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Truthfully, this whole business of ranking recruiting classes is silly. Some schools will need more recruits than others from losing kids to graduation. Second out of the thousands of kids who play high school sports, a couple of recruiting websites are entrusted with telling coaches who the best players are? Those websites don't give kids in smaller schools the time of day and size of the school might determine the quality of the program, but not the talent and athleticism of the kid. The Lemming Report was the go-to source before the era of web-based recruiting, but honestly, good coaches know what they need and what kind of player is the right fit for their team and systems, and even then, the chemistry between the coaches and players can make or break a recruit of any star level. It is not all the different front he NFL draft. How many teams go after these high dollar players only to have them bust? Look at a successful NFL team, like the Steelers and see how many MAC players they have on the roster: a bunch of them. This year seems like a very nice follow up to last year. It seemed to me that there was more of a sense of urgency and fire into he belly when Coach Bowden spoke yesterday and he seemed quite confident in the recruiting class.The breadth of his knowledge about our conference and the types of kids we can land and should land is reassuring. Our classes will improve as our record improves. He has done a very good job selling the, "be part of the Akron turn-around story" and he made mention of rebuilding generally being a 3-4 year process and the difference is very noticeable in that fourth season. It seemed, and perhaps it was just because they did a better job of marketing, that Coach Bowden himself was more involved in recruiting this year. He is the best salesman we have. One thing you hear from current players and recruits over and over is that they believe the coaches at Akron genuinely care about the kids. I think that speaks well of the program and if it is true, they are building a reputation of that within the schools where they are recruiting. And let me throw this out there about the uniforms and Tuesday nights - both are for the kids first, and the fans second. I get that we agreeing to build a fan base and the Tuesday nights really stunk for most people. However, when you recruit from FL and a kid can tell his friends and family they can watch his games on cable vs. ESPN 3, it makes a difference. RE: uniforms, we are all going to have our preferences and be convinced we are right, but it is really a matter of what the kids like and the coaches are pretty in tune with that, probably more than most of us are. If you have seen, both last year and recently when the pictures of the new uniforms and helmets hit Twitter, they generated a ton of buzz, pretty much all positive. For a school without a ton of money, I think they are doing a pretty good job making the most with what they have to make the kids happy and generate interest. What recruit doesn't want to Tweet a picture of a uniform considered cool by his peers?

I will disagree on my esteemed friend Keener's assessment. I think measuring ourselves versus the competition for kids recruited by MAC programs is a minor indicator of recruiting success. Bowden has ties to Florida. That's where he recruits. That's where he knows the high school coaches. And I don't know that you run into MAC schools regularly in Florida. If he were hitting Ohio and Pa harder, then it might be a better indicator. As much as everyone wants to know TODAY where this recruiting class stands, you can't. What I do think you can do is look at the retention of the 2014 class. Whether they grey- or red-shirted, 90+% seem to have stuck with the program. That's what Akron needs - Filling the urgent needs with 'mercenary" 1- or 2-year transfers, and building a base of Freshman that will play for 5 years. Brookhart was a great example of someone who had great "multi-star" recruits, who couldn't stick with the program. His classes in February looked awesome, and by the following February they disappeared. That puts you in a hole. The you have Ianello, and the hole widens exponentially. Look for the 2014 class to make an impact depthwise this year. And expect that 90% of these 2015 kids will likely {insert color} shirt. If 90+ % of those who "shirt" in 2015 are still with the program and ready to play in 2016, then you know the plan is working. Bowden knows we need help at WR. He's giving every DB and "athlete" he recruited a crack at the position this year. That will be something to watch closely this spring. Hopefully Donnell Alexander is the answer at RB. I know that's the expectation.

I grew up around Pittsburgh, so I'm a Pitt fan. They don't often compete with each other, so it's easy to root for both. But when they play each other, I'm rooting for my alma mater.

Louisville's Rachel Baughman signed with the Akron Zips today officially. Here is the story & Highlights from all 4 years of her high school career! Rachel Baughman Signs With Akron to Play Soccer Rachel Baughman Soccer Video Highlights & Awards 2011-2014 Post any Singings today you are excited about!

Aahhhh ........ It's refreshing to read logic #returnoftheROO

+1. For Bowden to be on the hotseat in 2015 would be the end of Akron football. We might as well shut down operations, throw up our hands and admit that infocision stadium IS a white elephant. If Bowden can't turn this program around, no-one ever will be able to. He's our guy, he will get it done. The offense needs to take a giant leap forward this year. But there's going to be a chance for some of these new comers (both new and transfer) to prove themselves on the offense. I have a feeling we're going to see a faster, run focused offense this year.

I dunno...I look at the hole the guy has had to crawl out from, and I think he gets whatever time he needs to get the job done. The schedule is set for a winning season, and I expect 6-6 as a worst case scenario. But if he went 5-7 again, he should, without hesitation, get another year. Bowden's proven he can win. He's retaining players. He's played competitively against upper D1 competition. He's a great "face" for the program, and enthusiastic about UA. He has too much going for him to not succeed. It's just such a damn big hole... Hopefully the offense takes a big leap forward in 2015 and the rest will take care of itself. Lots of promising new faces on that side of the ball. The defense will be fine.

Two years. Check out the roster He hadn't used his redshirt prior to coming to Akron, thus that'd put him as a RS Jr from what I remember.

Who knew he could ball like that as well as blow one mean trombone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKMYgUVONVQ

Great "Staff Report" on the game today in the ABJ. Who the hell is Willie Alvarez? Good grief. http://ohio.com/sports/zips/men-s-basketball-ohio-83-akron-82-zips-blow-double-digit-lead-fall-to-bobcats-1.564437

^^ Thanks for sharing. Really enjoyed watching her at UA and she seems like a great person.

This was an exciting overall game, and I don't lament the loss. Unfortunately, it was yet another example of the Zips losing because of a long scoring drought and attrocious foul shooting. When their big guy hit the long three from the sideline on the scramble play, I gave up. I was about to get upset about how lucky it was then I realized it balanced out with Pat's three. It's encouraging that the team didn't give up; that alone may win us a couple tight games down the stretch or in the MAC Tournament. Onwards and upwards.

As I mentioned before, playing Ohio is like playing Russian Roulette, Bean and Stevie are going to dribble down the court and chuck up ill advised 3s all day long, ocassionally they get hot and find that one bullet in the chamber. Add this one to another exciting and entertaining matchup between these two teams. Zips did a great job of exploiting Ohio's lazy perimeter defense all night long but was a little surprised to see Ibitayo only get 22 minutes, Akron was +13 when he was on the floor and -14 when he was on the bench. Looking forward to the rematch in Akron.

/Keith Dambrot logic. I brought the point up in a prior thread and it got completely ignored. For good reason I suppose.

Really nice comeback effort even if it fell just a bit short.

I've been a big fan of all our logos, and we should try to incorporate them all in some way throughout the season.

Ya know, the white helmet with the full Zippy has grown on me. I like it! Maybe not for an every-week helmet, but it would be a sweet alternate.

I can't speak highly enough of what Coach Kest has done with this program.