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Happy Easter everyone!!

I like Nate, appreciate his contributions and wish him well. That being said, he very much benefited from the lack of dominant MAC players in winning MAC POY. He had some great games for the Zips but when I look at the history of MAC POYs he's one of the least impactful. As I said, I like Nate. He seems like a great kid. I don't begrudge his decision to head to Kansas State for life changing money and I hope to hell he proves me wrong and has a million dollar year as far as accomplishments but I think he's a contributor as opposed to a standout in the Big 12..

Apologies for the poor photo quality...the lighting in the practice facility is horrible, and I don't have one of those $5,000 giant lenses. Ben Finley tosses one over the outstretched arms of #42 LB Melvin Spriggs. Finley played really well. His best throw was a 50 yard TD bomb to #16 Paul Davis. Pending the help he receives in the summer via the JUCO and Portal route (OL and WR), he could be 1st or 2nd all team all MAC. Pray that no P4 school wants insurance at the QB position and "Nate Johnson's" the Zips with a stupid NIL money offer to Ben. Ruggow got the 2nd team reps. Thus far he's shown he's a serviceable #2. He's sneaky-athletic. Not a bad runner. But hasn't lit it up on the past 2 Saturdays. To be fair - he's also playing with the 2nd team unit. Here's the reserve OL. Paul Davis, a 6' sophomore from Georgia (the state, not the Bulldogs) has had a nice spring. Here, he pulls in a Ben Finley sideline pass. Here, Ben tosses a fade to #7 Alex Adams. ...and Adams pulls it in for the TD! I'm a big fan of #11 Kyan Mason, a 5' 9" freshman from St Ed's. He's jitterbug quick, and runs tougher than his size. He has stood out this spring. Cibastian Broughton didn't do much today. He did play without a green shirt, so he could be tackled. The first time I've seen a QB without one this spring. He will play in 2025. Whether it's a situational QB, WR, or possibly even a return man. He's too electric to sit on the sidelines with a clipboard. One of Broughton's bet plays of the day was a fake pass/Statue of Liberty that #28 Luke Reed took 40 yards to paydirt. The D bit hard on the fake. Luke gets an attaboy for his efforts. The Player of the Day? #43 Austin "Wondo" Wondolowski, a 5' 10" redshirt freshman from Holy Name. Wondo had 2 INT's on the day, as well as a great pass break up on a longball to Kyan Mason. He is a baller. Maybe along the lines of a John Mackey (for you old timers out there). Mason vs. Wondo. Wondo won. #88 Jake Newell, to no one's surprise, has had a great spring. Bubble wrap him until the fall. He's a slam dunk 1st team all MAC. Great hands, great blocker. The scrimmage ended on a Ben Kamara INT of Ruggow. The 6' 3" transfer from Upper Iowa (who knew that was a school?) has all the tools to be a great CB. The players gave themselves a round of applause and look forward to seeing everyone at InfoCision this coming Friday. Other notes: The kicking battle between Owen Wiley and Matthew Schramm rages on. Joe had them kick 47 yarders in each quarter. I believe the both went 3-4. We're fine at punter. Joey Castle has a big time leg. Jordan Gant and Sean Patrick opened up as the starting RB's. #34 Cam Moore, the Walsh transfer, also played quite a bit. Play of the day - Moore fumbled, and his OL teammate 6' 5", 300 lb Nick Scopiak scooped the ball up and rumbled, bumbled, stumbled the remaining 25 yards to the endzone. I can't believe Marquise Williams, the Minnesota transfer, will see the field much. #15 picked Finley, but since he's not on the roster, I don't know who he is. Off to hunt eggs!

Great debate guys. I do think their production can be replaced and there are times TJ will come down the court with his mind already made up that he is going to shoot instead of taking what the defense presents. That said, if we do have a significant overhaul I’m concerned it will take all OOC to gel again, relegating us a poor seed in the NCAAT if we are fortunate to get there. Too early to panic though. Have a nice day.

I hope he does well at Kansas State but my common sense tells me he will struggle against better competition on a daily basis. Obviously the coaches at K State must think he can play at that level.

Really? I guess I'm old and it's a brand new world. These guys are welcome to chase the money, but that doesn't mean I'm going to get excited about cheering for them here or wherever the go when all they do is play mercenary. That's not why I like(d) college sports. I will add that at least Nate stayed here for 3-4 years.

Is there a point difference I'm unaware of between a dunk/layup and a turnaround 14 ft jumper? Otherwise, I did the math & projections in a previous post. Those projections are based on the volume increases we've seen with our other transfers. I'm not saying Evan has Nate's ceiling, but his averages shouldn't be far off from Nate's averages.

No

Yes. Notes are now posted. Happy Easter to all!

I am with you in the overall thought process here, but I'd be stunned if Evan is only slightly worse offensively than Nate. I'm expecting a sizeable gap.

Let's start off by establishing I simply stating our ceiling for next season has likely been lowered. I never stated that we couldn't win the MAC. In fact, I said the opposite. What I said is our odds of winning the MAC are less than what they would have been 1 week ago and the seed we'd get if we do win will likely be lower than had we been able to run it back. Any objective person without Zippy tinted glasses would agree.

Tavari still isn't in the portal officially as I can tell. If it happens, I would have to think Miami enters the season as the favorites. That's obviously not to say that we can't still win the MAC, but it's going to be a much more uphill battle with these departures. We looked positioned to be one of the more hyped mid-major entering the season. Similar to a Drake or McNeese. Now at best even if we find a way to win the MAC, the best we could realistically hope for is being a +15+ underdog 13 seed.

https://www.news5cleveland.com/sports/local-sports/these-northeast-ohio-guys-are-ready-to-represent-home-during-crew-game-in-cleveland …Nagbe and Bush attended and played collegiate soccer at the University of Akron, and they both made names for themselves while there. "I owe a lot to Akron. I think just putting that program on the map, you know, national title... being top ranked every single year," Nagbe said. Nagbe was a member of the Zips 2010 team that won the program's first-ever national championship. When Bush attended, he was the Mid-American Conference (MAC) leader in wins and shutouts. "Being able to go to the University of Akron on a scholarship and play four years there... that was just a jumping off point," said Bush. "Rocket shipped to the top of the rankings— I think we were number one all year that year— that's when the talk about becoming a professional really started." …

I feel the criticism of players has been a far minority of the posts. I would think just about any one on this board would leave their current job if another offered to double or triple their salary. The majority of the complaints is about how the current system in broken. At least with pro sports, which is what D1 basketball has become, there are mechanisms in place to keep order (multi-year contracts, max deals, soft salary cap, no tampering with players on others rosters). College basketball is the wild west. It's just utter chaos.

Next do Expenditures. Most of the Revenue barely covers the operating budget of the Football program: -$1.2 million for 62 Full-Scholarships (assuming basic tuition, room and board) -$1.4 million for coaches -$1 million at least a year for travel (The BIG-10 pays $7-million a year alone in travel expenses). -$5-million a year in debt servicing for the White Elephant (based on old data, but I can't imagine it's far from $3-5million) That's AT LEAST $8.6 million College football at UA costs. And even if we want to write-off the White-Elephant as "Infrastructure Capital Investment" (which would be an absolute, hysterical, joke) the basic operating expenses of the program are all that revenue covers. You could cut the Football program tomorrow, and thus lose all of it's revenue, and you either basically break-even, or completely come out with a net gain because you no longer have the looses. How are we supposed to compete? How are we supposed to be an actual university when we're dumping resources down the drain on a White Elephant program that's kept only because a very small alumni base expect it, and the administrative state wants to keep it because it's good 6-figure jobs they can use to springboard to other, better things by building their resume. What physical, tangible, benefit does Akron Football have to the Students of the University Akron (who subsidize the entire athletic departments $30-million budget to the tune of $19-million through student debt. There is none. Stop pretending Akron Football is something UA is neglecting and if only we spent a little more money we'd be able to compete. No, we won't. That ship sailed when you fired a named coach, with a college football pedigree in the same year the program beat it's first BIG-10 team ever, while the guy still had several years left on his contract. Enough is enough. Akron Football is never going to be competitive, especially in the years of the NIL. Takes like this are completely delusional of the reality of college athletics in 2024. They were clueless in 2012, and they're even more clueless today.

Wow. 14 points and 5 rebounds per game in the MAC gets you north of $1M.

You pose good information here, and pretty well explain why Akron (and, really, the rest of the MAC) needs to drop to FCS if they're going to keep the facade of a "legitimate" football program around. 49 FCS teams outdrew what Akron announced in attendance last year. It's not like a drop in level is going to hurt attendance any.