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So in a rebuilding year the Zips added two transfers from WVU, one from NC, one from OSU and another from Cornell. While also bringing in the top high school basketball player in the state of West Virginia? I'm so ready for this.

Awesome. I recall Lingard talking pretty highly of his experience at Akron later last season. Testament that it’s better to transfer to a school like Akron to show your capabilities rather than rot away on the bench at P5.

I was distracted a good portion of the time, but here were some things I gathered. Most of these names have already been mentioned that were held out: OL - Seymour and Shor WR - Adams, Wilson, Rush DL - L Jackson and Richards LB - Spriggs DB - Jarmon and Hunter QB - Finley is head and shoulders above the other quarterbacks. Bullock should be effective in situational setups, but the offense will struggle if he’s thrust into the starter role again. Roggow looked further along than Wasel to me. Take that with a grain of salt as it was only one day and one scrimmage. All the QBs have some mobility. RB - Definitely no one with the size or ability of Lingard, although Simmons had a nice run and will likely be the starter. No power backs on the roster may come back to bite us in short yardage situations. WR - Norton is the real deal at WR. I’m calling it now, All-MAC year coming his way. I thought JUCO transfer Campbell looked good too. It’s easy to see the upside in Louis and Davis. Not sure if they are quite ready to consistently contribute, but maybe they will have a strong summer and fall camp. TE - The TE group looked good blocking and receiving. This should be the best group of TEs to date. OL - The offensive line had their moments, but were overwhelmed for a substantial part of the scrimmage. To be fair, the defensive front is extremely impressive. Missing a player like Seymore can make a difference. James has come a long way at left tackle. Blachard also looked good. I saw redshirt freshman Mann pancake someone (didn’t get a number) and I think it was redshirt freshman Morris who crushed someone on a pulling block. All that being said, we are still not where we need to be along the OL. We have a chance to be decent if everyone is healthy and development continues, but the recent portal offers make sense. DL - Nunnally is a terror coming off the edge and seems to have added mass. Adler was the other starter at DE. The rotation of Lavea, Kapongo, and Moore at DT is incredibly stout. Easily one of the best (if not the best) interior DL rotations in the MAC this year. I also noticed Cheatom making some plays, but not entirely sure if he was lined up at DE or LB. LB - Linebackers basically blended with the DL, which is a good thing. We already know what have with McCoy, Fish, and Cooper. DB - The secondary looks long, physical, and athletic. I believe the starters were David and D. Johnson at Safety, D. Lewis at Nickel, Golden-Nelson and P. Lewis at Cornerback (I could be wrong on that though). Laing-Taylor easily had the most impressive play with an athletic interception. He covered ground quickly and made the diving snag. ST - I unfortunately managed to miss all the kicks (outside of the opening kickoff by Jackson), so I have nothing to report about special teams. All in all the program is in a great place. The team physically looks the part and much of the young talent is impressive. The defense should be one of the best units in the MAC. The offense has a chance to be really good if Finley is healthy and the OL progresses. There will certainly be more roster movement ahead, so we’ll see what happens.

Finley is legit. Hopefully we figure out a way to keep him healthy until the MAC games start.

Was really impressed by the whole scene today. Great weather, good crowd and some good football. Loved having the band there too, great atmosphere. Glad they had the pro shop and concessions open also. Football wasn’t perfect but really hard to tell where they are at this point.

There now. It's nice to get out in the fresh air and see some football. Perfect day. Nice to see they're still bombarding us with unnecessarily loud music. Oh, and get off my lawn.

I’ll tell you what makes me all warm inside. Improved shooting from deep gives the MAC refs less opportunity to manage the game. Oh, don’t get me wrong they will try…but they will fail.

Still a lot of players in the Portal, but we're #11 after our terrific class. Dru has done well in the past week. Good for him. Something interesting. Akron is 1 spot behind Indiana, who spent well north of $1M in NIL.

I told you about AD last year at WR he's NICE!!!!!!!!

Glad to hear the turnout was good. The University lacks effective marketing at times but a good spring game turnout shows there's some community excitement for the program. I didn't attend so I'll only be adding some random thoughts. - Would be cool if the University live streamed the game on GoZips.com or YouTube. Just set up some cameras, have a student run the switch (or even just have one camera with no angle changes), and let fans who couldn't attend view it. - WVU had Pat White & Pat McAfee coach their spring game. I wonder if we could get Hixon and Blackburn or some other OG Brookhart guys to come back and participate next year. - Can we move Bullock to TE?

My takeaways (and I’ll add that in my opinion it’s hard to take much from this with so many players rotating in and out): -seems like starting OL was James, Lyons, Williams, Davis, and Blanchard. Did not notice Shor in, but may have missed it. Same with Seymore. - like others have said, Finley seems like he’ll be the starter. Didn’t see anything in terms of bad decisions, and seemed to throw a good, accurate ball. Doesn’t look like Bullock has improved a whole lot. - I see Simmons and Kellom getting bulk of the carries with Williams a more distant #3. -saw some young guys looking like they’re more ready to contribute this year. James as mentioned, also Catrell White and Jean Louis look like they can play. Laing-Taylor had a nice int as others have said and I thought he had a nice hit on Paul Davis as well. - players I noticed not dressed included Phaizon Wilson, Alex Adams, Jarvis Rush, Iesa Jarmon, Kabbash Richards looking forward to reading other takeaways.

I was there for about an hour. Some quick impressions: * As someone mentioned before, Finely is more mobile than I expected. In very simple terms, he runs the ball better than Bullock passes it, so he appears to be the more complete QB. * The offensive line needs work. * The Roggow kid, the freshman QB, was surprisingly composed and effective. * A missed 22 yard field goal? Yikes.

Sniper yes, but he’s not 7 foot. I protest!! I kid. Very good. I will update the scholarship chart on Monday.

Ohio State transfer Bowen Hardman has committed to Akron.