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I'm just happy we get a full day to tailgate before Penn State- Shenango!

The Franklin firing was especially egregious. He inherited a program that was still recovering from a national scandal and hadn't won a national championship since the 80s. He turned them into a perennial national contender. He literally had them in the semifinals last year, but the boosters said that's not good enough. That's another problem with NIL. Now that schools are going to alumni to fund their $20 million rosters the alumni are feeling entitled to titles now. Only one team can win a national title every year. Not even Joe Paterno (scandal aside) would survive in this college landscape.

QB: It was definitely an up-and-down day for Finley. He made some big-time throws but also some head-scratchers. He finished just shy of 300 yards with three touchdowns, but those two interceptions on the final drives ended any chance of a comeback. We saw Johnson on the two-point try and never again — puzzling, especially given the struggles in short-yardage situations. RB: Gant couldn’t find much running room in the first half and even lost his footing a couple of times in short-yardage spots. Things opened up more after halftime, though, as Gant and Patrick combined for 118 rushing yards on the day. WR: I was pretty critical of the receivers last week, but they bounced back with an excellent performance this time around. Ball State’s secondary had trouble all day, especially the safeties, which led to several explosive plays. TE: Cravaack was on the field for nearly every offensive snap, and I thought he played really well. PFF and I don’t see eye to eye on this one, as they graded him below average. At this point, I’m not entirely sure what their criteria is when it comes to tight ends. I’m also not sure why Newell was out again, but either way, Cravaack looks like he’s starting to come into his own. OL: Much like Finley, it was an up-and-down day for this group. At times, the offensive line completely bullied Ball State’s front, and other times it looked like a jailbreak. Moorhead had several plays drawn up that could’ve gone for big gains if they hadn’t been blown up right from the start. The low point was probably when Ball State rushed three and we still couldn’t stay in front of them, even with double teams. No excuse for that. DL: We opened the game in a bear front with five defensive linemen and went back to that look quite a bit. At times, there were some clear alignment and gap issues — it looked like we weren’t sure where to line up, which led to some explosive plays for Ball State. On Kelly’s short touchdown run, for example, two defensive ends lined up next to each other, and when one flipped sides, the defensive tackles shifted that way too, leaving a huge lane for Kelly to run through. I do wonder if losing a day of practice played a role in that. One wrinkle I did like was using Dall as an overhang while shifting Laventure toward the edge. We actually dialed up one of my favorite blitzes out of that look, and it resulted in a sack. Credit to Tibesar for some creative adjustments, but also some blame — our guys looked lost at times. On the positive side, I thought Laventure played his best game of the year and was an absolute wrecking ball up front. LB: This goes for the entire defense — there were way too many missed tackles. A lot of that came from being out of position and having to take poor angles, but some were just flat-out misses. No position group is off the hook either, as the linebackers had their fair share of whiffs too. DB: I thought Anderson played well at safety until he went down with the injury. Johnson gave up a few plays but also came away with an interception. Ball State’s receivers didn’t do a ton of damage, yet their big tight end tore us for several explosive plays. Cornerback coverage was solid overall, but as I mentioned earlier, tackling was an issue. ST: Special teams were actually solid for most of the game, until that kickoff returned for a touchdown, which basically sealed things. Coaching: I don’t have many issues with the play calls — much of the passing game was there when the OL held up and Finley stayed tough in the pocket. That said, as I mentioned earlier, the short-yardage calls without Johnson didn’t make much sense on a day we were struggling to convert. Defensively, I liked the overall concept, but our guys looked lost and out of position far too often. Execution across the board needed work, and ultimately, that responsibility falls back on the staff. Final Thoughts: I came away feeling much the same as I did going in — this was a game we should have won. Too many penalties and lapses in execution cost us. Credit to Ball State, though, for taking advantage of what was there and sticking to what works for their roster. Next up is a Buffalo team that’s been underwhelming in conference play. We’ll see if our guys can bounce back and put together a solid performance on the road. QB: Finley Johnson RB: Gant Patrick WR: MA. Williams Grear WR: Walker Mason WR: Polk Monteiro TE: Cravaack Whisner LT: DA. Johnson Motley-Simmons LG: McManus Archer C Lyons Morris RG: K. Davis RT: King DE: Durham D. Frazier DE: Dall J. Frazier DT: Laventure Mixon DT: Hull Murphy Musika LB: Cooper Spriggs LB: Summers Boswell NB: AL. Branch AA. Branch T. Davis CB: DeWalt Kamara CB: Reed T. Thomas S: Anderson Flowers S: DI. Johnson Hunter Offense (20 snap min.) WR - Grear WR - Mason WR - Polk LG - Archer C - Lyons Defense (20 snap min.) DT - Laventure LB - Summers S - Anderson NB - AA. Branch CB - Reed

NFL teams aren't this stupid. The amateurism that is athletic department administration is going to begin to really shine through moving forward.

Moorhead said it turned out to not be anything serious. Just an “upper body” injury.

Akron remains unranked in the Top Drawer poll, while coming in at #25 in the College Soccer News poll. https://www.topdrawersoccer.com/college-soccer-national-rankings/men https://collegesoccernews.com/college-soccer-news-mens-week-9-top-25-coaches-poll-stanford-and-portland-hold-at-1-and-2-duke-falls-and-washington-climbs/

Afraid it's too late in the season to expect things to change. Finley is what he has been and hasn't really progressed. Gant is really the only offensive player you can hang your hat on. O line still isn't good enough to take over a game. As a unit the D could be servicable but but isn't going to take over against quality opponents. The lack of program progress is on the head coach immediately. But goes to the people in the athletic department long term. Until a REALISTIC vision for the program is established it's the same movie season after season.

So Billy Napier was just fired after a WIN over Mississippi State, which considering I don't have any fandom or feelings for Florida (except slightly negative ones), has me pretty angry. First of all, while I'm sure UF fans and brass feel you need to blowout teams like Mississippi State, they are in fact pretty significantly improved, with a win over #24 Arizona State and taking #17 Tennessee to OT. Second of all, Florida's results, while disappointing, aren't DISASTROUS. Every team they lost to is in the top 20. They beat Texas worse than the consensus #1. Because no one can think for themselves, everyone is now following the lead of Penn State (and I mildly disagree with Franklin's firing too, but will absolutely concede their season had turned disastrous) and now there's been this whole slew of mid-season firings. Maybe they see what happened at UCLA (which is dumb; the plural of anecdote is not data) and think they too might be world-beaters after firing their coach mid-season. Mid-season firings IMO should be reserved for on-field disasters or off-field inexcusable stuff. I don't want to hear a single Florida mucky-muck complain about it being too easy for kids to transfer. The one bulwark you have against that is coaching stability. You CANNOT have an itchy trigger finger when it comes to firing coaches.

Besides the final four run is a heck of a qualifier - who else in the MAC has a final four run?

At the moment Akron would not be one of the four teams to make the Big East tournament, but they do control their ability to do so. At the moment they sit tied for sixth place with St John's and Butler. St John's holds the tie breaker over the Zips but the Zips hold it over Butler. Standings are as follows (although the East and Midwest division leaders will each get a slot regardless of point totals). Georgetown 13 Creighton 10 UConn, Seton Hall, Providence 9 St John's, Zips, Butler 7 Villanova 6 Xavier 5 DePaul 1 Marquette 0 The "easy" way for the Zips to get in is win their last three. Then it won't matter what Creighton does in their other two games because the best they could do would be to tie the Zips and the Zips would hold the tiebreaker. But barring passing Creighton, they need to sneak ahead of three of the four of Uconn, Seton Hall, Providence and St. John's. The good news is all of them play each other at least once and some twice, so we probably want to root for a lot of ties. 😂 And the Zips really need to take advantage of playing two of the three bottom teams before they get to Creighton. If they can pull off two wins and at least a tie against Creighton, I think they're in. Going to be an interesting last few weeks.

I loved the script Akron!

The drums in the background during highlights are really annoying. At 80 years old, Joe Dunn is still The Man. Who's going to fill his shoes when he finally hangs up the mic?