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I want to thank the Zip fans for their hospitality and kindness during our game. We found parking across from the stadium on a dirt field. The Akron fans there assured us it was OK and subjected us to some friendly ribbing about the game. I apologize for not getting over to the tailgates as we were late getting to the stadium and made it to our seats as the Zips kicked off. I was amused by comments of the Zips fans about their team's performance because the Wyoming fans were saying essentially the same things about the Cowboy's performance on their board. To me, it was a contest between two closely matched teams and the Pokes were lucky to pull it out. Eliminate the one interception, make the missed field goal and a couple more made plays and Akron would have won. So thanks again for your hospitality and here's hoping the Zipx win the rest of their games.

The soccer Zips have a pretty consistent tradition of success for a pretty long time. The football Zips have been at best not good for a while. Also, ties in soccer are considered ok. Go back and look at the posts when the soccer Zips were 1-3-3after losses to IU Indy and Temple last year….. I don’t think we need to canabalize Zips fandom.

Wyoming is not a "name" school, they are a g5 team that was 3-9 last season and fans are not freaking out after one game, they are freaking out after well over a decade of pure futility from a program that is funneling money into a pit. Please do not be disingenuous in your comments. If the football team had put up a tying effort against a ranked team, this whole board would be doing cartwheels of joy.

I watched the offensive debacle, offensive in both senses of the word. I have no idea what was wrong with Finley. He wasn't that bad last season. Something more than a sore arm going on there. With that said, that was a bad Wyomong team and should have been beaten. My comment again and again has been that if football is to continue being played at Akron it has to be at a level where the program can consistently compete. That is NOT at any DI level. Hasn't been. I watched this program in the '60's and '70s when it was ALWAYS competitive. Look it up. I would be all for dropping back to DII. I don't think this program would be real competitive even at I-AA. And at that level you are still getting players poached by bigger schools. I'd rather watch them play competitive games against the IUP's,the Ashlands, Sag States, Grand Valley States etc. etc. as opposed to the crap we see now. Maybe something is brewing with a new sheriff in town. As for the rest of this season, go to most of the games,hope they beat KSU and see what happens.

I get it. He's underfunded. How about giving the school and the Akron sports fans some reason to provide you with more funding? Awful football and making zero effort to engage the community, while alienating donors, won't bring you more money. John Groce is 53 years old. Joe Morehead is 51. I see a hell of a lot more energy and efforts at engagement out of Groce. As a result, his program gets my money, not the losing program that acts like it couldn't care less about my fandom.

We did. Under Terry Bowden. We had an 8-5 and 7-6 seasons with him, and then fired him the year he pulled off the first BIG-10 victory in Akron's history, for a no-nothing loser from John Carroll.

The soccer ball in last night’s game should be super healthy. The ball recuperated many, many times in last night’s game. the announcer was laughably very bad.

I don’t understand how we have so many guys hurt Week 1: I may have missed something, but notable guys I did not see on the sidelines (and didn’t play): David, Shor, Motley-Simmons Notable guys I saw on the sideline not in uniform: Gee, Davis, Curry, Davis, Newell. Pretty disappointing that two for sure starters and the rest at least being 2 deep type players weren’t even available for game 1. Losing Patrick was huge and I like what I was seeing out of White as well before he got hurt. Hope those guys are back before week 3. Finley’s play was inexcusable. Adams’ drop was inexcusable, but it’s even sadder that he’s hardly able to get on the field now. I have to assume he’s fully healthy after 2+ seasons. I thought defense was solid enough (besides the last drive). I thought Joe Mo punting on 4th down with 3 minutes left was inexcusable as well. Really disappointed we couldn’t even score a point. Use next week to continue evaluating all the new players, give Roggow or Johnson a few drives, then shore up our rotations for week 3.

I just went back to watch the replay, holy crap this announcer..... One minute in, what a quote "WVU started off hot with a 3-5-2 formation where they defeated in morgantown against manhattan 5-2"

I think it had potential to be a fairly decent G5 job 10-20 years ago for all the perks you mentioned above. Akron was getting the IPF, new stadium, talent rich area, rapidly growing campus, etc. The problem is the landscape of college sports has vastly changed over the past several years. At the same time enrollment has plummeted, causing financial strain to a University that took on too much debt falsely believing they were positioned to be the next Cincinnati.

Zips had chances early with a laser off the upper 90 crossbar and WVU saved a corner header off the line. Was a hard fought, well deserved tie. Onto the next.

Not a bad team to draw against. Felt like we were the better team slightly. I think Mitch would hold down the fort long for us to win in OT if it happened. Onto the next!

Huge win tonight for Georgetown Georgetown with a 1-0 home win over highly ranked Pitt Wisconsin gets a 1-0 over Western Michigan Michigan defeated Creighton 3-1 VCU gets a 2-1 road win at Old Dominion At home, Providence with a 2-0 win over Boston College

Pretty even played match. Ashton was very good.

News? Do go on.

In today's age of the "haves and have nots" and the continued misery brought on by this program, I think I've heard enough of the "we can't be in the MAC if we don't play FBS football" explanation. Maybe it's time to just blow this damn thing up and figure it out, with an emphasis on concentrating what we're good at (basketball; soccer).

Talk about letting a prime opportunity go to waste. QB: I think we all knew this offense would go as Finley went, and unfortunately he picked a bad night to have one of his worst games. I honestly expected a lot more from both teams and came away disappointed. Granted, it’s Week 1 and there’s plenty of time to improve, but the offense won’t get much better if Finley doesn’t take a big step forward. He consistently missed throws that we saw him make with ease last year. The most concerning part is Wyoming isn’t a good team and probably won’t win many more games this season. RB: Patrick was as dynamic as expected. I don’t have the stats to back it up, but I’m almost certain our yards after contact dropped significantly after he went down. He’s a true playmaker, and we need him on the field. Gant looked dinged up to me. His vision and elusiveness were there, but he didn’t show much burst or explosiveness. M. Williams did fine with the opportunities he got, though he’s not on the same level as the first two backs. WR: The one good deep ball Finley threw was dropped by Adams, and that pretty much set the tone for the passing game. I don’t recall Adams getting many, if any, targets after that drop. I was also left wondering why Mason didn’t see many targets earlier—he made a few catches late, and it’s clear he brings something the other receivers don’t. There’s definitely talent in this group, and they’ll need to come down with some tough catches, but there weren’t many quality balls to work with. TE: Outside of some decent blocks in the run game, we got very little from this position. Newell did not suit up and our other tight ends did not make much of an impact. OL: Coming into the season I felt good about the IOL and had more concerns with the OTs. As it turned out, the tackles held up fine while the interior had issues in pass protection. There were also several times when the pocket was there for Finley to step into, but he bailed and scrambled into trouble—very reminiscent of early 2024. Overall, the OL was serviceable in the run game and created some holes. I’m not calling this a top-half MAC unit by any stretch, but they did enough to give the offense a chance. I think our two OTs (Johnson and King) played the entire game. DL: JUCO transfer DT Julien Laventure was a terror against Wyoming’s All-MWC linemen. Defensive ends Dall and Durham had their moments too. The rest of the DL may not have stood out individually, but they did a solid job holding their ground and making life tough on the OL. Credit to our new defensive line coach for landing Laventure. Now the focus has to be on developing some depth for when he comes off the field. LB: I’ll be honest, I didn’t see any drop-off in our linebacker play from last year. Multiple guys rotated in, and from what I could tell, they were rarely out of position or missing tackles. Summers and Cooper took the majority of snaps. True freshman Markus Boswell managed to come up with an interception in limited play. CB: I thought our cornerbacks were excellent in both coverage and run support. Granted, Wyoming really only had one true playmaker at receiver, but as a group the corners held up well. DeWalt, White (before injury), and Reed especially stood out. NB: I could be wrong here, but I’m fairly confident saying I counted several missed tackles that turned into big plays in the run game, plus a key reception in the 4th quarter by a receiver who wasn’t anything special. We definitely missed Darrian Lewis. Hopefully play at this spot improves quickly. S: Anderson picked up right where he left off last year, and his running mate was mostly DiMarco Johnson. Both stepped up at different times and looked well prepared. ST: Outside of a long missed 49(?) yard field goal, special teams were excellent. The lone kickoff was deep, punting and coverage were fantastic—no major mistakes in any area. Coaching: Offensively, I thought the game plan was fine, but the execution left a lot to be desired. I liked how often we ran the ball in the first half and tried to get it our best playmaker, Patrick. Normally, that’s a formula for success. But throwing the ball in the end zone after punishing Wyoming’s defense with the run on that drive was inexcusable. The sad part? I even said out loud, “we better not throw the ball here,” and sure enough… In no universe should this team be getting shut out by a not-so-good (to be polite) Wyoming team. Defensively, we gave up too many yards, but the unit made big stops repeatedly. Can’t fault the defense for this loss. Rotation: QB: Finley Johnson RB: Patrick Gant M. Williams WR: Adams Polk Louis Mason Grear Walker Monterio TE: Cravaack Whisner LT D. Johnson LG McManus A. Jones C Lyons Morris RG Davis Archer RT King DE: Durham D. Frazier Dall Cheatom Duncan DT: Laventure Mixon Hull Murphy LB: Cooper Boswell Summers Spriggs CB: White DeWalt Reed Kamara NB: Al. Branch Thomas Aa. Branch S: Johnson Al. Branch Anderson Al. Branch ST: KO - Wiley K - Wiley P - Castle Johnson I checked PFF against what I thought I saw and they have some players listed that I don’t remember seeing: Hunter Madden Vega Benenge J. Frazier Top Rated on Offense (At least 20 snaps): (RB) Patrick (RT) King (LG) A. Jones (LT) D. Johnson (RB) Gant Top Rated on Defense (At least 20 snaps): (LB) Summers (LB) Cooper (DT) Laventure (CB) DeWalt (S) J. Anderson

Off the top of my head, I remember our center completely whiffing on a defensive lineman twice—pretty sure both were by Lyons. I also don’t blame Finley for the 3rd and longs when Wyoming brought more than we could block. In those situations, the best-case scenario is usually a short completion where the receiver picks up some YAC. Outside of that, it just wasn’t a good day for our QB1. I kept waiting for him to get hot—he can be a streaky player at times—but it never happened. According to PFF, Wyoming blitzed 14 times, and Finley went 6 of 14 on those plays. Out of his 38 total attempts, he was supposedly kept clean on 24 of them. The brutal part is he only completed 11 passes for 93 yards in those clean pockets and even threw an interception. That won’t cut it against anyone on our schedule. For what it’s worth, PFF graded the OL fairly well overall, with the exception of both centers. Also of note, looks like they went through and updated some stats. True freshman Kenneth McManus was our highest rated lineman and 2nd highest rated player on offense.

Yup - he wasn't perfect but night and day better than anyone we've had since.

True...but we made sure to better distribute those economic gains.

Finley was bad from the jump. Puzzled me as I watched. The O line didn't seem THAT BAD. something else going on there.

You have identified a key problem. What if instead of a marketing problem, it was a public service problem? The public has historically stomached funding public services that don't make money because the benefits outweigh the costs. For example, the only public transportation system that makes money in the USA is the NYC subway system, at least it used to. The rest are basically welfare programs for people who can't afford transportation but need to get places such as work. So again, what if at a modest cost, the football program benefited the athletes students alumni fans and general community around Akron? What if it's as simple as playing football games on days of the week and times that allow people to attend a fun day at the University their tax dollars support?

Collegiate athletics is just a marketing arm for the University. Them turning a profit isn't a necessity, but with all marketing plans you have to evaluate whether the reach it provides is worth the dollars that you're spending. Little to no good has come from football in the past 15-20 years. In fact, the negatives have only tarnished perceptions of the university. Something likely needs to done. Ideally, it would be great if the MAC as a whole decided they can no longer keep up and decided to drop down to FCS, preferably non-scholaship FCS. Trying to keep up with the Jones's, even at the G5 level, has grown prohibitively expensive.

Yes, fixed.

Wouldn’t those “similarly situated schools” be most or all MAC schools as well? What needs to happen is the G6 in general needs to figure out how and where they want to be in this new college athletics landscape.

I have to ask. What's so special about the MAC? I'm not advocating leaving the MAC and spending money to do it, but there's no reason to not to start exploring conferences and alliances with similarly situated and like minded schools.

Still numb from Thursday night. As LZIp mentioned above, I loved what I saw out of Patrick and White before they went out with injury. Hopefully our D is truly stout & it wasn't simply an inept Wyoming offense we were witnessing. Without saying both, would you guys pin Finley's troubles primarily on Finley, or was our OL to blame? I was fully expecting Finley to light it up this season 😞

I've only been able to watch the first half thus far but would agree that this is (so far) a great defensive team. I can imagine that the offense will start to click when coach dials in the right partners and the chemistry catches up. The MOTM for me was the announcer.

What if they tell Akron to leave and take their basketball program with them? How do you plan on paying off the MAC for the breach of contract lawsuit Akron would be almost guaranteed to lose? The major problem with Nihilism is the is never a consideration for what comes next. Your second paragraph isn't in the world of reality. The answer for the MAC is not to abandon football. The answer is to find ways to make it financially viable for the members that will benefit the athletes students alumni fans and general communities around the schools. Start with no more weeknight games and start games at times that make them more family friendly considering games last 3.5+ hours now. Make it a college athletics experience and not a television show. The answer for Akron is to use our new AD to help influence a new direction for the member institution.

They may also find they have some allies in similarly situated programs in the conference.

PDF box score says attendance of 1,773 tough to compete with high school football on Friday night https://gozips.com/documents/2025/8/30/akr-wvu-msoc-box-8-29-25a.pdf

Zips played absolutely ferocious defense tonight. Great game plan, great effort from the players.... Ashton and Matthew Paiva......make a tremendous duo on that side of the field. Matt Dreas and Jack Sullivan/Tyler Morck....were excellent in ball winning at midfield.

this loss was bad, don't recall many shutouts....for me that will always be iCoach going for 2 and losing to a IAA team in OT.

Keep creating good chances, just need to work on the finishing

the announcer is just horrible...... several times, he called Tyler Morck.....Tyler Bush That being said, outstanding defensive game plan by the Zips.... outstanding swarming defense.

If he's here, and I have heard it both ways, he competes with the forwards and wings for minutes. The Duquesne kid is the "viable backup big" who will share minutes with Amani.

Friday August 29 American University and number 1 Vermont battled this afternoon to a 1-1 result. Vermont led 12-7 in shots ; 6 to 1 in shots on goal and 9-2 in corners Vermont plays at Georgetown on Monday September 1.

He was making similar comments last season as well. To me it just comes a crossed as he's incapable of adapting to the changing landscapes of college athletics. Kent also has a poorly funded football program. Sean Lewis found a way of turning lemons into lemonade. He was too busy finding ways of making due with what he had to make excuses. Perhaps Moorhead is just at a point in his career where he no longer has that drive.

Great question. I'm guessing the answer is yes. I didn't think this until I read Captain Kangaroo's report of the event held in west Akron before the season. When a coach openly bellyaches at a public event about all the things he doesn't have, he's finished. If you give a crap about how the program is viewed publicly, you don't do that.

great news about the Serbian. Wonder with whom he will be fighting for time? The Duquense guy? Conner?

If you're digging on ESPN+ to find an Akron game you're either already a diehard fan or a degenerate gambler. Joe Akron isn't going to be put off from Reghi because frankly he isn't going to be watching the game in the first place.

That would be one damn short line.

AMEN!

Findley is rated the fourth best QB in the MAC. God help those other 9 teams. Nebraska will be a throw away. We should treat this like a pre-season game. We should see at least 3 QB's have a shot. Just maybe; one will show something under pressure. I don't mean to put the loss on Findley, but so much more was expected. If he is going to make mistakes like a true FR, we might as well see them from the back ups.

We've all heard the phrase "statement win." This was a statement loss.

Unfortunately, this is not true. We've definitely watched waaaaaaay worse than this.

Lawd Still can't purchase Football or Basketball gear unless we go on Ebay and buy it from Akron players who sell their gear on the low. Can't even buy exclusive Lebron Gear/Shoes. Any AD with a brain would take advantage of that to raise money/generate revenue. Different AD = Same results

2 straight plays where Finley panicked and ran into the defenders instead of stepping into the pocket

You should probably admit that you were demonstrated to be wrong on your point, instead of pontificating some boilerplate, generic nonsense. Have the integrity to admit when someone demonstrates something you said is wrong. It's the first level of intellectual integrity and courage. You also must be living under a rock if you think most people share in your opinion that this is "the greatest day in American history" and that Tomorrow will be better. Just about nobody believes that, because all we're doing is goosestepping backwards, erasing all the gains made over the past 70-years in just about everything. Goodness, you're the first one to complain about the current state of college athletics, and you're going to make that statement with a straight face? LoL

I mean this is part of the decay of American society. Blow off good, fact-based points because they're inconvenient for you and sssshhh people because you just want to watch Football. Do better. Also, nobody asked you to read the reply; but you could have called out GP1 for his commentary, or the other posters for theirs...instead you target mine for the derision. Curious about the hypocrisy... this is a post-thread about cuts at the University of Akron because of dire financial circumstances, this is exactly the type of conversation that should be taking place in this thread.