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My idea of progress: Year one- an influx of transfer portal and JUCO talent to bring the program up to speed. 3-4 wins. Year two- Retain players. Improved freshman recruiting class. Continued growth, 2nd year players start to contribute. 5-6 wins. Year three- competing for MAC East title. More movement towards better freshman recruits due to improved program, less reliance on JUCOs and transfers. 8-9 wins. Year four- Zips Nation purchased by Alphabet due to its high traffic and profit potential. Captain Kangaroo retires in Barbados on the proceeds after hosting the largest tailgate in UA history.

Keith Kennedy far, far away from any microphone at Infocision.

Personally, I think even if the HC job becomes open at Oregon he would still come to Akron. I think he was looking for a good reason to get closer to home. Not just any reason, but one that he was happy with. Plus, I think the less pressure at Akron than a P5 would seem appealing to him. That is all an assumption, of course, but I'm trying to piece info together.

I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve in total excitement waiting for a huge present and the best day of the year. I just do not know if Christmas morning is coming tonight, Saturday, or Sunday (like I read in one report that he will sign on Sunday). As Charles Dickens said, 'God bless us, every one' Let's all shout 'ZI.... 'PS.... repeat 1000 times

This is still crazy to me. I mean, when Moorhead was at Penn State, he was one of the hottest names and biggest stories of those two years in all of college football! Now he's going to be the head ball coach for YOUR UNIVERSITY OF AKRON ZIPS!!! I can't wait for the announcement. I'm hoping it comes early tomorrow afternoon so it can dwarf whatever else is going on in the league at the time. 😉

I feel the big difference is Bowden took 20 years off from coaching. That's a pretty significant gap as the game has changed a ton from the 90s compared to now. Not to mention many of the connections you may have had in the recruiting trail would have retired. Also, I don't recall Bowden getting interest from anyone outside of Akron when he was at North Alabama. Consensus I've heard pretty much everywhere is that Moorhead could have held off for something better, but wants to be here.

I definitely felt a similar buzz when Bowden was hired and thought he was a surprisingly great hire for Akron. Looking back his resume was actually just as impressive as Moorhead, if not more. 6 winning seasons at Auburn and lots of winning at FCS schools. Both spent time at UA as assistant coaches. Lot's of similarities, but I hope Moorhead can help us take the next step. It pains me to say I haven't really cared about Akron football for like 4 seasons. Maybe visiting ZipsNation every couple of months, if that, just to see what everyone thought about the basketball teams. Now I find myself checking in every day. Instead of wasting my time reading about the joke that has become of the Browns season and whatever is left of the Cleveland baseball team. I can't believe I'm relying on the Zips football team for positive news, but here we are.

Really enjoying this coming toether for Akron. When I first heard Moorhead's name, I said, "Yeah, right." High-paid OC for Oregon is not taking a big pay cut to come to Akron. But he sounds like he really wants it and pay is his third priority. What I'm enjoying most is watching your fans get optimistic again. I really hope this all works out. The ripping open his shirt to reveal an Akron t-shirt would be wonderful. He seems like he would be a great fit. He seems right for you and you for him.

Exactly (and God forbid anyone ask him where KJ is).

Coach with hair 🧐

I don't think there are Dambrot haters outside of maybe 1-2 trolls. Anything that might have been perceived as Dambrot hate was mostly Akron fans retaliating against posters who masqueraded as Akron fans for a dozen years, but in reality were Dambrot fans who immediately abandoned the program and crapped on the university the second he left.

Sports commentary is as worthless as political commentary. Gee, how about having some control over one's life as a reason to go to a smaller school without a crazy, entitled fan base.

Tweets from random fans that are in actuality fringe college football fans just don’t get it. You wonder why he’s taking a “step down” or saying he “could do so much better”? Read his quotes from the other day. They say it all. End of discussion. He’s not the first coach to make a move like this, and he certainly won’t be the last.

Ah yes, the national media. No excitement to see a bottom team hopefully become relevant. No, they just want to continue reporting on Alabama winning the title every year. Or Ohio State, whomever. All the boring storylines year after year.

Enrique is such an awesome guy, this semester he worked for intramurals being one of the coordinators for Sunday afternoon soccer, never seen another student-athlete do that. I also love the question about his grades lol

As part of NCAA rules, teams can add one player to their incoming recruiting class for every departure to the transfer portal, up to a maximum of 32 players via incoming freshmen and transfers so long as it doesn't push them over the maximum scholarship allotment of 85.

Had this same thought earlier this week when things started to point to Moorhead being a "done deal". I think the difference between the Bowden hire and this one are more considerable than just past records. Joe Moorhead will be coming into Akron a decade younger and with a reputation for innovation, especially on the offensive side of the ball. Terry Bowden, while still a quality coach for UA, relies more on his name recognition and more traditional, old-school offensive and defensive sets. My hope with Joe is that he'll come in and maximize the talent we have and add an infusion of talent from the portal. I hope we'll see creativity and have the personnel to execute it effectively. No more delayed handoffs on 3rd and 11.

Who instituted that disastrous 3-3-5 scheme? Man that was so hard to watch our D constantly bend, bend and then break lol.

Groce was talking about Dawson, but he was really talking about what KJ WASN'T.

This is beautiful. Big smile, nice kid, braces, bloody nose, well-spoken...

I don't disagree with anyone's assessment on Walton. All I'm saying is the lack of fit should have been identified well before he was on the roster so that scholarship could go to somebody else who is making our team better right now. To double down, Fulford was coach at Missouri. I don't care enough to confirm they were there at the same time..but its pretty close looking at it. He should have known better.

I liked Brookhart, Moorehead and Getsy group too. The Zips had some real firepower. I am hopeful that if this all works out Moorehead can get some real good defensive minds and talent evaluators. One guy I like is Todd Stoud if he's interested. Imagine excellence because if you don't you never will be excellent. As I said what a great game day experience, when you go to a game and know you can win and in fact expect to win. GO ZIPS.

... going forward, we should be referring to that as a 'safe space' foul.

Honestly, I don't think Walton was a good fit for this team. We just don't have the perimeter shooters on this roster to be able to get zero floor spacing from a guard. Having KJ and Tribble on the floor at the same time is like playing offense 4 vs 5 as teams know don't have to guard either on the perimeter. It makes it easy for them to double team Freeman in the low post to force him to pass out of a post up and prevent driving lanes to the hoop.

I like the Ball State message board a lot. They are funny and smart. My post on KJ got some comments over there. They read too much into my mid-game missive. Since they were confused, I will clarify: https://overthepylon.boards.net/thread/3891/walton-grad-transfer?page=3 1. Zips and KJ played like crap in Florida. They come back from Florida. KJ departs. The team plays exponentially better. So I draw conclusion, that the team gels better without him...at least for one game. 2. Yes, Groce is a high-level coach. He is better than Whitford, even though Whitford won all those MAC West Championships over the 4 directional schools and that shady Toledo squad. For me, Whitford was always one of my least favorite coaches who came to the JAR. 3. I was joking when I blamed Whitford for KJ's behavior, but Groce (unlike Whitford apparently) has a very low level of patience for egomaniacs.

An exciting win over a quality opponent, 5 pages on a single game thread and a new qualified head football coach. Good week to be a Zip.

The only reason Wynn saw the court was due to Bandaogo injuring his left hand when he was tossed to the court. Aziz played a few minutes in the second half early but spent the rest with an ice bag on his hand.

For all those Zips fans that complain about the refs, we got every call in the last minute of the game. X got a foul call when driving to the hoop, Marshall got called for a foul on Freeman under the basket on a rebound, Freeman got fouled on the dunk, a travelling call on Marshall on an offensive rebound, and the foul by Marshall on Freeman with 3.2 seconds left. Don't get me wrong, they were all fouls and violations in my eyes, but the refs rarely see the same things I do. However, the key to the game was Marshall missing on a one and one that would have sealed the game. And the Zips hitting their foul shots at the end of the game. We earned this game and a great victory for the Zips.

+1. He looked smooth, cool, calm & collected on a couple of very clutch free throws. Tough call. Probably not, but we could really use Kobe's shooting right now.

As lucky as Groce & Co. are for finding him, they deserve equal credit for developing him.

I don't have the energy at 3 a.m. EST (10:30 in the islands 😉) to search for it, but after the Arth firing one of the first posts on this or another thread mentioned coach Moorhead's name and stated (IIRC) that he wouldn't be available due to his health condition. I know nothing about this story. Could anyone with info please comment or post an article on this thread? Mahalo nui loa! And the Zip in Paradise won't be buying season tickets but hopefully the marketing dept can actually come up with gear for fans in Hawai'i nei.

Here's a comment!! 😬

OK, I will say it. There is no such thing as feminine logic.

Watched the interview with him from Oregon. Seems very confident. He wasn't just spewing out cliches like Arth and Stefansky. He has seen more than enough at all levels so probably not much will rattle him. Guess is he is going to be able evaluate what he is inheriting better than Arth and will be able to get things organized around what he has. Think Arth wasn't able to figure what he needed to do with the players he inherited and brought in. (I admit I thought Arth might be a decent hire. Wow!) Assuming this comes off I think the one thing Moorehead should be able to do is get the program to be more competitive than it has been the last 5 years or so. Probably not too many wins at first but at least competitive. Reup those season tix.

The Akron football legend going forward will be that late one night in the Summer of 2021, Charles Guthrie was perusing Zipsnation and came upon this "What about Joe Moorhead" thread and had his "AHA" moment.

Progress would be me wanting to go to a game