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From our perspective, the music volume was very good, not too loud, but loud enough to get the fans excited. But the big difference was the quality of music. Mostly all R & R, hardly any "thuggish" stuff. And pretty much PG rated, no R stuff. And it wasn't on every play like the last two seasons. I, we thought the overall GameDay experience was so much better than last season or two. I couldn't understand (nor could the family sitting behind us) why there wasn't more entry points open to the stadium, and there were a lot of frustrated people waiting in line during the first quarter. We got there waaaay early because we also went to the men's soccer match, and stuck around campus between the games. Not sure what the official attendance was, but to us it looked about 9 to 10,000 actual "Butts-in-seats". The Marching band seemed larger this year as well and they were their usual excellent selves. In-game promos and time out appearances by groups on field were great too and well timed. Nice to see our Paralympic Silver medalist! Good stuff!

QB - Finley displayed how effective he can be when given time. Even though Finley did miss a few throws and was quick to scramble on a few others (I don’t blame him) he finally had the opportunity to exhibit how this offense can operate. Finley finished with a 65% completion rate, 358 yards, and 4 touchdowns vs 1 interception. For comparison, those are similar numbers that DJI had during his All-MAC year in 2022. RB - The offense was lopsided in this area. The backs averaged nearly 4 yards per attempt, but only carried the ball 20 times. We threw the ball 44 times and Finley scrambled (sacked twice) 11 other times. One of the sacks given up was a direct result of one of the RBs (I think Simmons) getting beat again. Simmons and Kellom are effective options with the ball in their hands, but pass protection continues to be an issue. WR - Norton is a star in the making. His play from last week carried over, which was good to see. Golden also continues to make plays when the ball comes his way. Kellom was a reliable receiving option out of the backfield and created a touchdown. TE - Newell collected nearly every snap at tight end and had his best performance of the season. OL - While the OL was definitely better against Colgate than the first two matchups, I hoped for more. Seymore was excellent at LG and looked the part of a former P5 lineman playing against lesser competition. Williams was solid at center. That’s about where it stopped as far as what an FBS OL should consistently look like. Blanchard and Shor at LT, James and Thomas at RT, Davis and Burrell at RG, all had their moments but the consistency must improve. There were too many times when 4 of the linemen would do their part and 1 lineman got beat. I’ve mentioned Delvin Morris in the past and he’s a guy to monitor. He split time at C and LG and did well. I expect he will continue to receive more snaps. DL - The DL overwhelmed Colgate for much of the contest, holding the Raiders to only 84 rushing and 159 passing yards. Nunnally was a menace the entire game and finally got his first sack of the season. Lavea and Moore were effective despite seeing double teams for much of the game. Kapongo had his best game to date. The concern I have is outside of Nunnally, Lavea, and Moore, we struggled to create pressure, even on blitzes. LB - McCoy and Fish played almost every significant snap with Cooper out. The duo was strong as usual, although Fish did miss a few tackles he normally makes. I was surprised Spriggs and Benenge did not receive more snaps. CB - A number of different cornerbacks got work and not just in “garbage time.” Jarmon and DeWalt saw significant action. Kentucky transfer Elijah Reed got his first work of the season and looks like he could eventually be a difference maker judging by his length and the way he moves. White got the start, but didn’t have his best showing. Golden-Nelson and Hunter performed well. S - P. Lewis was excellent. The former Cornell transfer was all over the field and bringing it on tackles. D. Lewis started at the opposite safety spot in David’s absence and played well. When Roach came on the field, D. Lewis slid back to Nickel. I was surprised Anderson did not see more time at safety after his performance last week. ST - Definitely not their best showing this week. The poor decision on a punt return and shanked punt gave Colgate scoring opportunities. Credit Colgate for taking advantage of the early mistakes that were made. Those mistakes against good teams will result in losses. I wanted to see the OL be dominant. It was by far their best showing this season, yet still was not overly impressive. We have a solid duo on the interior with Seymore and Williams. Blanchard is usually solid at LT as well. We need someone to step up at the right guard and right tackle spots soon. Next week, this team will be overmatched (again) and go against one of the better pass rushing units in the SEC. I’m not expecting much. Just get out of the game healthy, wipe the final score from memory, and focus on conference play. Playing this out-of-conference schedule did us no favors from a competitive and health standpoint. We’ll be right at 1-3, where almost every one thought we would be. In my opinion, the true measure of this year’s team starts against Ohio. QB: Finley Bullock RB: Simmons Kellom WR: Norton Davis WR: Golden Rush WR: Polk Granger TE: Newell Cravaack LT: Blanchard Shor LG: Seymore Morris George C Williams Morris RG: Davis Burrell RT: James Thomas DE: Nunnally Cheatom DT: Lavea Murphy DT: Kapongo Moore DE: Adler Ball Richards LB: Fish Benenge LB: McCoy Spriggs NB: Greenwood D. Lewis CB: Golden-Nelson DeWalt Reed CB: White Hunter Jarmon S: P.Lewis Anderson S: D. Lewis Roach Top Offensive Players (25 or more snaps) WR - Golden (was Seymore) RB - Kellom (was Golden) LG - Seymore (was Newell) WR - Norton RB - Simmons (was James) Top Defensive Players (25 or more snaps) DE - Nunnally S - P. Lewis S - D. Lewis CB - Golden-Nelson DT - Lavea (was Kapongo) Top Special Teams (10 snaps or more) CB - DeWalt RB - Castleberry S - R. Hunter S - Conroy S - T. Thomas

Akron's brand hasn't severely degraded. They've elevated to the Big East and still possess national notoriety. They are 14 years removed from a National Championship and only 6 years removed from their 3rd National Title Game appearance in 9 seasons (at the time). They had 5 College Cup appearances from 2009-2018. We have one of the nicer soccer facilities in the country and can have some of the best fan support. The Akron brand is fine. The issue is, the further Embick gets away from the Porter era, the worse the program gets. I'm well aware the grass isn't always greener, but I'm seeing a "comfortable" coach and program, not a hungry one. I believe Akron would easily be able to attract a hungry coach that can get this program back to where it needs to be - where we expect it to be.

If you listen to Moorehead's post game, he did address two of those things. Number one. He said he didn't run as much because Colgate was stacking the box and he said it doesn't make a lot of sense to run at a defense where you have less blockers than they have defenders on the run. As far as the lack of discipline on the penalties, he was upset about it too and said he has not done as good a job as he should coaching to make sure that those kinds of things do not occur.

Have a little different take on that game. Haven't seen a QB make throws like Finley maybe since the Frye/Getsy era. The 56 yarder he threw to Golden, (I believe) was beautiful. He was getting beat up again because the O line still isn't much good at pass protection. Finley sometimes scrambles a little too quickly. But sometimes its self preservation. Moorehead's' lets kindly say strange play calling(I have a different word in mind) is contributing to Finley getting beat up. Moorehead better realize that if Finley goes down for any length of time his offense is toast. He has two quality RB's but won't use them consistently. Even Joe Dunn was wondering out loud why Akron wasn't running the ball more especially in the 2nd half. Wide receivers looked good for the most part. They have a QB who can get the ball to them. Defense was adequate against lesser competition. Still getting gouged on the ground too much. Colgate O line 'looked' bigger than Akron's defense. Db's looked good. Again, against lesser competition. Finally have a punter and kicker who can contribute. The lack of discipline on the field reared its ugly head again. Dumb, preventable penalties. I guess Moorehead isn't going to deal with it. New scoreboard was nice. Free T shirts nice. Granddaughter had a great time. I fear for Finley's health against S.Carolina. He is already hurting. If I'm the head coach as soon as it starts to get out of hand I sit Finley and some other starters and point to OU in Athens.

Crap. My friends didn't forget.

Toledo really kicked the poop out of them. With the new playoff system, the October 19 Toledo @ NIU game could be huge. Before that, Toledo has to get by a good WKU team this coming weekend. It's amazing what a program can do when they prioritize the athletes students alumni fans and general community around their school. Toledo is a substantiative college football program.

Watched a good bit of Toledo demolishing Miss. State. Akron and a number of other MAC programs can only dream of achieving at that level. Didn't realize Jason Candle had been there 10 years according to the announcers. Vince Kheres on the staff. Don't see that kind of success ever happening at Akron. The commitment to building a Toledo type operation has never existed here since Akron went to full D1. Sad.

Why the heck are the Zips throwing with 2 minutes left in the game? Run the clock out and end this. Even though I picked Colgate to cover, I want this game to be over with.

We have come out flat in the second half. Finley looks very clunky running the RPO. He is more of a straight back passer and has been accurate when he just drops back and throws the ball.

I am so depressed right now about the quality of Akron soccer......I do not understand your comment. What is TOS? I am old....and don't understand acronyms. What are you trying to say?

Being concerned about the choice the AD might make is not reason to stay with this trajectory. Who thought when Ken Lolla left, we would do better?

I'll wager (and give you 5 to 3 odds up to a million - even money on anything over that) that most people find the discussion of some other topic more tedious than gambling stats. For double or nothing, the over/under on the exact percentage is 60%.

Has anything become more tedious than discussing gambling stats? I'm so over it.

I am very unhappy with Embick's comments in the press conference. He blames the players and offers no constructive ideas on what the coaches can do to help this team get back to winning Akron soccer. He has been the head coach for the last 12 years. He has to take responsibility for how this team is performing. It is not the first year that teams coached by this coaching staff has underachieved. This is the 6th year for this coaching staff and they have not won a single NCAA tournament game during their tenure. Furthermore, if you look at 2023, the coaching staff and players won 9 out of 18 games. YTD 2024, they have won 1 game out of 7. That is 10 wins out of the last 25 games played (that is 40 percent). It is time for the head coach to stop blaming players for not communicating on the field, falling asleep and not being able to score. I can understand his frustration. However, he should not be throwing the freshman left back substitute under the bus. Help the young man get better on the field or we will see that young man's name in the January transfer portal. Embick also said that the team has 2 MLS draftees and an MLS showcase player and they are not able to score. Malik Henry busted his behind yesterday and was consistently dangerous. Malik has worked hard and is trying to take the ball to the center of the field at times this year. Malik deserves credit for his tremendous effort and his improvement in now having an outside threat and an inside threat. I feel sorry for Emil Jaaskilainen. In my view, Emil is the best #9 that Akron has had in many, many years. He is good in the air and often directs good one touch passes off his head. Emil is also very good at hold up play and is good with the ball at his feet. Emil is also very unselfish and had 2 great assists to Dyson in the VCU game. The problem is that almost all of Emil's goal scoring opportunities have to come on headers. With the 4-2-3-1 offensive approach, Emil rarely has the ball delivered to his feet in the box and normally Emil is the only zip in the box. I am very offended by Embick's comments inferring that Emil and Malik are largely responsible for the zips not being able to score. Again, Akron soccer has been playing the same unchanged offense for the past 12 years. When are the coaches going to take some ownership to change up the offense? Opposing teams seem to get more rebound goals and deflection goals than the zips because opposing teams seem to have more offensive players in the box on their side of the field than the zips do on the opposite side of the field. How many times this year have we seen the zips #6 or one of the HMF's take the ball up the midfield and enter a pass into the box? It has not happened very often. One of the reasons that I was really excited....about the 2024 season....was the addition of 3 new exciting players. Maximus Barboto was an all league player in a league that includes highly ranked Vermont and New Hampshire. Maximus and his NJIT teammates last year defeated Vermont. Victor Gaulmin was a 3 time Div. 3 All American. Caleb Borneo was one of the top 50 ranked juniors in the 2023 recruiting class. There have been games this year where Barboto has played 0 minutes. There have been games this year where Borneo has played 0 minutes. For the most part, these 3 players (with tremendous success elsewhere) are forced to split 90 minutes between the 3 of them. I know that they are all small....but can one of the 3 play some minutes at an HMF position? When Dyson is not effective during the game (constantly losing the ball while trying to go 1 vs 2), can one of the 3 play the left winger position? Again, I know that Embick is justifiably frustrated by the team's 1-3-3 start. However, I was very offended by him making negative comments about some of his players. This team played outstanding soccer against VCU. This team was the better team against number 4 ranked Western Michigan. I would have preferred that Embick talk about the team's potential rather than making negative comments about a freshman substitute and the big 3 of Malik, Dyson and Emil. I also did not appreciate him talking about how much that Will Jackson and Joel Sangwa are missed. If the coaches don't remember, I will point out that Will Jackson will be the only zip soccer player that started almost every game over the past 5 years and never won an NCAA tournament game. IMHO, Ashton Kamdem is a huge upgrade over Will Jackson. below is a biography for Maximus Barboto 2023: Named to the TopDrawerSoccer Men's National Top 100 Postseason List. ... selected to the All-ECAC first-team. ... America East Championship Team (2nd straight season). ... a America East first-team selection, led the America East and sits tied for 15th in the nation (as of 11/26/23) in assists with 9. The 2022 America East Conference Rookie of the Year's nine assists in a single season is a new NJIT Division I record and his 13 career assists ranks fifth all-time in the NJIT Division I era. ... scored first collegiate goal against UMass Lowell (9.23.23). ...Barboto became the first Highlander player to be named Team of the Week by two different publications – CollegeSoccerNews and TopDrawerSoccer on September 9 after tallying four assists in a pair of Highlander wins that week. He was also named America East Offensive Player of the week. 2022: America East Rookie of the Year. ... America East All-Rookie Team. ... America East All-Championship Team (only freshman to be named to the team). ... 2x America East Rookie of the Week. ... played in every match but one this season (16), tallying four assists which ranks seventh in the America East. He is the son of head coach Fernando Barboto, who is in his seventh season at NJIT. ...His four assists this season ranks tied for fifth in a single season in the NJIT Division I era.

You need to be very careful with what you are asking for. MSOC does not get the support from AD that they once enjoyed. And the Akron brand has been severely degraded. Which quality coach will come to Akron to replace Embick? If it is just another guy with a license, looking for a job, then we may as well stick with what we’ve got.

You just successfully described every conference. College football is flooded with a lot of bad teams. On Saturdays, there are tons of games on TV at any time and it's difficult to find two watchable games.

Only one goal against South Carolina. Keep Finley healthy!

Even Joe Dunn was questioning Moorehead's ridiculous play calling/clock management. If Finley goes down for any lenght of time so goes Moorehed.

Yep. Definitely feel like they give more leeway to the bigger programs in terms of celebrating.

Especially since it wasn't even all that impressive a win over said winless FCS team.

How I felt at the game last night and how I'm still feeling this a.m. I'm revising my preseason prediction of 5-7 down to 2-10. Going forward we only beat KSUcks. Another long autumn.

Game day experience thoughts: Starting with purchasing tickets - pretty sure I was charged a service fee for buying tickets at the window. Ticket said $15 and paid $19. That was a first. Additionally only one ticket line open aside from will call, which is another miss. Long and slow line before the game. Surely we can afford to pay a student a min wage to alleviate this. Think we had an external vendor in the concourse near midfield. Good idea that we should explore more, especially in the food stands they don’t open. Save on costs (and make money by charging the vendor) and give the fans more options. New scoreboard and ribbon board looked and worked great! Thought the volume of music was just fine. I didn’t miss the cannon, however. To the game: Could not have had a worse start. While completely inexcusable, I was never that worried because it was us giving Colgate the opportunity. The second quarter and latter part of the first quarter shows what the team can be, and that’s fun to watch! Great game by D Lewis. No real complaints on defense after we spotted them the easy 17 and settled in. Just would’ve thought we would have more of a pass rush. Starting to feel we have little to no improvement in our OL from last season. Whether a run or pass, seemed like Colgate players were generally in the backfield near immediately. Whenever they did protect, Finely/passing game looked pretty good. Also shout out to Norton. He does look like the real deal. Players I noted on sideline not dressed: Adams, David, Proby, Cooper, Brockington, Madden, Fox, Lyons, Walker

Toledo had the mist impressive G5 win yesterday. 2 straight weeks for the MAC. Dare to say the conference feels improved and is in the drivers seat for the G5 playoff spot if NIU can get by NC State in week 5, who is definitely beatable.

It's going to be a long season if they can only put up 51 yards on the ground.

Colgate doesn’t cut it. I’m about to brush my teeth with Sensodyne.

Finley threw for 352 yards and 4 TDs.

FCS. It's such a stupid set of terms. And now with the FBS having a 12 team championship they could effectively be called FCS as well.

Am I wrong that if we just ran the ball this game would be over??

Ouch ...

It’s an F’in rule- pretty simple. Do you think it’s just up to the interpretation of every official …c’mon man!

Thank you for explaining your post. If you go to the Akron zips facebook page, the comments after the IU-Indy game were very outspoken about the need for a coaching change. Former Akron Zip soccer All American Matt English Commented "Seems we should start scouting for a new coach." The comments after this game on facebook...are more of the same.

The last 20 minutes of the first half was some good football by the Zips.

Capt K appears to have been right (man I hate that), but if Finley is given some time he can throw.

When Finley is given time, he has pretty good accuracy on his down-field throws.

There’s actually a good crowd too.

I don't think any fans left. I do think people were turned off by how unprofessionally the previous AD handled his departure.

UA should be announcing its Fall '24 enrollment today or tomorrow. Other Ohio publics have already done so. Interesting note on UC - they are highly leveraged financially, particularly in the athletics department. Those investments in football and new conferences have not been offset by sufficient increases in revenue.

Is @Hilltopper like the phantom of the opera, living in the Infocision rafters?

Channeling the departed member GoZips here. The best scenario for UA would be to drop football down to D-3. Leave the MAC and join the Big East for all other sports. If we can continue to grow our NIL program for Basketball we would be a good fit. The BE would gain access to another media market. Good enough to compete but not currently a threat to the current members. Imagine the crowds we would draw at the JAR. The BE has a great media contract which would more than make up for any football dollars we recieve now. Even after paying the debt on the football stadium we would still be dollars ahead. Go back to playing Mount Union etc..

There are actually very few schools where the football program "makes money", when you look at the whole pie. There are now 133 D-1 football teams and only a handful (less than 10) are considered "profitable" by any private-sector measure. Most schools receive some sore of subsidy from the student body in the form of a "Student Facilities Fee" or "Student Activity Fee" or something, that is what pays for Rec Centers and Sports and that sort of thing. Usually the overwhelming % of that is athletics support, like we're talking 90%. I dug through the UA financials about a decade ago, and the student body was subsidizing the athletics programs at about $400 per semester per student, which means $3,200 over 4-years per student. I can only imagine that the "fee" has gone up since I looked at the numbers. Now Football will claim it also brings in the most money ... but it also costs the most money, so it's all a shell game.

The band should play Yakety Sax in the half time show.