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Good episode. Touches a little on everything. Even addressed the shaving “issue.”

I think it was a good, thorough assessment of the team. Zips fans will like Finley. He has some of Charlie Frye's traits, with the ability to both run and pass. He is slight of build, so hopefully he knows how to slide too. If he gets time in the pocket, he will hit WR's downfield. The Nunnaly, Fish, McCoy trio is our best hope to slow down Ohio State. They are three Big 10 caliber players. Bennett Adler looks to be in great shape. He's my all-MAC sleeper pick. Our OL is a complete unknown. I hope they surprise me. Their performance, and the injury bug, at the two most critical factors in the 2024 Zips going 3-9, or 6-6. We'll hit on 70% of our FG's this season. Who kicks them remains to be seen. I see Norton as the #1 WR this season. Adams is a question mark. He was not a factor in the scrimmages I watched. I think the other guys are solid, and Finley will have no problem finding open WR's to throw to. I like our DL in MAC play. Good size, depth and experience. CB's are a small concern. I like our safeties. If Kellom and Simmons stay healthy, we will be better at RB than last year. Both are capable of seamlessly replacing Lingard, and upgrades over Anderson. The fun starts on Saturday. Hope we get out of it injury-free, while having punched the Buckeye's in the nose a couple times.

Since the season is about to sart, I'll start psting some. I have been watching posts throught he summer. Some iteresting predictions on the board. First, its difficult to predict later season games until we see how badly physically beat up they are after the South Carolina game. OSU,Rutgers and SC are goung to physically pound them. OSU is going to show no mercy because Ryan Day is coaching for his job. South Carolina is going to be ugly. No chance against an improving Rutgers team. I wish the great minds in the AD's office would stop sacrificing football players for $$$. So who knows who will be standing on 9-14-24 and 9-28-24. With that said, too many other variables. Another new QB. Questionable O-line. Run game probably not as good. On defense, it will depend on who does or doesn't get injured. Healthy, it will be above average. I'm going 4-8 conservatively. I HOPE the wins are Colgate(but they are usually solid),BGSU,either EMU or Buffalo(not both) and hopefully KSU but not comfy witha one either. With an upset of one of OU, EMU or NIU might get to 5 at best. Just stop scheduling so many damn sacrifice games. I have no interest in watching the play OSU, Rutgers or SC. It not fair to the players. That said we will be at the home games with ear plugs in.😄

My expectations are Fire Everyone: Win less than 3 Underwhelmed: Win 3 Happy: Win 4 Very happy: Win 5 Throw a parade: Win 6😂 We will see I’m trying to not get myself too hyped I just want to see a spark before I graduate in spring 25 and something to build on for that 2025 schedule (that I hope remains in tact).

The previous two posts pretty much summed up my thoughts. There is unmistakable talent on this team (probably best defense in 7 or 8 years?), but 4-8 will be a very reasonable finish given the degree of difficulty. Oh and when scheduling our FCS home game, I would suggest avoiding teams with excellent tradition like Colgate - not smart.

I can hardly believe it. The ABJ actually ran a story about UA football: https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/sports/college/zips/2024/08/28/akron-zips-college-football-season-prevew-roster-coach-joe-moorhead/74922598007/

I used to get mad at this until I realized the University is getting out of the football program exactly what it wants. The football program is merely a fundraising organization for the athletic department and they don't care about winning. Once I realized this, it made discussing the program a lot easier.

That was a great podcast. Thanks for sharing @Blue & Gold Here’s a summary: Adapting to Modern Players (00:00-01:30): Moorhead emphasizes the importance of adapting leadership and coaching styles to the modern-day player, as traditional methods are no longer effective. Quarterback Leadership (01:31-02:45): Moorhead prefers a quarterback who is aggressive yet not reckless, with unquestionable confidence, rejecting the idea of a "game manager." Career Influences (02:46-04:00): Throughout various coaching positions, Moorhead has learned valuable lessons at each stop, with some of the most impactful experiences occurring at Penn State and Fordham. Penn State Turnaround (04:01-06:00): At Penn State, he helped instill confidence in an offense that previously struggled, particularly focusing on revitalizing the offensive line. Big Ten Championship Season (06:01-07:15): A turning point in the Big Ten Championship season was a pivotal moment during the Minnesota game, which led to a strong finish. Fordham Experience (07:16-09:00): As a head coach at Fordham, Coach learned how to manage time effectively and handle multiple responsibilities, helping to quickly turn around a struggling program. Adapting to NIL and Transfer Portal (09:01-10:30): He discusses the challenges of building a program in the current college football landscape, where the NIL and transfer portal have changed traditional recruiting and program-building methods. Program Building at Akron (10:31-12:00): Coach acknowledges the difficulty of balancing the need for immediate wins with the long-term goal of building a sustainable program culture at Akron. Mississippi State Reflections (12:01-14:00): Reflecting on his time at Mississippi State, Moorhead highlights the contrast between public perception and the actual achievements, emphasizing lessons learned from that experience. Future of College Football (14:01-15:30): Moorhead speculates that college football may see a split between schools that can afford to invest heavily in their programs and those that cannot, due to the growing financial disparities.

game starts at 5 pm...as Western Michigan has no lights Does anyone know if the game will have a cost to view the video.,........when you click on video for the Akron game in their schedule...it directs you to bronco all access TV they have not posted a preview for the Akron game...I have posted the preview that they did for home opener against Vermont....that preview says that game was on ESPN + https://wmubroncos.com/news/2024/8/21/mens-soccer-mens-soccer-set-to-host-14-university-of-vermont-in-season-opener.aspx preview for Thursday Aug 22 game KALAMAZOO, Mich. – #12 Western Michigan University men's soccer team begins the 2024 campaign Thursday, August 22, at 5:30 PM against #14 University of Vermont at WMU Soccer Complex. Thursday's match will be available on ESPN+. Top Drawer Soccer was very impressed by Western Michigan as the Broncos defeated two teams ranked in pre season top 15 of coaches poll (I think New Hampshire was 9 in coaches poll and 17 in Top drawer soccer pre season poll. I did not realize that WMU lost their 2 best scorers and all 4 of their defensive backs. small cut and paste from Top Drawer soccer article linked below Team to Watch: Western Michigan As highlighted in the article from early spring, Western Michigan finds a way to keep exceeding expectations. The Broncos were supposed to take a step back this year or at the least start the season slow after graduating the country’s leading goal scorer, Charlie Sharp, No. 3 in the nation, Dylan Sing, along with the entire backline and seven starters from last year’s NCAA third round team. Instead, Western Michigan opened its 2024 campaign by defeating No. 14 Vermont at home, then traveling to No. 17 New Hampshire and leaving with a 1-0 win. Redshirt freshman center-back Christian Shannon earned POTW honors for his performance, while junior Connor Buckett came in as a substitute to score in both games. https://www.topdrawersoccer.com/article/?categoryId=21&articleId=53732&articleTitle=best-of-mens-college-soccer-week-one

It would be nice. Proenza certainly bragged that he could do it, but I just don't know how UA could make the jump to being a highly selective college. You have the 9K freshman class gorilla in the room that still has an average SAT score of around 1400. You have Miami with an average of 1280 soaking up a bunch more qualified kids. And then you have UC starting to get close to Miami in selectivity, though I've heard that they are going with a quantity over quality trend lately. Add in the kids going private or out of state, and Ohio's demographics simply don't allow for a many very selective public universities like California has with the UC system. It sucks, but it really is UA, KSU, OU, BGSU and Toledo cannibalizing each other for the leftovers. It doesn't mean that our group doesn't win the occasional battle, but it's never going to enough to truly move the needle. And besides, not every public university in a state system should strive to be highly selective. Selective enough that the kids accepted are capable of doing the work, but not everyone gets to be Berkeley.

Hope our fighting Hawaii Polo’s play hard and have a good game!

What dicks!

I wouldn’t pay a subscription fee to Cleveland.com for their “journalism,” but it looks like they have a nice article being condescending to their local FBS team. Much of which is made up of players from Greater Cleveland who have worked their tails off to fulfill their dream of playing at the D1 level. https://www.cleveland.com/osu/2024/08/five-players-ohio-state-football-fans-should-worry-about-from-its-season-opening-opponent.html

Must be becuase they are playing Ohio state .

This team has enough talent to win 5 or 6, but so far under Moorhead they haven’t learned how to win. For that reason I am going with 3-9 (Colgate, Buffalo, & Kent). I hope I am wrong.

The UA residence halls are indeed sold out every year. Overall enrollment, as has been discussed in other posts, is way down due to a number of factors, including a nationwide downward trend in college enrollment (except for the "elite" universities and large land-grant "flagship" universities like Ohio State). NE Ohio is the perfect storm of larger national trends: a stagnant economy, a declining population, fewer academically viable males enrolling (fewer males surviving year one if they do enroll), and a lot of nearby competition: UA, KSU, CSU, YSU all within 50 miles of each other plus a lot of private institutions.

I suspect part of that is trying to keep up Taj's confidence for when they need him.

It should...but why should I get mad at a perennial 2-10 (in a good year) team that isn't really showing any prospects of improving on that mark?

OSU main campus is already very selective in both general admissions and for specific colleges. My son had a 3.7 GPA and good ACT and OSU-main admitted him, but he could not get into the College of Engineering. He also didn't care for the whole OSU environment/culture (he is not interested in athletics or the Greek system, etc.). He chose The Univerity of Akron for many great reasons. I just wish more kids would look to UA as a destination.

A leader takes responsibility as Jared did in his post game interview last night. We also know that those "many things" won were accomplished with different staff. Men's Soccer has not been where it was since 2018 as another noted on this board.

Ever since 2018, when we got off to a bad start then caught fire and made it the NCAA finals, where we lost to a Maryland team which did not give up a goal in the entire tournament , the Zips have been on a slow but steady decline

No way to whitewash that disaster. If not for Mitch Budler, it would have been worse. I think that's the most unprepared I've ever seen our Men's Soccer team. No way blOSU is that good. Zips were atrocious.

This looks like it is going to be a repeat of last year. Just cannot score. Teams just put pressure on us deep in our end of the field, we just cannot move it to midfield without a great deal of difficulty. That big crowd will drop very rapidly now.

Went to the Dispatch for game info and saw that OSU's freshman class is now over 9K. That's absurd. With the enrollment issues around the system, the state should think seriously about capping their class sizes to free up students for other schools. They would become even more selective, and the other schools would have a pool of very well qualified kids to attract.

New head cross country coach: Evans Kiptoo "Kiptoo comes to Akron after serving as the Head Cross Country coach for the men’s and women’s programs at the University of North Alabama a season ago."

If you can dodge traffic on Exchange, you can dodge a ball.

Zips Lady Dodgeball - A true Underdog Story. Has a nice ring to it. I wonder if it would make a great movie title?

Lorenzo Lingard did not make the 53 man roster for the NY Giants. He was cut yesterday.