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I don't care if we lose this game, but I need to see 2 things. - Middle of the field passes - More touches for our RBs

Where to start? Going to do a little different format this week. Offense: - From what I could see on tv, it looked like UK was not going to let us beat them over the top and were willing to give up some underneath options. That being said, the few deep shots we took were poorly thrown. UK also got plenty of pressure on DJI by bringing just 4 rushers most of the time. DJI actually did a nice job maneuvering in the pocket considering all the pressure he was under. More on that below… - The OL had their worst game of the season. The OTs struggled all night. The interior of the OL was better than the OTs in pass pro but struggled with UK’s blitzes, which usually coincided with a 3rd down. Of the 34 pass attempts, DJI was pressured for 25+. - If we’re going to take all of the underneath throws, the ball placement has to be accurate enough to allow the receivers to catch, turn, and potentially create yards after catch. Basically, no deep ball = no explosive pass plays, unless they are created by YAC. Too often the ball was catchable but not thrown where the receiver had a chance to make further advancement. To compound the issues, perimeter blocking was as bad as I’ve seen under this staff. - This offense is not good enough (at this time) to overcome penalties. Once we get into 3 and 9 or longer, it’s basically a dead drive. - I sound like a broken record but Lingard and D. Anderson need the ball more. Whether that’s in the run game or passing game, they need the ball. Defense: - The defense did enough to keep it a game. Unfortunately, the sack that turned into a touchdown was a backbreaker and the offense did little to help the D throughout the contest. - Consistent play came from Nunnally, T. Jones, KJ Martin, Tallandier, and Lewis. Although, Lewis did get beat on one TD. - Our DL held their own against UK’s OL. As far as pressure goes, Zips had nearly as much on UK as against Morgan State. - It may have seemed like there were a lot of missed tackles, but that’s misleading as they came in bunches. We had 13 for the game, which is what we average on the season. Really not much else to say here. It was a wasted effort that ended up with a lopsided score. Special Teams: - The punt muff can’t happen. - The missed FGs are disappointing, but heck of a job by the holder getting the high snap down on the made FG. - Jackson was fine (not great) punting the ball. - Nice job by the punt team recovering UK’s muffed punt. - Kick off coverage was solid. Defense and special teams forced a combined 3 turnovers which should have been enough to keep us in the game. Until the offense gets on track, it’ll be more of the same. UK’s talent level helped exploit some of the same issues we had last week.

Try the Akron Greyhound station on South Broadway.

"Guthrie mentioned how Freeman used his business experience from school and the MBA program to set up some NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) deals. Freeman said he has a shirt deal with Barstool and also a deal with Topps." Dunk shirt

it is definitely overpriced. But, it is definitely worth it....to see the games......following live stats only is torture I am very glad that I took the plunge and paid the cost Chad talks with the coaches and the players....and is passionate for the first 4 or 5 games, they showed a feature at halftime....where each player introduces himself...tells where they are from...and an interesting or funny fact about themselves it is really enjoyable to watch... the impressive Joel Sangwa shares that he speaks 4 languages someone is a chess grand master...I think it is Ashton Kamdem ryan kopay..number 28...says I am really good at ping pong josh hardin...number 29...follows Ryan and says ...I am much better at ping pong than Ryan Kopay... Josh Hallenberger and Josef Paulus are hilarious with a deadpan face, Josh Hallenberger says he loves to take long walks on the beach with Josef Paulus when they get to Josef Paulus, Joey says I love to prank Josh Hallenberger on a daily basis hope you get to see all of the players talk at halftime It would be great if Akron Athletics would put the player introductions up on their you tube page so that all season ticket holders could see

Kind of a weird game where the score doesn't tell the whole story. Defense played well. Pretty incredible plays from Davis and Leary made it look a little worse than reality. If you're going to give a superior team a game, you can't shoot yourself in the foot. Muffed punt, dropped 3rd down pass while driving by Adams, illegal man downfield on a huge 4th down gain, and an unreliable kicker and last night is what you'll get. Still don't understand this offense at all. DJ played fine (in terms of accuracy and decision making) from what I could see, but he still looks timid/timing off. All those beatings the past few years probably had a last affect on psyche. We have to find a way to open up the offense more. We have zero vertical passing attack. Think the offense will open up once we can establish that. I just don't know if the issue is QB not seeing guys, coaching staff limiting play-calling due to personnel limitations, OL not being able to protect long enough, our the WRs just not getting open. Probably a combination of all of the above. Has Bullock even played the last 2 games? Odd to use him like we did against Temple then seemingly go away from it. What shouldn't get lost in all the frustration, (and not to excuse our issues) is that Kentucky did exactly what they were supposed to do to us. Some of that was self-inflicted which can be fixed. We have a lot of issues offense, but I think still plenty of options and some more time to get those figured out, and we have the head coach to do it. Its not like last night was Temple kicking the pee out of us. The season is only ever about conference play, just get the crap fixed by then. Would like to see us give Indiana a game next week. They aren't good. We can if the staff can find a way to spark the offense. The time to panic isn't when we're losing to superior opponents like we're supposed to. Conference play, at least for the foreseeable future is where we should be really judging the program.

2 seasons…you’re splitting hairs. He was the head coach in all those games that I listed and they are on his record.

FIFY?

And Kentucky & Indiana are exactly the type of beatable P5 teams we should be scheduling... but we don't have the team to take advantage of it 😩

I don’t expect to win these games against Power 5 teams but it would be nice to at least put up a fight and not get completely embarrassed. Every year there are non power 5 fbs teams being competitive and beating power 5 teams yet we can’t even not get humiliated. Hell, even a lot of FCS teams are competing much better than the Zips. So far in Joe’s 2 years here’s how it looks: Sparty 52-0 Tenn 63-6 Ky 35-3 For those scoring at home, that’s 150-9 with Zero touchdowns scored ! 🤮

We rank 102/130 in penalty yards per game. Meaning only 28 teams have more yards per game given up for penalties than we do. https://www.ncaa.com/stats/football/fbs/current/team/698/p3

Has this really been that big of an issue? I posted in the other thread that crap like this seems to be amplified by the offensive struggles. Maybe I'm so focused on our offense being "cheeks" (shaht aht Pat McAfee Show) I'm missing a penalty issue. I will add one more thing. - Golden not on PR/KR

The MAC is still in need of its annual Big 10 win. And, we could do Indiana fans a favor in making Tom Allen's seat even hotter.

If you go to the Big East web site (bigeast.com) and select "Sports" and then "Soccer", there is a menu option for "BEDN on FloSports". If you follow that link, it looks like you can get the soccer only package for $14.99 a month.

I bit the bullet for it. If you like Akron Soccer then it's worth $30/month. I'm not able to make all the matches... and often simply choose not to attend in person when the weather turns... so it's nice to be able to not miss the action. The audio is only Chad Welker commentating... he does a better job than I would... but... it's underwhelming. The video is good. I'm definitely going to drop the subscription at the end of the season & then pick it up again next year.

It's not about "calming down" and it's not about being an overly negative Nancy troll. It's about being frustrated. Did anyone expect Akron to beat Kentucky coming into the season? No. However, it was circled with a "maybe" next to it based on what we saw from our offense last year. What we are witnessing is a complete regression on offense that is way closer to Arth Ball than supposed JoeMo Ball. That is what's so damn frustrating about that game last night. We're an embarrassment on the side of the ball that draws interest, draws fans, and is supposed to be the absolute strength of the head coach. What's even more frustrating is Kentucky tried to, at the very least, allow that game to be a one score loss if not an Akron upset. It was right there for most of the game, and only got away from us after we failed to capitalize on a plethora of opportunities. Our offense looks like I'm watching with DirecTV from the mid-00s on a stormy day - constantly buffering, never smooth. Gaining 2 yds is incredibly difficult and everything is side to side - not up the field. It's one of the worst offenses I've ever witnessed, and that's not hyperbole. To top it off, we have don't have a reliable, DI kicker, so even 3 points on a stalled drive is difficult. I don't care as much about the shoot-yourself-in-the-foot crap; those few plays are amplified with every play mattering in our garbage offense. Our defense will win us some games this year, and I'm hoping we have enough on offense to win a few more in the MAC. But man, I am incredibly frustrated right now. I expected to progress this year, not regress, at least offensively.

What's really discouraging is that I flipped over to the Colorado - Colorado State game after we allowed UK to beat us, and the difference in speed, pursuit, aggressiveness, physicality, general skill, and offensive sophistication is on a whole different level, and it's glaringly obvious, even on tv. If Colorado - Colorado State is D1, UK was playing D2, and we were at what might be expected for low D2 or D3. Both of these teams would smoke UK and make us look like we don't even belong on the same field. As an example, the velocity and accuracy of the passes in this game are closer to NFL quality than they are to what I observed in UK-Akron. Unbelievable that there appears to be this much of a gap!

Great article from Terry. The University has a list of players from the last 2 decades that need their jerseys in the rafters soon. Zeke, LCJ, and Freeman. Special era of Zips basketball. Impressive team GPA as well.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CxG5AsBRUF-/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== Sharron Young, looks like on a second visit to UA.