't see any of the walkon's coming back. Look at the interior linemen: Laventure is gone and rightfully so, Hull will follow I would bet YOUR lunch money that he follows Marcus Moore and bounces if even to another MAC team and tries to get some money. Murphy is a senior, Madden red shirt senior, Vega walk on that has played 3 snaps can't see him coming back, and musika 82 snaps that is rated a 43 %. Mixon is a red shirt sophomore with good size that seems like his snaps are far and few between and when he starts producing gets taken out. Other than Mixon who on the defensive line next year is going to have any experience? You have four freshman: Brown-Demery 6-4 310 (looks closer to 6-5 315); Bivens 6'0 255; Watkins 6'5 240; and Kavals 6'5 265. All red shirted and have never gotten a snap. Not against Duquesne a total blowout, UMASS, total blowout, or Toledo embarrassing blowout. The starters were in until the very end padding their stats. How does that develop the program? It doesn't. They had four games they could have played and still be red shirted. Why not see what they could have done? Now are defensive line is going to be in an even worse position going into next year than it was this year. It just seems that knowing how the system is, they did nothing to prepare for the future of next year. I don't expect Leonard to be back. Personally I don't think the defensive line played well at all, he did nothing to develop them/they did not improve throughout the year, and he did nothing to develop for next year. I don't know about Tibs, obviously Joe Moe is the big unknown. No qb development, no offensive line development except McManus, no secondary development, whoever the coach is next year is definitely going to have to a lot of developing and A LOT of coaching....

The crowd on Tuesday proved that attendance can be improved. Because the athletic department actually went and improved attendance...FOR A FREEZER GAME ON A TUESDAY. And then, they gave those folks that attended a reason to come back (even in a loss). I'm certainly not sold that Joe is the guy...and am generally sold that Joe ISN'T the guy...but I am very much willing to admit that even in a loss that game was good for the program.

TO BE FAIR, there was 7:14 on the clock. It wasn't particularly egregious IMO, but it did feel like a letdown. Now, 7:14 wasn't a usual "7:14" since Joe had already blown all three timeouts. But I would say it was "midway through the fourth."

I will say that neither of them had particularly great hands last night. But yes as previously stated when Barre was in the game he might've been 6 inches taller than anyone on the other team, he made 3 or 4 standing layups with very little effort

Are you really trying to argue settling for a field goal on 4th and goal from the 3 yard line when you're down 11 late in the 4th quarter? Even after kicking the field goal you're still down 8 so you would need to convert a 2-point conversion from the same distance that you settled for a field goal on. The difference is a touchdown gives you 6-8 points while a 2-point conversion only gives 2. It's logical to take the risk when the return is greater since no matter what you will have 1 play from the 3-yard line with the game on the line in both scenarios. That was the one particular call that I found egregious. I don't mind taking the field goals earlier in the game, but near the end of the game we absolutely should have went for it on 4th and goal.

Then we'd lose, just like we did anyway.