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There's not a tremendous amount of community support for the Zips, and he seems to have a difficult time getting high schoolers in and excited about playing for the Zips at first glance. The University sports facilities are amazing (especially for the MAC), and he has great success recruiting players who understand what college football is about, and for one reason or another aren't cutting it at their current place. I would answer that it is out of necessity, but intentional. Coach Bowden has been turning around the incredibly poor state of our football team for a few years now, in a four step process - lose big, lose little, win little, then win big. He's somewhere between steps 3 and 4 right now. To understand when all the community support disappeared, look up 'Rob Ianello head coach' and be thankful you didn't have years like that to endure.

Jelani even got flagged for that on Saturday.

Ever since this schedule came out, I never thought that winning BOTH Marshall and A-State was a possibility. But, I also thought that the road game in Huntington would be the most difficult. So, I am just thrilled to still have a chance to be 3-1 in the OOC schedule.

Yes I know it's completely meaningless but it's still fun to see the Zips being mentioned in bowl spots even this early. McMurphy has them in the Miami Beach bowl vs. Cincinnati (that would be awesome) and Schlabach back in the Potato Bowl vs. Colorado St (less awesome solely because it would be a repeat of last year). But still completely awesome thinking about it happening two years in a row. :-) The Zips have the only winning record in the East and the only losing record in the West belongs to NIU?!?! Who'd have thought they'd bee looking up at a two game gap to EMU and Ball State? 2016 MAC Standings East Akron--2-1 Bowling Green--1-2 Kent State--1-2 Ohio--1-2 Buffalo--0-2 Miami (OH)--0-3 West Central Michigan--3-0 Toledo--3-0 Western Michigan--3-0 Ball State--2-1 Eastern Michigan--2-1 Northern Illinois--0-3

It helps having multiple reliable options to throw to as well

That's awesome - and if any group could use a win - c'mon Zips - stand and deliver.

If we want to talk about actually increasing parity, drop the scholarship number to 75-80 instead of 85. In the current state a team like OSU is able to hoard guys on their 3rd string that would be starters for most other teams. Ball last season finished behind Zeke, Miller, Samuel, and Dunn in carries and now he is the Zips featured back. Had OSU only had 77 or so scholarships to begin with they might not have offered him in the 1st place and he would have ended up at MSU or someplace similar. This would trickle other current P5 players down to MAC and other G5 schools. I'm counting 64 P5 schools x 8 scholarships = 512 players

As it is now, no G5 school has a legitimate shot at the CFP. If there was more parity between the programs, we would have a shot. It's a long range plan to bring funding up at G5 schools by improving their play.

I went to the Ellet vs Field game back on September 9th. Bridges is the real deal at RB. I believe he had 324 yards and 4 or 5 TD's in that game. He had back to back 57 yard and 87 yard TD runs. I know Ellet scored something like 83 points last Friday, not sure how many yards he had in that game, but a lot I'm sure.

WMU... Toledo... CMU. I'm just thankful we're in the East.

Speaking of the basketball program, KD speaks to the football team.

If this were the Zips basketball team, the App State game would be the one where fans get all excited, buy in to the team 100%...and then Lucy yanks the ball away. Without placing any undue significance on game #3 of a 12 game regular season...App State is a big one for the Zips Program and Joe Akron. Can the Zips pull through? A win gets the bandwagon in high gear. A loss... and it's "the same ol' Zips."

In my opinion, it's impossible to really separate CMU, WMU and Toledo at this point. They all have had some really good performances thus far, and can all boast about posting quality wins. I think the only reason CMU is getting a little more attention from the national pollsters is because they have a "ranked team" win, even though it was highly controversial, and probably should have never happened.

Those guys can lumber to the line, but we need someone that finds the crease and hits it hard. That's Warren Ball. Hope he's healthy soon. It will be interesting to see if/how Chapman is used in the red zone again this week. The little guys did a nice job gaining positive yardage Saturday. We'll see, if Ball remains out, if they can do it back-to-back. Our best bet on 4th and 1 might be the play-action quick slant to Natson.

this loss really hurts.... especially after Niko's pass was just a tad too high for Ezana

Thanks for the update.

I was a lot more worried about this one last week than this week. Thought the Zips had very little chance until this weekend and with both Our game and the App. St. game that thought process changed in a hurry. I'd look at it as a pick 'em maybe even Akron by 1 as a home game? I'm excited for a good game and the possibility of starting a season 3-1. The last time the Zips started 3-1? Almost 25 years ago in Gerry Faust's 7-3-1 year in 1992.

The conference USA board is in all-out panic mode right now. I think we broke an entire conference.

http://www.hudl.com/video/3/4325807/57dec95d3bd81440b4fff947 Another Akron kid probably going to be a ZIP. The best talented linebacker I have ever seen.

His presenter should be the one who gave him a chance to play 1-A college football: Gerry Faust.