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When top drawer soccer showed the IMG top 150 rankings on September 29th, Emmanuel Sabbi was #21 and Nicholas Hinds was #19. Really looking forward to 2016 zips soccer. This is shaping up to be Coach Embick's best recruiting class. I know that Wistrcil received a lot of grief during his tenure but his hire of Jared Embick and the 3 year extension...have to be tremendous highlights for Wistrcil's tenure.

Currently on Roster: Nathan Bischof - SVSM Brock Boxenm- Beaver County, PA Michael Buddenburg - Massillon Stephen Erickson - Sherrodsville Nick Fazio - Streetsboro Mitchell Hlay - Richfield DJ Jones - Ravenna Travonte Junius - SVSM Shawn Kirk - Alliance Jerome Lane - Firestone Deon' Tae Moore - Kenmore Brian Reinke - Copley Dylan Seibel - Uniontown Christopher Spruill - Maple Heights Zachary Sweat - Canton Chuck Turfe - Canton Brennan Williams - Firestone Newman Williams - SVSM Austin Wolf - LebanonThis does not include seniors, transfers, kids from the Columbus, Cincinnati, or Cleveland areas. Clearly we can't get local kids.

Hiring Jared as Caleb's replacement was the highlight of TW's tenure. Jared knows the game and is completely committed to Akron's maintaining it's position at or near the top of NCAA D1 Mens Soccer. Our 2015 schedule. so successfully navigating through it, and getting to the College Cup was a huge statement to others of how great our program remains under our current head coach. Couple that with our close ties to an MLS Club that won the 2015 MLS Cup in our backyard and what a great storyline you get for recruiting top players. By the way... 2015 Was A Season To Remember At These Schools Akron - The Zips had an outstanding season in 2015 during which they had an 18-3-3 overall record and advanced to the College Cup for the first time since 2010. Akron won both the MAC regular season and tournament titles. They were awarded the number four seed in the NCAA Tournament and then topped Rutgers, SMU and Creighton to advance to the Final Four where their season came to an end when fell to eventual national champion Stanford 8 to 7 in a penalty kick shootout after the game was tied 0-0 at the end of 110 minutes of play. Junior midfieder Adam Najem was named an All-American by both the NSCAA and College Soccer News. Najem, sophomores Sam Gainford, Stuart Holthusen, Richie Laryea and junior Brad Rhaak and senior Andrew Souders were named to the All-MAC First Team. Akron along with Indiana, Maryland, UCLA and Virginia are the only five teams to have earned a berth in the NCAA Tournament for the past nine seasons. Akron is 48-13-6 in the three seasons that Jared Embick has been the head coach of the program. Thanks @TennZip for the updated recruiting information. With the losses of Andrew Souders (Sr), Sean Sepe (Sr), Jake Fenlason (Sr), Richie Layrea (Gen Adidas), and not knowing the status of Adam Najem's return, every top player we add raises my expectations for 2016. I try to get to know our players during the year by talking with them after matches at home and on the road. I'm happy for them when they get to move on and take that next step toward fulfilling their dreams. But, at the same time, I want to see the Zips compete for a National Championship again, like every Zips' fan. It's tough balancing emotions sometimes. I know we still have many talented players, but replacing 4 or 5 starters is always tough as we all know it takes time for a team to gel.

2015: 8-5 with a bowl win !!! Remember ? Seems to be paying off Not endorsing fully but think about it ............. UA, as we all know, is having some financial struggles. SO if Coach Bowden can indeed keep the recruiting budget down and plan/recruit in this type of scheme, is it really that bad ? I cannot imagine that the recruiting budget is very robust ..... Makes the relationship with the local programs more important, It is possible that this indeed is the mid term future of the program (or longer) ..... Remember, most of the time, the "star" rating is so over hyped (with the exception of about 10-12 kids a year. The high school athletes we recruit in are not going to be huge contributors (except for a few) until their third (Soph) year. Their freshman ans RS freshman years are developmental and we should get two solid performance years (3 productive seasons for a few) out of each recruiting class .............. IMHO To me, the important thing to note is that these transfers are wanting to come to Akron and their talent levels have been pretty damn good so far .... I would be comfortable with a 60/40 split of recruits to transfers ................. Mix in a couple of solid 5th year seniors each year with the multi season eligible transfers and to me that makes us MACable (term coined by another Zip Nation loyalist) !!! Just sayin ...

Sure, this team is very deep. While it may have depth, it has not developed leaders or a go to guy in the clutch. There's nobody on that team who's a coach on the floor or who I see take control of a situation or attempt to rally the troops. I keep waiting for it to click, but wonder if it will for this group. I'm also becoming frustrated with our rotations. When a group is clicking or a player is hot, ride it. Instead, we often seem to be making substitutions off a chart created before the game (like a CYO coach with a 12 kid team that has to make sure every kid plays a quarter).

http://sbisoccer.com/2016/01/richie-laryea-selected-by-orlando-city-joins-best-friend-cyle-larin

Winning in the Tournament gets MAC and national respect. Hence, Can't and Ohio are the model programs, not us. Nobody pounds cupcakes like we do and consistently beats weaker MAC competition like we do though!

If Green is available, I'm sure Coach Funk (prior OL coach at Mich) and our RB Coach have already made contact (Bowden will follow if there is interest from Derrick and his family). Green should remember the Zips going toe to toe with the Wolverines several years ago, so that might help, plus we are a bowl team, we have great facilities, and you can get to the NFL from Akron.