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I think some success can be gained by giving the young guys a taste of what the tournament in Cleveland is about. Just getting them there, and getting them comfortable with the logistics of the tournament would be a good step IMO.

Every Zips fan in the JAR should get on their feet for this kid Friday night! He's worked his arse off for the Zips and has made a difficult injury situation a little more tolerable. Seems like just yesterday that he came into the Marshall game and I looked at my wife and said "who in the hell is that?"

Chuck said he needs something to do in his retirement, so I've offered him the position of Senior ZipsNation Sideline Correspondent. And, at triple my ZipsNation.org salary. Awaiting his reply.

They found out that he's actually 37 and in his 7th year of college eligibility!

Wow. You can see the focus of Groce in these offers. He wants that cold-blooded guard.

Carry on gentlemen!

Shout out to Just a Blog for pointing out TJ's offer. T.J. Moss, 3-star 2G, 6-4, 180, Findlay Prep in Henderson, NV (though he is originally from Memphis) TJ Moss 247Sports Rated a 4-star player by ESPN. Great offer list Rivals dot com lists him as a 3-star PG

In general, I agree. Groce may be thinking on different terms now that any chance of a Mon home game is gone and having a depleted team. What would define some "success?" at this point for this season and "progress?" (or as some may argue...fewer steps back for the program)? A win at Buffalo? Beat Kent at home? or at least getting to Cleveland on Thursday? Maybe for Groce and the team, it is the latter and the best chance at a Monday win is to have some reasonable minutes (35?) for the key players and maybe as important some role players feeling more comfortable in possibly contributing on Monday....Thursday....well Mon and Thurs. With the way the Zips have been playing lately, Groce may not care who he plays away in the 5-8 seeds and knows that playing kids 40 again is going to end ugly on Monday. This is not NBA type tanking but maybe he realized that his competitiveness and overplaying guys hurt the development of the walk-ons (trying to keep a straight face, they just played a combined full game). I don't think he really has had much of choice. There are only so many bodies for all these minutes. IMO, I'd still like to go to Cleveland. If we limped out of the season and yet somehow won on Monday, would people have a little better feeling about the season? Buffalo should be ugly tonight no matter who plays (they are flat out more athletic, talented and a bad matchup for any shorthanded team), Kent toss-up game depends on which Walker plays and then maybe we have some magic left on Mon versus an average MAC team on the road. This all sounds like the regular versus tournament season importance threads.

The NCAA has granted University of Akron football player Mykel Traylor-Bennett a sixth year of eligibility after missing the 2017 season. Traylor-Bennett earned a bachelor’s degree in Summer 2017 and is pursuing a master’s degree in sport science and coaching. “We are very excited that the NCAA has accepted the waiver he applied for because of medical hardship to receive a sixth year of eligibility, very similar to what Warren Ball went through,” seventh-year head coach Terry Bowden said. “It’s so good for Mykel Traylor-Bennett who had an ACL injury last year after previously having an injury that kept him out of the 2015 season. What that does is it brings us back to a player who as a true freshman started several games at wide receiver. We moved him to tight end, and he started for us there, but now we’re able to move him back out to wide receiver. He can give us a physical presence, very much like Jerome Lane did. That’s what we’re excited about. I’m not sure if there’s going to be a more physical wide receiver in the conference than Mykel Traylor-Bennett.” “I never doubted God’s plan,” Traylor-Bennett said. “Adversity makes the man.”

That's actually what I meant. He may not have had any desire to make all of the sacrifices of a walk-on anymore, if he wasn't going to play.

I'm sure this is just a faux pas by the "Get Off My Lawn" guy. He certainly doesn't think that "bias" relates only to a person's skin color, right? I hope not.

Coach Stroud to DC, coach Thompson from video to DL coach which is what he did anyway, new coach Wattley LB, Mounds CB’s & pass coordinator & Woodford Safeties my guess

Does anyone have an opinion on potential replacements? What about tapping into the Mount Union pipeline and seeing if HC Kehres would come to Akron as the DC. Didn't he handle defense for his dad before becoming the HC. Or was he the OC? Hell, I'd gladly take him as OC too! Seriously, I'd like opinions on who we can get. And no I don't want to offer the job to Keith Dambrot back just to get him in Akron again. That thread is so boring.

Yes, I am nothing if not redundant.

Sorry, my bad on that one. Then I guess he's actually younger than Mark.

I was on campus last week and had the chance to speak to Coach Bowden. I asked him about the addition of Marcus to the staff and here's what he had to say: "Because the local recruiting is so important to the success of our program, when running backs coach Eric Hickson left for Kansas State our goal was to fill the vacancy with a local guy. That guy is Marcus Wattley. Marcus went to Copley High School, played for The University of Akron, coached at Copley, and was then an assistant to Dan Boarman at St V for 9 years before becoming their head coach. He fit perfectly our goal of getting an outstanding, high character coach that knows the local community. Now that we’re a winning program, we have to do the best possible job of recruiting the local kids. Kids from St V come from all over the area, so I think Marcus’ hire really strengthens our position to best recruit northeast Ohio. Marcus has a lot of knowledge on the defensive side of the ball, so we’ll have him working with our defensive linemen and outside linebackers. I think we have about 8 guys on scholarship from St V, so obviously we’ve known Marcus for a long time." Trent Boykin will assume the duties of running back coach. A running back himself at YSU in the early 90's, he held that position for his first three years at Akron. Also - Kory Gribben was moved up from a grad assistant position to become the H-back coach. Congrats to Kory! Nobody noteworthy is leaving the Zips program or transferring out.

27 months later, and for most everyone...No change!

Ezana Kahsay scored the first goal. David Egbo scored the 2nd Zips' goal in a great one-on-one with the GK. Instead of getting overzealous and potentially overshooting, he cooly dribbled to the left (GK's right) and put it in around the diving GK. Too bad the Rivehounds didn't bother to show the footage of the Zips' goals.

I'm not writing K-Lac off, but that's an apples to oranges comparison. The offense last year was ran through Big Dog, who had significantly more touches per game. You fail to mention Big Dog's 103 assists were a team best. He averaged 1.22 assists per turnover. K-Lac is averaging 4.5 turnovers per assist.

When is anyone going to mention how AAU B-ball has a big hand in this and has been for a long time. The NCAA and HS sports has let them run amok for the past 30 years....

I will say they are playing hard on defense. I haven't seen as many defensive breakdowns in the last couple of weeks. If they play that hard when they have more talent, I'll be pleased. On offense, it's a mess in large part because they have so few kids that can effectively score the ball.

It's amazing how delusion people are when they are determined to double down on their mission. In the last 12 seasons, we failed to make it to the MAC Championship Game only 3 times. And in ALL of those 3 seasons, we made it to the Semifinal. Yet, you'll insist on criticizing that (see above), while simultaneously demanding that we praise this current "becoming stronger" Akron team? I want what you're smoking.

No VIctor is no longer with the Riverhounds. Unfortunately, they did not pick up his option when they changed head coaches. I would have loved to have seen him. Phil Fives and Stuart Holthusen, who were trialists, with the Riverhounds were let go the previous week. So, we didn't see them either.