kreed5120

I was mostly joking. My real reason for not liking him is he already had his shot at a G5 program and I wasn't impressed.

Remember the last time we hired a Notre Dame recruiting coordinator as our head coach? Pass

It's the MAC, pretty much everyone has a small niche following. Their parents and coaches were watching Ohio State, Alabama, Michigan, Florida, Texas, etc. Do you honestly know what Rice, UTEP, and Arkansas State's record was during the 2009-2011 seasons without looking them up? I certainly don't. There is no Ohio State or Michigan of the MAC. Our scholarship is just as good as everyone else in the MAC. It's a matter of bringing in someone who can sell the kids on the school. Regardless of how you feel about the players Ohio produces there is no denying the fact we need to do a better job of recruiting Ohio. In the 2017 recruiting class we only signed 3 players who were rated as among Ohio's top 100 recruits. None of them were ranked higher than 89. Meanwhile, Toeldo, Buffalo, and a host of other MAC teams were taking more highly rated players in our own backyard. Bowden was able to recruit freely in Florida. I'd be shocked if heavy restrictions were placed on the mens basketball, football, and mens soccer programs.

It's the MAC, there are no blue bloods here relegating us to an eternity of mediocrity. Any team is capable of winning as well as they have a quality run program. Today's recruits were in elementary school when RI was running the program. Do you think they even remember those 1-11 teams? It's a very real possibility that Larry Williams would like to eventually go to a bigger program where he'd make more money. Idk if that's the case, but it wouldn't surprise me. Hell even Dambrot left Akron, his alma mater, to get a bigger pay day elsewhere. It's just the nature of being a G5 program. Overall, IMO he's done a mighty fine job. If he keeps performing the way he has it wouldn't surprise me if some larger program tries to lure him away. If our coaches and AD are getting poached that means we're winning. The problem comes when they underperform so much that we have to fire them.

Texas kind of is the mecca of high school football. We can agree to disagree about Arizona.

This is Akron's first true road game and one of only 2 on their OOC schedule. The game should provide some valuable experience before MAC play.

I tried listening to it online, but it keeps cutting out after about 3 seconds. If you could provide a summary of any interesting tid bits, it would be appreciated.

I won't be losing sleep over it...

I've just accepted that I'll see 2-3 articles per year about Infocision for the next 20+ years until it's paid off. At this point, regardless of how you fill about it, it's a sunk cost. Bulldozing it won't suddenly make the payments go away. We need to try to make the best of the situation. No point in beating a dead horse.

Your rational makes absolute 0 sense. So if Florida saw a decline of about 10% in recruiting and slid behind California to become the #3 best state for recruiting they would no longer be a hot bed? Ohio is still a top 5 recruiting state (I posted the numbers to back it up) and NEO is the best region in the state for recruiting. Maybe in 40 more years it won't be, but as of today it is.

At this point I'm not sure what you're trying to even argue??? I've already admitted Ohio lost ground to Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana region. It will likely continue to lose ground to those states. What I've argued is despite that Ohio is still a top 5 state for recruiting and NEO is still by far and away, outside of maybe Cincy, the best region in the MAC footprint to recruit. Please provide me evidence showing that Buffalo, DeKalb, Toledo, Kalamazoo, and Detroit metro areas produce anywhere near the level of D1 talent that NEO produces.

All the states that have narrowed the recruiting gap compared to Ohio are in the south. Ohio by far and away is still the best state in the MAC footprint for recruiting. Michigan, New York, Indiana, and Illinois haven't narrowed the gap any.

It's not like NEO produces only blue chip players and nothing else. I'm looking at last years recruiting rankings and I see tons of NEO who were 3* players. The problem is they're going to other MAC schools instead of Akron. We only recruited 3 Ohio players ranked in the top 100 and none higher than 89. Below are some of the players we missed out on. DeAmonte King - 47th rated from Akron - Committed Toledo Adam Mehelic - 52nd rated from Hudson - Committed Miami (OH) Kyle Vantrease - 53rd rated from Stow - Committed Buffalo Travis Koontz - 54th rated from Youngstown - Committed BGSU Victor Williams - 56th rated from Warren - Committed Toledo John Spellacy - 59th rated from Cleveland - Committed ECU There are plenty more that I could point out, but I don't feel like listing each and every single one. I get we can't get every single one of these guys. Some guys want to get away for college and that's fine, but it would be nice to get a few of them. Also, it's not like we have to recruit only NEO, we could target some players in the Cincy, Toledo, or Western PA area as you previously mentioned. A lot of kids like getting away for college, but still like to be close enough that they can be home within a few hours of driving. https://247sports.com/Season/2017-Football/RecruitRankings/?InstitutionGroup=HighSchool&State=OH

From 2013-2017 Ohio produced 79 blue chip recruits. That's 5th best in the entire country. Argue with facts all you want, but Ohio still produces lots of elite talent comparative to other states. I live in Stark county that's N/E Ohio last I checked. Every year Stark county sends several players to big time D1 programs. https://www.sbnation.com/college-football-recruiting/2016/6/28/12040586/rankings-state-stars-florida-texas-california

I'm sorry, I didn't realize everyone in NEO lived in Cleveland city limits. Something happened called white flight and people moved to the suburbs. You're right NEO population has decreased, but it's by about 250k in a 40 year span. Other states with growing populations, particularly Georgia, Alabama, and Florida have been able to close the gap or even pass Ohio in producing talent, but Ohio still produces a lot of talent itself and that talent is mostly coming from NEO & Cincy, not Columbus.

Frankly, I don't care what he does. He made a couple million off of UA so he'll be doing just fine. Some G5 program would be wise to add Mounds and Stroud. Both should have a job somewhere in college within the next 15 months.

The NFL is going to call that 99% of the time. You don't have to like the rule, but that's textbook helmet-to-helmet contact to a defenseless receiver.

Looks like I'll be listening to this one on the radio.

What's most important is making the right hire. If it takes us two weeks to find the best candidate and we lose out on a handful of recruits so be it. I'd rather that than for us to rush a decision and hire someone we'll have to fire in 3-4 years.

It was most likely some sort of combination of the two.

Georgia passed Ohio

I've read them, they just don't make any sense. Nobody here is expecting Akron to contend with Ohio State, Clemson, or Alabama for national championships. We play 8 games against other MAC teams, 1 against a FCS, and typically another 1-2 games against other G5 OOC opponents. If we were Rutgers and had to play Penn State, Michigan, and Ohio State on a weekly basis, your post might actually make some sense, but we don't. We play PCCC, Miami (the crappy one), and a host of other extremely winnable games against G5 competition. Please explain to me why NIU or Toledo as a G5 school can recruit players that can win the MAC, but by your logic Akron can't?

Does anyone know if this game is part of a home and home series?

Is your opinion that low of Akron that you don't think they can attract someone who can win 50% of their games? That's all it would take to be better than Bowden.

Yes, the Zips have notoriously had some pretty bad 1st halves this year. We played much better in the second half.