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If the Zips dropped to Division 2 in football, it would be the equivalent of a 350 lb guy deciding he needs to lose a quick 60 lbs, so he cuts off his leg.

Lets get the kids back on campus. Get this Covid stuff behind us. Make some cuts and stay in the MAC where we belong. Football, Soccer and Basketball are the priority sports we need to preserve. We already committed by building a Div 1 stadium and Field house. Makes no sense to drop divisions. Seems like KSU and other MAC schools are in the same position. Keep playing couple big boy teams a season and collect the cash. Fun for the players to play against the big time programs. Administration doesn't need to make a knee jerk decision.

Uh, no. Pluto is ignorant of the landscape of college athletics and should not be posting such ignorance. He is now, always has been and always will be the guy who misreads every situation. The guy has been a plague on the sports fans of NE Ohio for decades now. The answer is not "what's the best way to give up?". The question is, "how do schools like us to maximize our potential?". I don't believe that is dropping down a division. It might be creating our own division/conference/whatever, but it isn't dropping down. If the benchmark for whether or not schools make money with their athletic departments determines their level of football, there would only be around 20 high level football teams. If it all narrowed down to money, there should be no college athletics at all, which is never going to happen because so many traditions in the USA revolve around it. College athletics would become club sports. Besides, if we made a unilateral move, who would want us? Is the commissioner of the powerhouse Pioneer League putting on his best 1970s era polyester suit, getting in his Honda Fit, driving to Akron and begging us to join over a lunch at Rockne's? Some people really need to put some thought in to this and it can't be people like Terry Pluto or worse, the athletic directors who got us in this mess. Ask the right questions, you get the right answers.

Commenting to both of your comments. First one, you would think the they could develop a rivalry. I have an idea. Let's first crawl. Just declare it a rivalry. Years ago, the mayor of Atlanta inserted the word "international" into the name of their airport and they didn't have a single international flight at the time. Today, I believe it is the busiest airport in the world with it's own international terminal. It's all so simple. The one I quoted. Why not give YSU the boot and play Toledo every year? Playing YSU is Mickey Mouse. I know this because it is the kind of idea Terry Pluto would think was a good idea. Akron would, at that point, play every Ohio MAC school every year. Not to be a jerk, but your last paragraph over complicates the issue. It isn't that hard. The AD of Toledo and the AD of Akron get together and contract an annual game against one another. Does this sound impossible? If anyone would like, I can provide an example of a case where it worked perfectly, last season. Schools like ours never think outside of the box in a realistic manner.

He's like Bob Dyer: a useless hack who loves to read his own words or hear himself talk or both.

"You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out." - Warren Buffett

A number of posters on this site keep talking about the 'sacrifice games, the 'payday' games, 'guarantee' games as if they have been or will be the life preserver for football here. Akron and schools like Akron have been playing those games for years. Even all that money has never gotten football out of the deep hole its in. We are here because DI sports at Akron and schools like Akron have historically not attracted sufficient interest or money to stay afloat without huge inputs of 'institutional support'. Ah, thats fees from people who have little to no interest in athletics. DannyHoke unfortunately is correct in that regard. As far as Infocision,the elephant in the room, who wants it other than the University? Don't know. Again, this situation has not occurred just because of COVID 19. COVID 19 simply further exposed the flaws that have existed for years. Even if the University administration decides Akron must go elsewhere to have a viable athletic program I will purchase my football season tickets as I have done for decades. If the decision is made to conduct business as usual, I'm not so sure.

Found a Gardner Student Center ash tray at a garage sale a few years ago. For 50 cents, I couldn't pass it up.

Nice schedule. I have one question. How come Toledo isn't on the schedule every year?

Thanks for sharing. If that gets played, it should be a pretty good tournament. Akron, Vermont, Indiana State, and Middle Tenn are all pretty solid mid-majors. Although Mid Tenn has struggled the last year or 2. Omaha and Fordham are the cupcakes, but they're still good enough to beat any of the other teams on a good night. I wouldn't be surprised to see 2-3 of these 8 teams win either their regular season or conference tournament.

Not sure if this has been posted anywhere, but Jeff Goodman just tweeted Akron is scheduled to be in the Gulf Coast Showcase next season.

Some thoughts from above.... The goal every year should be to win the MAC... Ya think? Do you feel this is not the goal now. Gimme a break. Just playing a few buy games every year is not going to solve this riddle sportsfans. Akron is cutting 20% of the athletics budget on top of an earlier announced cut, which may or may not be, wholly or in part of this 20%. Even then, Akron is in for change. This is not solely based on COVID 19... It's the fact that Akron Athletics is irrelevant to the current students, and the alumni do not support the athletics program through attendance or donations at a level commensurate with the current spending. Akron wants to be D1, and if you think that being able to play a buy game and get destroyed by Clemson this fall is going to help increase the value of our Akron diploma, you are high. Getting beat by 50+ points makes you a joke. Clemson is paying you to come get beat. It's called a GUARANTEE GAME because 99% of the time these are WINS. Smart people do not base their business plans on the hope of the 1% occurrence. Ohio has too many schools in the higher ed system and would be best served by unloading 1/2 of the schools into the private sector. Akron, Kent, Cleveland State and Youngstown State, all in one geographical quadrant of NE OHIO is overkill. Fewer people are going to 4-year colleges and Cuyahoga Community College is $70 per credit hour and has as good, if not better job placement than Akron. That's a fact. Akron's campus has exploded with a lot of unneeded stuff that jacks costs up and thus the enrollment is down. Non athletes are not coming to Akron because of some pole vaulter on the track team was in the olympics or because a decade ago we won a NCAA title in men's soccer. The only people that care about Zips athletics are those of us who played, and even then, along with the die hard fans, there are not 2,000 season ticket holders for football and we do not average more than 3,000 fans per game for men's basketball. (2703 announced). Akron would be best served by selling/trading off Infocision Stadium to the City of Akron, allowing that venue to be operated by the City, and getting the debt off the books. Pay rent to play football games in the stadium and be done with the overhead. Move to D2 and call it a day. No way that this program is worth what is put into it and taking away from the educational mission of the institution.

I am so glad this game has been brought up in another thread. This 40-0 victory is one of the greatest Akron Football game ever played, if not the greatest, in my opinion. Some context is necessary here so pull up a coronavirus cocktail and read on. Akron played the University of Tampa in the 1969 Acme-Zip game which was the opener for both teams. Tampa was an excellent DII program and was accustomed to playing in the playoffs. Tampa openly talked about going D1. They floated the idea of getting Ohio State on their schedule to demonstrate their seriousness. Backers would guarantee OSU $250,000, a big amount in those days, to visit Tampa for a game in 70,000 seat Tampa Stadium. After all, Tampa beat Mississippi Sate and Tulane in 1968. They thought they were ready. To make room for OSU Tampa said it would drop Akron in a heartbeat. OSU just laughed it off. BTW, Tampa beat Akron 28-12 in 1968. Akron fullback John Vargo told me it was the hardest he has ever been hit in his life. We were coached by Gordon Larsen, the best coach I think we have ever had. Gordon was pissed and put everything into getting his team prepared. The crowd for the game was near 40,000. I had made the soccer team. As was Acme-Zip custom the soccer team played a game before the football game. We soccer players were given wooden, fold-up chairs on the field which were put all around the field to accommodate as many fans as possible. There must have been 1,000 of them temporarily set up. Ours were one row away from the field. From the very beginning the Zips played with a ferocious passion. The hitting was incredible. The foreign soccer players I sat with were stunned at the collisions they saw only a few feet away. Akron took it to Tampa from the opening kickoff and never stopped. They reflected their coach's indignation and were ready to make a statement. Tampa blinked first and then damn near quit. Akron didn't care. We played with determination until the final whistle. Make no mistake, though, Tampa was a talented team. They had All-Americans Jack Del Gaizo at QB and Leon McQuay at RB. Later Freddy Solomon and Jon Matusak, two NFL All-Pros would play for them, but they were not on this team. Tampa went on to win its next 8 straight games, but for this game their coach, Fran Curci, could only say that the team "was bleeding' and he hoped he could get them back some time soon. Tampa did go on to move up to D1 in 1971. Unfortunately the board of trustees at the school voted to drop football in 1974 when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were awarded an NFL franchise. The BOT thought they could not draw any crowds to support D1 football with an NFL team in town. I love Akron football. To this day I find it hard to recall a better game nor one in which I am more proud of the team and coach. They proved something that night. It was a joy to be there. Hope you enjoyed this first person story. Go Zips!

Coach Groce will have his hands full developing new players and adapting transfers into the culture. It will take a stellar effort from all parties to get us to a similar level as last year (assuming NCAA doesn't allow an additional year for Winter sports). We'll have to replace at least 50% of our production in all major statistics. A look at what we're losing between X, Banks, Cheese and Riak: