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Hey guys - new poster here. Great forum. My son is showing interest in playing at the next level and Akron is on his interest list. I have been watching the forum from a distance but thought I would jump in on this one. I'm going to push back a little as a former DIII coach myself. My first job in DIII, I worked for guys who were all successful DI coaches (Coordinators) in the 70's and 80's. Our program was set up just like the program there in terms of the entire operation, minus awarding scholarships. Each guy brought their offensive and defensive schemes in and they were the same schemes they used to stop Herschel at UGA, or protections to handle Bruce Smith at VT, etc. My last job in DIII we were running the "Marshall Spread" to the T. Exact carbon copy of what Marshall was doing minus Randy Moss and Chad Pennington. In fact, when we would visit some of the FCS schools in our area (mainly Lafayette, Bucknell, Towson and Lehigh), they would incorporate our stuff and pick our brains on how we did things. The guy I used to spend a bunch of time with at Lafayette, left Lafayette to take the OC job at UVA. He used to say there are only so many ways you can line up 11 guys and he is 100% correct. If anything, I think you have to be a better coach at DIII. In some cases, you take what you can get for talent. I was fortunate to coach some super talented D-IIA bounce backs and that helped me look smarter, but in many cases we were trying to out scheme teams because we didn't have talent to match up. Or maybe we were limited a bit because we could not recruit to our needs like DI guys can. In many cases we tweaked the system to match our talent and that isn't an easy chore. DI guys have lots of advantages (and pressures), but I challenge the notion they are considerably better X and O's guys. Also, I get red in the face when I hear folks talk down about DIII players. I coached some outstanding football players in DIII that just happened to be off the radar for various reasons (size, speed, exposure), but outstanding players just the same. Don't knock DIII guys. I don't think this is going to be a quick fix and the short season this year didn't help at all. As many have pointed out here, you can measure improvement by running a clean operation and it was anything but last Saturday. That's on the coaches. The question is can they get it fixed? I think so, but not overnight. I will say the one thing offensively I like is building from the inside out. The dividends up front will pay off, these kids need time to grow into their shoes a bit. The freshman have a grand total of 4 college games under their belts. That's nothing. Anyway, best chance for a win is coming up. Get it.

This has all the markings of a "trap" game heading into Buffalo the following week.

Clickbait like this is always interesting. I spent most of my adult life traveling for work and I can tell you Akron is better than half of the cities ahead of them....probably more. I moved away 14 years ago after living there almost 20 years after high school. Anyone who lives in northeast Ohio and tells you they don't like it because it is boring is a boring person. It's a great place to live and I hope the people who live there know that.

Excellent post! Thanks so much for posting! I agree with the X's & O's. We live near one of the top D-III schools in the country - Mount Union. Their offense is as intricate as anything run in college on any level. But, IMHO, the reason they're so successful is because of their recruiting. If not for an injury, I would have been able to play D-III ball, and probably D-II, say on the level of Walsh University. But when I watch Mount Union play I know that at Mount I would have been riding the pine. They just have athletes that are bigger/faster/stronger than your typical D-III athlete. Makes the coaches look brilliant. Lol. This is one reason I'm a big Zips fan. As a high school athlete we'd sometimes go to Zips games and we were always blown away with how big and fast the athletes were at this level. I would have been absolutely DESTROYED if I had set foot on a D-1 football field! Lol. It's a lot of fun to watch. I'm so glad your son is considering Akron. I LOVE Coach Arth and his entire staff! I wish I could have played for men like Coach Arth & Co. If I had a son they're the kind of men I would want my son to learn from and be mentored by - both on and off the field. This is going to take a little longer than an average rebuild because of the kind of players Coach Arth is seeking. The guys coming in really seem like Ivy League type guys; guys the university will be sincerely proud of both on and off the field. I do think after a few years of Arth changing the culture we're going to have a football team we can really be proud of as football players and as good, intelligent young men who are leaders in their respective communities. Again, thank you for your perspective and please don't be a stranger! Go Zips!

I, and I imagine others, appreciate your insight. Are you able to share how Arth & Co are selling Akron to your son? I haven't seen him make any excuses yet, but the reality is he does have a lot going against him, though some is his doing. I think he's playing the long game in his strategy where Terry Bowden went for the immediate fix. I would personally take the approach somewhere in the middle (more transfers, less high schools kids than he has done historically). Its easy for an ignorant observer to put down the program, but most don't realize how short-handed we are scholarship wise, as one example. Just curious what the other side looks like.

Did you guys miss the part where the team had to shut down due to a covid outbreak?

I agree & we very well could offer him a PWO, which would he choose? Kent is half the commute, Kent is in a better place right now.

I'm not losing sleep over it and I wouldn't offer him a FBS level scholarship, but I can't see why you wouldn't take a chance on offering preferred walk on status to a three time state champion QB that plays a walk away from your home stadium. It costs you nothing and if nothing else it helps your relationship with a school that's turning out a boatload of D1 recruits.

this is true, too. Though I'd be lying if I didn't think about Kato running the read option/RPO with an actual RB for once,

Anyone think maybe we should go with Kato? I don't want to ruin Gibson's confidence going forward... But we desperately need the W this week. Miami stuffed the box & was forcing Gibson to beat us & he wasn't very effective. At all. Maybe Kato could give us a shot in the arm? He is a senior, after all. Of course BUGS doesn't have the personal of Miami, so they may not be able to stuff our rushing attack anyway. Idk.

Clash of the Titanics!

Zips by 14.

The Bugs vs the Zips; where the question, "what happens when a resistible force meets a movable object," will be answered.

All I heard was how Bowden had lost the team. I don't remember groups of players quitting like this mid-way through the season. We have a coach we cannot afford to fire because we are still paying the last guy. Brilliant.

You are wrong. The Zips will win. More details later in the week.

Larry Williams and George Van Horne.

Some troubling quotes from the Beacon article today- “We did not do a great job getting in and out of the huddle," Arth said. "For whatever reason, we were moving in a little bit of slow motion ... We had to take a couple of timeouts to avoid delay of game or take a couple of timeouts because we were in the incorrect formation.” What the hell? You're 4 games in. “[That’s] really how we see them play every week,” Zips coach Tom Arth said when asked about the Miami defense. “They’re a team that wants to get an extra guy in the box and ... they’re going to outnumber you in the run game and they’re going to rely on their pass rush to affect your quarterback and affect the passing game. They did that.” So, to be clear, you knew what they were going to do and couldn't do anything about it. “I think this is the first time they’re going to walk off the field feeling down about how they played,” he said. “It’ll be a great test of their resilience and great test of their character to see how strongly we can come back and how much we can improve from a game like today.” They certainly did not look like they were feeling down.