kreed5120

The MAC is pretty consistently regarded as the 10-15 best conference out of the 32. That is not below average. The MAC consistently beating up on the bottom 175 teams while losing to the top 175 is what makes it average. The MAC isn't the only mid-major that schedules these. EMU is kind of an outlier with their 4, but the other schools schedule 1-2 of them which is pretty consistent to what other mid-majors are scheduling. Edit: If the MAC wants to become above average, they need to start beating above average teams. Akron could play an OOC schedule that features Duke, UNC, Kentucky, Kansas, MSU, and UCLA. If they lose to all of them that doesn't somehow make them better than if they beat the cupcakes they face now.

It gets 1 bid because there is never a team worthy of an at-large. The few instances that they might have had a team worthy that team went onto win the tournament anyways. Last year Akron went 13-5 in conference play (not good enough for a conference as average as the MAC) and they lost the only OOC game that they had a chance to pick up a statement win.

I suppose the better phrasing is that it is more likely than not that they scheduled a non-D1 intentionally. The teams budget only allows for so many dollars to be spent annually on buy games. It's significantly cheaper to buy Adrian than what it is to buy even another Radford or American.

EMU probably will actually have a better SOS than Akron. Non-D1 schools aren't factored into your SOS, meanwhile schools like American and Radford are. Akron will end up playing a tougher schedule, but a flaw in how SOS is calculated won't show it.

We definitely intended to target a lower division school. We have one on the schedule every year. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Even a school like North Carolina had a non-D1 program on their schedule this season. I'd start to have a problem if there is more than just 1.

Wasn't sure if any of you guys might have missed this. We, at Akron Athletics, would like to wish all of our Akron Basketball season ticket holders a Happy Thanksgiving! We would also like to thank all season ticket holders for their support of Akron Basketball and Akron Athletics. To show our gratitude, we would like to give each season ticket holder a special gift. Starting at the December 17th game against Marshall, season ticket holders can pick up a FREE Akron Basketball glass. More details will be released soon! Thank you again for your support and Go Zips!

Their backup C went down with an injury and should be out for quite some time, possibly the entire season. Not that that will be enough, but it should help the bleeding some.

We have Creighton and Gonzaga who are ranked higher than any of those 3 teams you mentioned. Our schedule is much better than EMU, not that that says too much... Edit: I can live with the one non-D1 team on the schedule. I just wish it was played to start the season, not 3 weeks into it.

Yeah, I'd have to be paid to actually attend this game.

If Akron actually produced an NBA player that today's college student actually knew, having a former player jersey night might actually be a viable option.

It can also be seen by the fact we have been investing in the product and the University has really stepped up in trying to promote (mostly unsuccessfully) its athletics.

A certain someone on this forum feels we cycle through coaches too fast, but I feel our problem has been we have held onto coaches too long before realizing they weren't the man for the job. That or we realized they weren't the man for the job, but didn't care enough about the football program to fire them and bring in someone better. We gave Faust 9 years We then gave Lee Owens 9 years Brookhart 6 years Ianello 2 years (only one we identified was terrible early on and moved on) Bowden heading into year 6 and some people are saying that 6 years wouldn't be a large enough sample size for him These 5 coaches account for the last 31 years of our football history and all 30 of our FBS seasons. In those 30 years we have had a combined 7 winning seasons. Perhaps had we not hung onto certain coaches as long as we have, we might have stumbled upon a Fleck by now or at least a Solich.

I'd certainly take those 30 minutes of wonderful over all these 5-7 seasons we've been experiencing. If we got to the point of consistently winning 7-10 games per year, I'd take that over 1 wonderful year followed by a bunch of poop years.

I'm more concerned that we've been outrebounded 35-22.

You say you want Akron to be a consistent contender like OU. Solich had early success at OU indicating that he was a great coach. 5 years in I still haven't seen evidence that Bowden can turn Akron into a serious MAC contender. Like I said I'm prepared to give him another season, but I don't want to hear excuses if he has another 5-7 season. 6 years is an eternity in the coaching world.

What Solich achieved in his 1st 5 years at OU isn't even comparable to what Bowden has done. Solich had 2 9 win and won the MAC East not once, but twice.

Air Force could perhaps make some noise if they played in a lesser conference, but I can't see them contend in the MWC. When it's all said and done I'm going to guess beating them would be comparable to beating an upper-middle tier MAC school.

3 of his 5 seasons the Zips were 5-7. I'd say that's not much of a trend in either direction more so just hovering around mediocrity. I'm not saying fire him, but I do think he deserves to be on the hot seat. And I sure as hell don't think he is gods gift to Akron football as he really hasn't accomplished anything special in the larger grand scheme of things. Great Akron set a program record for wins, but we still finished 7th in the MAC last year and got sent to the least desirable MAC bowl. The fact that it took only 8 wins to set the program record was more a testament to how bad Bowdens predecessors were more than anything else. App State achieved double figure wins its 2nd year in FBS. We have top notch facilities and play in fertile recruiting ground. There is no reason why we can't consistently be a top 3-4 team in the MAC. We've yet to reach that point under Bowden.

4 out of Bowden's 5 seasons at Akron have ended with Akron having a losing record. I'd call that a trend.

We clearly had some injury problems, but you will get that from time to time. The fact we had absolutely no depth at any position besides receiver is what killed us. It's not like the teams (BG and Buffalo particularly) were anything special. We had no depth because our coaches failed at recruiting and developing players. 2-10 Buffalo, who lost to FCS Albany, set their school rushing record against us. I don't care if we lost 6 players on the d-line and 6 linebackers. That shouldn't happen.

Injuries are a part of the game. Ohio lost 2 QBs before the season even began. This team had absolutely no depth and that comes back to poor recruiting and player development. I'm fully aware how bad those coach I teams were and statistically this years Akron's defense was worse than of those teams... Bowden has been here 5 years. The players on the roster are guys he recruited. At some point you have to quit blaming coach I for Akron's current performance.

Yeah, I'm not going to sit around listening to the radio for 2 hours. What is this the 1930s? What a joke there isn't some sort of video feed.

Unlike me defending the Browns coaches and front office, as it's kind of hard to say definitively one way or the other not even through year 1 of a 4 year plan, (certainly beats past regimes that had no plans and just tried to super glue and rubber band a team together), Bowden has kind of been around long enough (5 years and 2nd longest tenured MAC coach) that I feel it is fair to make judgements on what he has and hasn't accomplished. 2012 - 1-11 (0-8) 2013 - 5-7 (4-4) 2014 - 5-7 (3-5) 2015 - 8-5 (5-3) 2016 - 5-7 (3-5) After 5 years our best season was finishing 7th in the MAC and we have made only 1 bowl game. IMO we HAVE to win the bare minimum of 7 regular season games or Bowden needs to go, no excuses. He's had plenty of time to filter out coach I's trash. EMU was just in as bad of shape as we were and Creighton has turned them around in 3 years.

Air Force comes into this showdown 5-0 on the season. They look to have size at the guard position, but are really undersized in the frontcourt. They only have 3 players over 6'5 that receive 10 minutes per game or more. Those guys are forwards Luvelle Scottie & Ryan Manning who are listed at 6'6 and Frank Toohey whose listed as their C and comes in at 6'7. They average just a tick under 22 3PA per game and as a team have hit 43.7% of those. This looks like a matchup that we will need Big Dog to impose his will. We will also need our guards to play tight defense and not leave room for their shooters to hoist 3's.

I'd argue that everything is going according to plan. They stripped the team entirely like the Astros and 76ers did a few years back fully anticipating a really high pick, meanwhile, have stockpiled quite the arsenal of high draft picks. The strategy really can't be judged for another 2-3 years IMO. What is going to be key is actually turning those high draft picks into quality players. That's where Houston succeeded, but Philly failed.