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Bowden was the tallest midget in a long line of pretty poor coaches. I'll give you that much. I'm sorry to hear that the best you think Akron can do is win ~40% of its games over the long run. You must think extremely lowly of your alma mater. This year 8 MAC teams won 6+ games and 7 MAC teams are projected to go bowling. At least 6 MAC teams go bowling each year. If Bowden made us just an above average MAC program we'd have 4-5 bowls in his 7 year run. We made a total of 2. We were a below average MAC team during his tenure.

As Clark has pointed out several times, this is more than simply choosing between Bowden or Arth. It was clearly time for a change unfortunately followed by a very questionable, possibly disastrous hiring by the AD. Yes, Bowden beat Pitt and NW. He also had a lot of MAC games where we were not competitive at all. His teams were undersized and usually had no depth. After beating NW last year, Bowden lost 8 of 10 (including the last 5 games of the year) and failed to score more than 7 points in 3 of the last 4 games. Besides NW, his wins last year were an FBS team (Morgan State), a 1 win CMU team and a 2 win Kent team (Howard and BG). That Zips team we watched this season was Bowden's players. The cupboard was bare and after 7 years that is ALL on Bowden. Arth was terrible this year, but the Bowden worship is unwarranted He only won 35% of his Di games. It would be best for all of us to move on, Terry doesn't live here anymore.

So, basketball's going full on now, and football, soccer and volleyball are done. If you want to root for a nationally ranked Akron team, this weekend the U hosts the Zippy Invitational at Ocasek, and it should be a competitive affair. I saw on gozips.com that the divers were at the Magnus Cup at Cleveland State last weekend, but no results for swimming. I checked the results and we didn't send a squad, which surprised me. We had won this meet I think like the last 3 or 4 in a row. Maybe it just wasn't competitive enough for us anymore? But Friday, Saturday and Sunday should be great. Ivy League Cornell comes back, and a lot of the men's pool and meet records bear their names. Horizon Champs Oakland should challenge on both the women and men side. Cincinnati will be there from the American Athletic Conference, and St. Bonaventure from the A-10. Small school power Bloomsburg are back, and so is Clarion, and Malone should add some local flavor. Zippies should be the favorites but Cornell and Oakland will press them hard. It's warm and humid in the O, but so much more fun and comfortable that watching the FB team inside Info the past few weeks. Never thought I'd like this sport, but it is exciting as heck.

Give me a break. It was hardly an insult. Certainly not anymore than him referring to me as being delusional or claiming that I'm on drugs. The overwhelming majority still is in agreement that firing Bowden was the right choice. Maybe you were content with Akron hovering around or below mediocrity, but the vast majority of this board wasn't. If there was any mistake it was in hiring Arth. As Jim McElwain showed, a good coaching hire makes the world of a difference. If Bowden was half as good as you try claiming he was, he would have fielded legitimate job offers and wouldn't be an unpaid intern right now.

Agreed, he's a good player and you can't have too many of those.

Dawson was the top recruit of this years class. If he is eligible, look for him to get significant minutes after he gets some time to get acclimated. We will now have a legitimate 10 man rotation.

One of my favorite trivia questions. What city hosted the first champions of (what would be renamed) the NFL and NBA?

Central Michigan just did it this year & they was picked for dead last this year, not saying it will be done but it can be done

I wish Daniel well, but I'd take X over Daniel every day of the week, especially when you consider the nature of this team's offense.

There is always more than one variable: LCJ has matured, Banks found his shot, Banks & Cheese have a season together under their belts, etc., etc. So... I'm slightly hesitant to point this out, but man, are we better without Utomi, or what?! Watching this team play highlights to me how much of a ball-stopper Utomi was. He was also surprisingly slow-of-foot and lacked explosion. We just seem to be in a much better offensive flow this year sans Utomi.

I'm sorry, but this is ridiculously fallacious thing to say. The MAC is not the BIG-10 where schools can afford to fire coaches year-in-year-out. The schools in the MAC DO NOT have the name draw an OSU/Purdue/Minnesota, has. By virtue of their name recognition alone they can draw in players. Akron cannot. If Akron had said 5-7 wasn't good enough and fired Bowden it wouldn't have had it's first 8-win season the following year. We both know it. Like seriously, what UNIVERSE are some of you Akron Zips fans living in!?

Amen to everything you said in this post. Dumbest mistake was firing Bowden. This forum drove off most of the young people. @Balsy posted frequently and was driven off (banned) for posting anti-Arth stuff in the proper thread. Seems just about the vast majority of the Forum is on board now with what he had been saying. And that makes you a damn fool. 1) It starts with not firing a named legacy coach with 2-years left on his contract. 2) Can we also stop saying things like "it won't be settled on an internet forum"; because it's quite dismissive to the reason a forum exists in the first place. A "Forum" was a literal marketplace/public place in Roman cities that was generally a meeting place for open discussion. This particular "Forum" is dedicated to open discussion about the Zips. No one is by any means under any impression that some actual impact is going to be made on the Zips by what is said here...but a forum isn't supposed to enact direct change, just be a place to talk about things...and the things to talk about ARE NOT happy right now. 0-12 is worth of extensive dragging through the mud.

The fact that all those guys (less Ianello) each got 6-9 years tells you all that you need to know. Winning programs wouldn't tolerate consistent losers therefore would have moved on much sooner than we did. When you set the tone that 5-7 or 4-8 is good enough, that's what you're going to get.

What a financial disaster this is. The first mistake was firing Bowden with 2 years left on his contract, $630,000 down the drain. Can we bring him back for next year since we’re still paying him another year? The second mistake was hiring Tom Arth away from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with a $370,000 buyout clause. The third and biggest mistake was giving Tom Arth a 5 year deal at $500,000 per year. He wasn’t doing anything spectacular at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga to merit that kind of money. This is a financial disaster and there’s no way to fix it other than enduring the pain for the next 3-4 years. The only thing to do is cut costs. No matter how bad Tom Arth does, even if he goes 0-12 in 2020, he’ll be back again in 2021 and 2022, regardless of going 0-12 3 years in a row. It’s unreal how he got an underserved $2million contract. What was the University thinking??? I’m so grateful that I graduated in 2008 and don’t have to pay for this crap. I feel bad for the students that do. What a disaster this is. Those that wanted Bowden fired, this is all on you. I hope you’re happy. Source on financial figures: https://www.crainscleveland.com/kevin-kleps-blog/hiring-new-football-coach-tom-arth-costly-short-term-akron-banking-future-gains

Arth killed all reason for hope this season. They now have to restore it. Ultimately that can only be done with W's, not excuses or justifications. Those were all used up this season. Williams bears responsibility here also. He staked his credibility on a guy whose claim to fame was that he beat Mount Union (once) and got JCU into the DIII national semi-final game. Other than that what are his achievements? I now seriously doubt his ability to coach, his ability to lead and his ability to hire good assistants, which I have seen none. To have your top assistant (coach Z) in charge of the worst performing unit (OL) on the field does not inspire confidence. I think Zip nation has been more than supportive. Next season he must show he can wins games. I feel lower now than when iCoach ruined the program. He was obviously incompetent, but I actually had hope Arth would demonstrate he is a program builder. If football didn't drain all other athletic budgets I would just say screw it. Yet as long as it is pathetic all other programs will suffer. That's a tragedy because many other teams are excellent or getting there.

He may bump some existing players down the ladder a step buy even our guys know what he can contribute and will welcome him mid-season with open arms. PS: I notice that Mom has deleted the tweet but Mikal still has it on his feed.

Congrats, Coach Arth, first 0-12 team in Zips history. Congrats, Larry William's, you fired a guy who pulled us out of the sewer and replaced him with a guy who sent us straight back to the sewer. I feel bad for the few talented kids we have, that have to live through this nightmare.