Leaderboard

Eric is the leader of the managers. He is following his plans to one day be a college coach. It is a tough road; but, he has the capabilities to become a college coach. Personally, I think he will succeed. College basketball teams have a number of positions and responsibilities that the general public is barely aware of. It all starts with a head coach (Keith Dambrot for Akron); followed by four paid assistant coaches. Then most teams employ a small number of "paid" graduate assistants. I say this tongue-in-cheek as a grad assistant gets a small monthly stipend that covers some of their expenses and paid tuition. The typical grad assistant needs an outside source of income to help. The next level is the unpaid team managers. These are the "go-for"s that do the many tasks a team requires. At Akron some walk-on players begin as managers. Although, most walk-ons at Akron are invited by the coaching staff to join the team. Currently, all three of the walk-ons are invited players. Managers are students. There is a thread here on ZipsNation that suggests coach D learn how to coach (sic). I have not bothered to read any of thread because Coach works his butt off coaching; as do his assistants and grad assistants. Come to a practice and learn first hand what coaching is all about. Being around the program and seeing it first hand gives one a much better perspective than merely barking up in the stands on game day. Akron as a program is a notch below the high majors (essesntially the Power Five conferences). Most true mid-majors get beat when ever they play a high major. Usually for a couple of reasons. One, high majors do not play at mid-majors venues. Remember when Kentucky had to play a first round NCAA tournament game at mid-major Robert Morris? Kentucky lost. High majors are loaded with three and four star caliber talent. Most mid-majors rarely sign one or two players with these credentials. Thus, beating two Power Five teams in one season is a huge victory for the Zips. Give credit to the Zips coaching staff for the excellent talent they have recruited and continue to recruit. Josh Williams and Peter Agba will give you, the fan, a lot of joy in the coming seasons.

It's a large ship Balsy .............. Not a speed boat !!! Takes a while to turn the ship around ........................ As frustrating as it is !! Good things starting to cook !!!

I agree. I haven't posted it yet (and won't until after signing day) but the updated roster is heavy on the top and bottom (Seniors and freshman). THere are a lot of RS freshman on this team, along with freshman who are coming in this season. It's almost like you can see the strategy, when we consider your testimony on the strengthening program. We've added players through JUCO and transfer that can contribute now, allowing us to develop the young players that we have. I know a lot of people are upset at how long it's taking Bowden to turn things around...but I really get the feeling he is. Even after one more season, this team will have very high quality crop of RS sophomores and RS freshman.

Here's a little stats spiced with (hopefully) some humor. Who averaged 15.5 PPG in the last 2 games with a standard deviation of 21.9?

UAZipster0305, is that you, trimmy10?

I've mentioned in several of my posts that I expect Akron's offense to go 'up tempo' in 2015. I got this just by reading between the lines of Coach Bowden comments and rationalizing what needs to be done to improve the offense in 2015. In 2012 our offense with Williams at QB was exciting and we moved the ball well. Problem was our D had no depth and was run over, especially after Nico got hurt in the BG game. Bowden figured going into to 2012 that we had to outscore our opponents if we wanted to win (yeah- yeah, I know, 1-11) as our D was in trouble. Problem was, this put our defense back on the field quicker and with little depth we gave up big yardage and points. In 2013 and 14 we seemed to switch out of up tempo looking for a new formula to win as our defense was gathering steam with the development of young players, Juco's, and key players from other programs. Bowden seemed to change Akron's overall strategy and wanted to control the game and clock more with the offense. Problem with that (if you could call it that) was our defense got Very Good during this time period and depth was less of a problem. Amatos group could have supported an up tempo offense that might put them back on the field quicker. This is where play calling became an issue for me in 2014. Not running the ball more (unless the opponent gave us the run) - just running more plays during the game to keep opponents defenses off balance like we did in 2012. To do this you need have a QB that knows the offense - like Dalton Williams did. Pohl knows it as he's had the coaching/practice over the years and arguably would be better prepared in 2015 to make those quick decisions needed in the 'hurry up'. That's where I see us going with the O in 2015 - up tempo - as we had success there before with this coaching staff, despite the record in 2012.

As the Power5 continue to make changes to govern themselves and make the NCAA irrelevant. In the meantime worrying about the Power5 breaking away was the reason the others didn't vote against it they are voting to be second class citizens going forward. The opportunity to compete is moving further and further by the way side. There used to be an argument for playing at the MAC level or riding the bench for the BigTen but now your scholarship is guaranteed at the BigTen why would you consider the MAC? I wonder if a guy like Ben Rothliesberger would have went to OSU if he had this to think about or if he still would have went to OU? Connor Krizanic just transferred from WR at Minnesota to QB at Ohio because he wants to play QB but I don't know if the current players were grandfathered into this deal. The us vs them argument is almost irrelevant now....with things like this we really don't play in the same conference any more. I'm waiting for them to vote to add 10 more scholarships for football.

Does anyone have a link to the Tweet Ohio State sent the Zips when we played for the soccer National Championship? I'd like to compare ours and theirs. Any of the Championship games will do. Thanks in advance.