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A couple of years ago, I was very happy we signed Norrils. He was a 1st team all state RB from a smaller school at Toledo Central Caholic. I was correct in my assessment because he showed promise as a R-Fr in several games. Then, I was content to get Williams as a transfer even though he did not have much success last season. Now, we have a commit in Charles Kellom from St. X out of Cincinnati. I went back and watched his films, and this guy is a stud. He was first team D1 all state. St. X played a very challenging schedule, so the competition was very good. He ran for over 1400 yards in his senior season. But the key stat that I saw was that he did not play in the second half of 7 of his senior year games because of blowouts. Doing some simple extrapolation, if he played full games, he would have had over 1800 yards of rushing which is a phenomenal amount. Pulling all of this together, I think that Coach has secured a franchise running back for Akron. Let's get him signed and on the field ready to play. My guess is that he will see time later his freshman season and be an all MAC player by time he is a junior. In Joe We Trust!!!

Congrats to Luke Getsy for becoming the Chicago Bears Offensive Coordinator

I thought I would take advantage of the down week and see if I could learn more about Ryan Prather Jr. Here is what I found. https://gozips.com/news/2021/11/15/mens-basketball-ryan-prather-jr-inks-nli-for-akron-mens-hoops.aspx https://www.dmvelite.com/news_article/show/1140502 https://ncpreps.rivals.com/news/is-ryan-prather-jr-the-next-big-name-in-north-carolina-hoops- https://www.prephoops.com/2019/07/recruiting-report-ryan-prather-jr-2021/ Twitter: https://nitter.net/_RyanPrather Commitment announcement on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CWO6lSMsG4e/?utm_medium=copy_link High school junior year highlights. ( #24 ) https://www.hudl.com/video/3/9889459/5e73c340dfd9da1a9cb4f0ba AAU ball highlights ( #20 ) Liberty Heights Athletic Institute ( Post-graduate season / 2021-22 ) White jersey, #10 Warning: The first thirteen minutes of this video is terrible. Nice steal and dunk by Prather Jr. at the 1:18:00 mark He starts the game, second appearance 22:00, third appearance 40:40, final appearance 1:02:00.

I really need to keep reminding myself that this is not the team Groce came into camp with, nor is the team that started the season. This team may well have been 10 to 12 deep squad with pressure on defense and an up tempo offense but between the injuries, Covid, Walton's meltdown and Wynn, the team had to really make some major adjustments and changes and maybe that's where the staff deserves some credit. Despite all of that, they're still 13-6/6-3 and in the mix.

Both of them were struggling from significant injuries at the beginning of training camp. By the time they were healthy it was too late for them to realistically be contributors this season.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/bears-expected-to-hire-packers-assistant-luke-getsy-as-offensive-coordinator-and-name-ian-cunningham-as-assistant-gm/ar-AAThYnj?ocid=msedgntp

Excellent information. Had no idea. Thank you. Makes me feel better about the state of the program going forward. Groce can't catch a break between COVID killing the 2019-20 season, and injuries.

Agreed. My biggest critique has been the guard play, as it's a guard league/game, and Groce typically has a stud guard that can take over the game. X has vastly improved as the season has worn on, consistent with his confidence growth. I think he can be probably 80-90% of what LCJ/Cooper were, but really lacks the supporting cast on the offensive side. Really disappointed our 2 scoring freshman guards apparently aren't thought to be good enough to contribute more than the pieces we have from a scoring standpoint.

What a beautiful example of playing together nicely in the same ZNO sandbox. Zipmeister got his "very" removed and BigJim got to use it on our stellar recruit Charles Kellom. An inspiring moment that is sure to bring a tear to any poster's eye. I need a tissue😥.

At .20, we learn that he knows how to flop.

I believe you are correct (even though he did play his 2021 year against a slightly less than very challenging schedule).

Looks like another OL commit with ties to Cinci one way or another per a tweet from J Rodriguez

If I was a recruiter I'd also want to know how a kid plays in between his highlights.

Sounds good; first team state D1 is impressive, but I'm not sure how a high school schedule that includes 7 blowouts can be classified as very challenging.

All of the other top MAC teams have that guard that gets them 18 to 20 points every night. Toledo has Rollins; OU has Sears; Brimfield has Insincere; and Canada has Williams. Don't get me wrong, I like Castaneda but he hasn't been that guy and Trimble is a streaky specialist. I like that they share the ball but the fact than no one on the team averages 14 points is troubling.

While killing time waiting for the next big Zips recruiting news, I visited the transfer portal and focused on the MAC from a slightly different perspective than I did last time. The punter/kicker who committed to the Zips is not listed on 247 or here (probably a walk-on) but would be classified as a LOWER.

Thank you. I was so wrong. When I looked at 247, I saw he was committed to Akron and had no interest in the other schools. After seeing your correction, I drilled down and saw all of the offers like you posted. Now I am convinced we got 3 stud freshman offensive linemen. Thanks again for the update and correction. I am so looking forward to the late signing day. In Joe We Trust!!!

IDK about ya'll, but I'm enjoying the Guthrie experience thus far. Hoping we can keep him here long term if he continues on the current trajectory.

I was disappointed in that going into the game everyone on here was in agreement that we needed to focus on shutting down Carry and make others beat us. Yet we didn't shut down Carry. Kent was obviously focussed on running us off the line and they executed and did precisely that. Trimble was ice cold and I believe Dawson only took one, difficult, 3 all night. Kent had a game plan & executed. It didn't look like we had any specific plan to even try to slow down Carry, let alone execute said plan. We made zero adjustments (from what I could tell) throughout the course of the game. Kent also punked us on the boards. Still quite bummed this a.m.