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A family member of Bowen Hardman posted on Facebook that Bowen loves playing for Groce and feels right at home at Akron. This is the second family member of a player that has said they love being at Akron and playing for Groce. We're building something special.

Meeting a minimum standard is difficult when your bosses are demanding that your football program needs to be a cash cow to appease those who want to abolish the whole thing.

Both Josh Henderson (19.1 PPG) and Tai Perkins (14.9 PPG) were named 1st Team All-Central District Ohio for Division 2 with Tai Perkins being named POY 🔥🔥 Josh is listed at 6'5" Tai is listed at 6'1"

He is our most coveted player. His production the last few games is just a reflection of being a true freshman. He has the most upside of any player on the roster. P4 will be coming hard for him in the off-season. The only guy with a bigger upside is JG.

Some of us were there when it was a four lane one way highway. A student would get hit almost every year and about every four years someone would get killed. Big day when they finally rerouted that highway.

sounds like something a Chuckler would say

Ummmmmmmm, what????

These are the shirts every Nike team will wear on the bench, not just us.

I could not imagine that today. I have heard stories about that for years, but now it looks impossible for there to have ever been a road there. Them making it a pedestrian only walkway has to be one of the more underrated campus improvements of all time

"For the love of all that is holy, BOX OUT!" comes to mind.

You can thank Guthrie. The MAC still sucks for making us play Kent on a weeknight.

Glad they won a game but if they couldn't beat a 2-26 EMU...

How the Kent faithful are feeling after the schedule drop

Looks like they are finally fixing the embarrassing brick road through campus. Can’t wait for this, the current state of the brick road is just ridiculously bad.

Boring as usual. Doesn't even have the new A.

LZIp the '25 football schedule is the first that has Miller, Guthrie and Moorhead's fingerprints all over it. Hilltoppers got me on my horse as I sit cursing Punxsutawney Phil and taking my lunch. I was going to pipe in with the same sentiment as Hilltopper when the schedule came out but knew the reaction it would get and thought why bother. On second thought, why not. Like clockwork, whenever someone on this board simply attempts to give some credit where credit may actually be due, out come the ‘Chucklers.’ Soon good ‘Ol staples on this same ‘ol wagon will layer on I'm sure: good scheduling strategy doesn’t take away from his gross self-promotion and arrogance, he’s still a clown. Look how things are taking off now that he's gone! We really dodged a bullet! The Chucklers keep at it as though Chuckles stole their first-born child. Some may say, as GP1 has, scheduling is part of AD 101. Why give the guy any flowers when this is what every capable AD is expected to do. It’s just Hilltopper giving Guthrie a boost as usual. I disagree with you GP1 as informed as you may be – I wouldn’t call successful strategic scheduling meeting the minimum standard — I would call this exploiting a competitive advantage. I would call this passion for winning from an AD trying to help move the needle off the field where they can potentially make a difference. I would call this trying to move the boulder that is losing, pathetic Akron football uphill. I don't know, but it could be one big reason why Miller and Guthrie were shown the door and why it could be tough to keep a coach like Moorhead long term. New administration often means different vision on things like budget e.g. money games that are funding the program - unless the new administration cares enough about what it takes to win football games more than the bottom line like Miller did? We shall see. I’m holding out hope and giving Nemer the benefit of the doubt until we see otherwise. My inside reference is baseball as that’s where my occasional insights into the going ons of UA are sourced. What I get from that channel and staff is that scheduling IS an area Guthrie had a heavy hand in - working with coaches directly and helping strategically improve program schedules particularly non-conference to build momentum and wins going into MAC (or Big East) play. On this topic in particular, my opinions go beyond baseball into the longer history that is UA, the wellbeing of the program as a whole, and the struggles that lie everywhere in keeping a program afloat in this environment other than basketball where a culture of winning, coaching consistency, and a guy named Wentz have kept that ship steady. Strategic scheduling is not something all ADs bother themselves with or are willing to go to bat for when it can: hurt their own overall dept budget, upset those in charge and who they report to and who have come to rely on the big payday to get them off the hook from funding the program appropriately, or takes away time that could be spent say, self-promoting. I've been told by coaches including current bb staff at Akron that navigating scheduling nuances for the benefit of the team can be extremely time consuming. It may be one of the most unappreciated keys to winning for coaches and in some cases ADs. Many ADs leave it up to coaches and sports supervisors. Depending on how an AD runs the department, sports supervisors could be any slew of people in the department with no sense of how critically important scheduling can be. If allowed, sports supervisors often serve to take daily paperwork off the plate of the AD and are at the behest of the coach they actually supervise. Believe it or not, sports supervisors with less experience than even those on this board who clearly know the ins and out of AD 101, can heavily influence schedules if an AD is lazy or incompetent and lets them. Others may say-isn’t scheduling the coach’s job, the AD should stay out of it. For example, only an AD as arrogant as Guthrie would get involved in a coach's business likely come the jabs from Clark, Capt K, Zippy Claws and the like—-as we know, there must be reasons all the UA coaches hate Guthrie and not one would ever consider following him! Could it be his heavy handed, micro managing on scheduling perhaps? A quip, clown or chuckles reference sure as the setting sun. Cue my yawn. I digress, back to scheduling, why a competent AD stays involved in scheduling, because often it’s the coach’s ego ‘we can compete and show them we mean business right out of the gate’ that can get in the way of strong non-conference scheduling, or a fellow buddy in the coaching ranks they are doing a favor for by giving them a game or series for ‘old times sake’, or a game or series in a warm location they want to go during miserable Akron Dec, Jan and Feb…March, April. Scheduling can be a point of major contention for all programs, coaches and ADs. Good scheduling takes strong relationships between coaches and administration. You mention hoping all will be well now under Nemer. I join you in hoping and praying the schedule of football money games doesn’t return swiftly back to the norm under the new leadership. Unless Moorhead is done saving children from burning buses and was able to hold them off. Personally, I’m betting the demands have already begun to return for the payday model. In fact, interim AD Juravich said as much in his obviously self-promoting Crain’s article back in December. At least we know he navigated his snowy drive ok while navigating how to fund the program. Did we really need to know about his challenging driving conditions, how about we give him a nickname and call him Juravich the Joker, what an arrogant, self-promoting b*tard! To be clear, I’m taking a page out of GP1 book and feeling sarcastic today, but just in case you’re unsure, I’m being sarcastic! In all seriousness, I hope Moorhead has a strong enough voice to make it known that this strategic scheduling will pay off, is being celebrated by his program as well as by Zips fans and donors, and most importantly, is a contingency to him sticking around. Hopefully, those in charge care.

MBalla looked like he was going to be a stud as well. Averaged 15pts 11 boards as a junior. Ended up going to Ole Miss only to be the ~9th man in the rotation.

Believe it or not that's probably a softer OOC schedule than they have many years.

Not sure I like this shirt idea. Maybe it’s just poor timing. “After dominating the first half in Toledo we squandered a 21 point lead before getting the win…Nothing Easy, Akron.”

Jeremy Harris as well.

Right these total wins, win streaks, and KDs infamous "20" win seasons are fuzzy math, garbage in/garbage out stuff. Throw in some D3s, some low level MAC competition, etc. and next thing you know you have a record. I'm not diminishing what this team or any other team did. These #s are good for low-information fans and the media. If I were to tell someone Akron set record for most wins in a season, the response back usually isn't "But SUNY Brockport."

Overall record is 27 wins, in 2016-2017. So how about a win over Buffalo and the MAC tournament for a nice even 30 going into the NCAA tournament?

If I recall, 26 is the most wins we have ever had in a season. That said, games against non-D-1 competition should not count towards that total. I hate that we schedule unfair games against inferior competition.

Maybe I was wrong! The ladies are fighting tonight, keeping going and send the fans at the JAR home happy one last time!

Congratulations to Malik.

Maybe we’ll recruit the brother also.

I predict Perkins will get only spot minutes, but will likely play. I have yet to see Groce redshirt a point guard.

This is what our schedule needs to look like every year. The opportunity is there for a good start and to create momentum. No excuses, they need to perform this year. Bowl eligibility or bust

If Akron wins, I believe it will be the program record for regular season wins.

My biggest concern is Coach Groce - don't leave us!

https://www.topdrawersoccer.com/article/?categoryId=21&articleId=54390&articleTitle=college-rookies-in-the-usl-championship Beto Ydrach, Pittsburgh Riverhounds – It’s been quite the roundabout journey for Ydrach, a former Red Bulls and Orlando City SC Academy player. He originally began his college career at UCF in 2019, which he missed due to injury. Possessing an extra year of eligibility due to the pandemic, Ydrach excelled with Akron last fall, leveraging a Big East Defensive Player of the Year season into an opportunity with the Riverhounds. He’ll provide depth at a number of different spots, including fullback.

I realize when you play with all gas, no brakes you risk turnovers, but tonight was ridiculous. That cannot be allowed. Nate and Tavari seemed to be sleep-walking like they didn't care which led to unforced TO's. 18 total in the game. 13 in the second half. Even my hero Shammah made a bonehead unforced TO. Just score on half of the second half TO's and we continue the rout of the first half. Please John, coach this crap out of the team.

I think that final foul by Toledo angered Groce. His facial expression wasn't good.

I'm just perplexed as how I fell into that 1000+ word post. I've never much commented on scheduling with the exception of referencing Groce's acknowledgement of Ford's had work on the basketball schedule. 🤷‍♂️