kreed5120

I had this team starting 1-3 and I'm feeling very confident in that prediction. We lost a lot of talent from what wasn't a great team to start with. I've unfairly been labeled a pessimist by this board for sharing my candid opinion on Bowden and the state of our football program. I lost all faith in Bowden after our back-to-back-to-back losses to Buffalo, Toledo, and Bowling Green last season. Losing to Toledo wasn't bad, losing to them by 31 at home was. Who do you bring in to replace Bowden? That's not our problem, it's Larry Williams and his staff concern. Larry Williams made a slam dunk hire in Groce. I trust his judgement in bringing in someone whose better than Bowden.

@Zipgrad01 you're not wrong in your assessment of this team through 3 weeks of football. Hopefully they find some way of turning it around or else this is going to turn into a really long season.

My concern necessarily isn't Woodson neither. My concern is whether the Zips o-line can protect Woodson well enough and if Zips receivers can create enough separation so that Woodson doesn't have to force every pass into tight coverage.

I just don't think Akron's defense is going to be good enough to get stops.Offensively we don't have the perimeter weapons that we did last season. Woodson will have to be nearly perfect squeezing precision passes in tight windows for the Zips to have any chance. I expect Akron to get down early and forced to abandon the run.

I'll get around to buying my bleacher season tickets, I just haven't yet. ~15 games for $60 is a tremendous value. Even if you can only make it to a handful of games, it pays itself off.

It just surprises me ESPN cares enough about their WatchESPN time slots (if you want to even call it that) to dictate start times for non televised games.

Other MAC schools have shown the ability to consistently compete and on occasion even beat good to great P5 teams. We haven't and from what I've seen I don't think we have the talent on this roster to be competing with those teams anytime soon. This isn't to say we can't compete in the future. I just don't feel this staff for whatever reason can recruit the players we need to get us to the next level.

We're going to lose to them by a large margin. That was my point...

This will be the 1st game where we can make any real judgement on the Zips this season. I'm expecting to lose by 10+ points as we lost a lot of talent from what proved to not be that great of a team last year. I would love for the Zips to prove me wrong and pull off the upset.

We're going to get annihilated by Nebraska next year. They aren't anywhere close to being in the same category as a Purdue or Rutgers.

I honestly know nothing about this team we are facing. These were flat out guesses.

I'm in agreement, I'd rather us get bought to play than see us play an FCS team. There is nothing stating we'd need to schedule to schedule 2 top 15 power houses. We could schedule 2 games against 2 mediocre/bad P5 games (Indiana, Illinois, Purdue, Northwestern, Rutgers, etc.).

I agree, this is how I'd like to ideally schedule.

This is going to be ugly. There is no escaping that.

I'm counting 4 cupcakes (CSU, Appalachian State, Missouri Valley State, and Concord). What separates this schedule and makes it look so much better than years past is we landed ourselves in a really good tournament.

My comment wasn't directed towards Big Dog gaining a 10" vertical. It was about how the nutritionist aided Utomi in trimming his body fat from 18% to 11%. Hilltopper said the nutritionist was brought onto the staff and that he has noticed an increased focus on strength and fitness training. He also stated everyone on the team has made noticeable improvements in those areas. Clearly this staff is doing something that last years staff wasn't when players are making these kind of gains in 1 offseason.

I'm sure they were aware. I was more so referring to how quickly this nutritionist aided Utomi in getting results.

If only we had this nutritionist last season for Big Dog...

Ball will clear 1,000 yards if he stays healthy for the full season. I'm just not sure he will.

Winning single digits games year one isn't the way to build momentum for your program. Scheduling a Charlie Cole death march wouldn't be wise for either Akron nor Duquesne at this point.

I was about to post this exact same comment.

I'm mentioning a name change now because it's something that is actually being talked about, at least on here. It's pretty typical for a facility to be renamed as part of a massive renovation.

I don't blame him. I just see no value in keeping it named after someone who was connected to those events, especially if we can get corporate dollars in the process.

I agree, he had no other option but to send in the national guard. That being said things escalated and got out of hand. Like @akzipper said I feel its just best to distance ourselves from the situation.

That's actually why I feel it should be changed. Sports are suppose to be an escape from everyday life. Friends and family attending games, some of which may be Akron alumni, shouldn't have to be reminded of the loved ones they lost that tragic day when attending a game.