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I would be remiss in failing to applaud our coaching staff for making two critical in-game adjustments. Alejandro Varela entered the match at HT, playing HMF. Our offense immediately opened up and stayed open for the rest of the match. He is adept at efficiently distributing the ball from defense to offense, mostly on the floor. And keeping possession. And playing a very receivable ball. Somewhat counter-intuitively, Nano is only average at 1v1 defending, but his defensive positioning is good enough. HMF is not all about defending. He reminds me of Wil Trapp, which is high praise in my book. This match was Nano's best (so far) for Zips. Sometime in the last half hour Zips changed formation to a 3-man back line. Joel Sangwa reentered the match at RCB, I guess one would call it. 3-2-4-1 ?? 3-2-3-2 ?? I'm asking. This gave us an extra body in the offense. It also limited our opportunities for monkey-spanking along the back line. We play the ball laterally across the back too much for my taste. The 3-man back line serves to save us from ourselves. This begs the question: Should we play a 3-man back line from the starting whistle? If 3 of our best 11 players are CBs, then maybe so. Daragh Reilly is making it a legitimate question.

Top drawer soccer says that Akron has a new recruit for 2024 midfielder from NYCFC https://www.topdrawersoccer.com/club-player-profile/thomas-orourke/pid-126333

Very lackluster first half performance from the Zips. Credit to Embick and the staff at half time because the difference in the team after the break was easy to see. Zips were flying from 2nd half onwards. I always felt that we could score goals with Paulus, Shokalook and Malik playing in the attack. By the end of the 90, I felt we deserved to win. A lot of opportunities for goals with the Prov goalkeeper making 2 nice saves on Shokalook head chances. Also, seeing Will Jackson playing striker brought back some memories!

One of the interesting things about being in the Big East is, they seem to treat men's soccer as a major sport, and the referee was new to Akron matches. The ref assts were local as was the 4th. They spent a lot of time pre-match walking the field, with the Big Guy pointing things out, measuring things, talking to timing, ball handlers, game staff, way before kickoff. I'd love your opinion on FloSports broadcast, but they certainly had a nice production presence, and the League had personnel at FES. The only time you ever saw MAC staff at a match was during the tournament. Long lead in into your question, I know... The other interesting thing was the presence of VAR, something I've never seen used at FES, the MAC or last year's NCAA. And both Penalties were reviewed by VAR and by two of the 3 on-field officials. So, I would tend to think they must not have been bogus, given the video confirmation. Maybe the VAR was inconclusive and didn't over rule. But boy, "Welcome to The Big East" has sure been an eye-opener as to the professionalism, and for the competition.

Feeling it, so went ahead and placed a bet on Zips Moneyline! (For 50 cents)

Follow up on Seymore. He’s enrolled, but won’t play until next year.

Bring back Overtime!

I love that story. I still say if a ref did not call a questionable offensive foul for a moving screen on him with 3 minutes left against UCLA fouling him out Akron would have had their first NCAA tournament victory.

Stopped at two distilleries today. At both places someone recognized my Z-logo shirt and struck up a conversation about the game tomorrow. Fun to visit areas where they follow their local team.

Interesting read

Golden must never return another punt.

We are not the only team with QB problems. 10th ranked Alabama has used 3 quarterbacks in the first half only scoring 3 points trying to find somebody who can move the team against Central Florida.

Stefan Dobrijevic has made a tremendous amount of improvement from his first year to his 2nd year. This hard working young man....just keeps earning more and more playing time. Congratulations, Stefan. I can not say enough good things about tri-captain Josef Paulus. When I first saw the Hinckley native play, I never expected that he would become a super key player for the Akron Zips. Josef has improved an incredible amount during his time at Akron U. Josef has become a great leader on the field.

Game day, let's go Zips!!!

@Reslife4Life I tried to give you a thumbs down, but ZNo instead put up a heart. For some reason it will not allow me to change it. I write this opinion with the full realization that many will disagree. NCAA should adopt all FIFA rules and regulations that are not directly against NCAA charter. Play the real game. One of those rules is the draw, which was wisely adopted last year (?) by NCAA. In a compressed schedule, playing every 4 days, students need not play an extra half hour. More importantly, a draw, or splitting of the points, is a venerable and integral facet of the sport that never should have been tampered with in the first place. There are things in this world that are not improved by Americanization. Add up the points at the end of the season. 3 for victory; 1 for draw. In so many ways Futbol is different from other sports. The drama of the draw is accentuated by the sport's inherently low scoring. Who among us did not jump to our feet when Daragh Reilly scored? And did the Zips deserve to win? Meh... probably not so much. For whatever it is worth, I think Zips would have won in sudden death OT. We had momentum at the end.

This was a wild and woolly affair! Whew! Welcome to the Big East, Zips! Where even the average teams can whip your ass. Zips barely deserved to split the points, but something must be said for hanging tough and fighting back. From my vantage in my home office (basement), both PK awards were bogus. No? Our defense was awful in the first half. This is starting to look like a trend, a bad one. We must become more disciplined in the back. We will take the point. Onward and upward!

Outlook from the Kentucky insiders.

GOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAL, 3-3.

Zips give it right back. This has been somewhat of a trend the last few seasons, give up a goal late in the hald

In my best Brent Musberger voice - “You are looking live at the fourth floor of the Staybridge Suites in beautiful Lexington Kentucky…”

Anyway.... The Zips Women won at Niagara 1-0 yesterday on a goal by Emma King

Very good read and instructive for some, I hope. Some want Akron to run more. The type of offense they play has a run in it every time they line up. The defense dictates run or pass, not the offense. Running for the sake of running will fail when the defense is lined up to stop it. I suffered through the last years of Jim Grobe at Wake Forest and saw first hand how this running for the sake of running fails. The rest of the world moved to RPO and Grobe was still blasting the fullback into the line for one yard gains. It was insanity. They brought in an RPO coach, which attracted better QBs/WRs and have now won the second most games in the ACC since 2018 after a choppy start for Clawson. The Zips have a great offensive scheme. The problem is execution. If Akron can get the passing game in a better place by completing passes short, medium and long, the running game will open. If not, well......

McCoy had no idea he was right at the QBs feet