kreed5120

I feel getting out to an early lead is vital. If we can get Toledo to feel the need to pass instead of just trying to ram it down our throats 40+ times, we might have a chance.

Yeah, that sounds like a poor business move if it leads to a group of people leaving. I've had success at pretty much every bar around campus, B-Dubs in Belden, Puckers in North Canton, Fox and Hound in Belden, and Firehouse Tallmadge Circle are the ones that come to mind. B-Dubs by the mall is kind of my go to. They have soooo many TVs that turning 1 TV to something different is like nothing.

You must go to some poor customer service bars. I've gotten Zips games turned on at both large chain bars and dive bars. Occasionally I've had to ask more than once, but by being persistent I've never not gotten a Zips game on when I wanted it. I wouldn't be able to get the game on tonight, but it isn't a typical night.

I'm a bigger Indians fan than I am Zips, Cavs, or Browns so choosing game 7 of the World Series over a regular season Zips game is a no brainer for me. Sorry Zips. I'll be scoreboard watching from my phone at one of the downtown Cleveland bars.

It's pretty evident that the talent just isn't there. My criticism of Amato is more so related to the fact that by him being the defensive coordinator he has a lot of say in what players Akron recruits on defense. Maybe he delegates much of that responsibility to his assistants. Either way someone in charge of evaluating defensive talent clearly goofed up and someone else needs to assume that responsibility.

The basketball team plays in an arena that is an adequate enough size that they can fill or come close to filling it a few games per year. There is no denying the fact that Infocision is so large that it will rarely to never be at capacity. WMU is having one of the greatest seasons in MAC history and only 1 of their 4 home games would be a sell out at Infocision (27,000) and even then it would have been less than the SRO capacity of 30,000. TBH building it as large as they did was counter productive. It thins the crowd out so much that even when they do pull a decent crowd it still looks really empty.

The fallacy I see in this argument is I'd say a very high % of people that go to Zips basketball games are students and alumni that already go to football games. If 1,500 people have season tickets to both basketball and football that equates to 5.5% of Infocisions capacity, meanwhile, that equates to 27.2% of the JARs. The same is true for the students.

CBT has us ranked 10th among mid-majors for whatever that's worth. http://collegebasketball.nbcsports.com/2016/10/31/2016-17-mid-major-power-rankings/

It's because you hear what you want to hear. What I said was winning 11-12+ games each and every year isn't obtainable, which is what it would take for bandwagon fans to care enough to turn off the OSU game and actually attend. The first 7-8 win season, which is still winning, they will disappear. So no winning doesn't solve everything because Joe Akron only cares when you win big time. Akron's basketball program has been winning for over a decade now and yet they still manage to average around 3500 fans in a 5500 seat arena. They only mount a sell out streak when they are having an historical run, which has been like once or twice. As great of a coach as Dambrot is not even he can get the Zips to perform well enough for Joe Akron to care on a year in and out basis.

Looks like some pretty stiff competition that we're recruiting against. Would be a great land.

Pretty much what I was getting at. They need to make the game day experience fun. Something like OU where they are consistently .500 or better isn't bad, however, I'd like to have a spectacular season sprinkled in here and there.

And you're naive if you think Akron can get to the point that it will win 10+ games every year, because it is pretty evident that 8 wins isn't enough to generate interest. That kind of stability isn't feasible in the MAC because even if you do get lucky and find a Fleck, they coach themselves out of the MAC in a handful of seasons which brings you back to square one. You're also competing against people that have similar resources. This isn't the B1G or SEC where certain schools have built in systematic advantages.

You mean 92% filled (30,200 capacity), which is great, but what about 23,721 (78.5%) vs EMU and 17,208 (56.9%) vs.Georgia Southern. I never said winning doesn't help, but WMU is also kind of having an historic season here. They aren't going to be able to make a run at 13-0 every year. Akron basketball had a sell out streak when they went on that long winning streak, but guess what people quit caring once their historic run ended even though they have consistently been really great pretty much every year since. You need a sustainable fan base. Not one that only cares about you when you put together one of those once in a generation historical runs. Those are the fans that will abandon you 1st when things go sour. OU has been an above average MAC football team, but they consistently lead or are among the leaders in attendance each year. They've built an actual fan base.

If it was that simple Dambrot's teams would be packing the JAR on a regular basis instead of only selling out the typical 1-3 games per year. WMU is ranked and is easily having their best season in program history and sure they have seen an uptick in attendance but they aren't even filling Waldo Stadium to capacity.

I don't think Mount Union pulls as many people as you think. I've lived 10-15 minutes away from their stadium pretty much my entire life and I've never been to a game nor do I know anyone that has been, including friends that I know that went to Mount. According to this they typically attract between 1500-4500 fans per game. That's far less than what my Division 3 high school pulled. A Saturday McKinley or Massillon game would cost Akron more fans than any Mount Union game would. http://athletics.mountunion.edu/sports/fball/2014-15/teams/mountunion?view=attendance

1) This isn't your fathers Marshall. They've lost to some really bad teams this year and just because they were good 2-3 years ago doesn't mean they are good now. Also, Akron has a track record of losing to about everyone. By that logic pretty much every win is a quality win. I'd say our win over Miami > our win over Marshall. 2) Every team deals with injuries to some degree. Perhaps and likely Akron was hit harder than Wisconsin or WMU. What irks me isn't the fact we couldn't beat these teams, it's that we couldn't even somewhat stay in the game. I'm just asking staying within 3 TDs of 1 of these 2 games. We are in Bowden's 5th year and we are still 41 points worse than the MAC's best team. That's a massive gap to close and makes you wonder how long is it going to take for Akron to become a real contender?

Quality post and for the record I'm not on the fire Bowden bandwagon, but can see how the argument has gained some momentum. There are a few things I disagree with your post however. 1) Beating a 2-6 Marshall is not even close to being a quality win and I wouldn't label Ball State as one neither. I will concede Utah State and Pitt were big for the program. 2) Losing to Buffalo isn't the only blemish on the season. There is no shame in losing to WMU and Wisconsin, however, losing to them by a combined score of 95-10 is extremely humiliating.

I'd like to shake up the coordinators before I'd seriously consider giving Bowden the boot. For starters Jeff Bowden needs to go. Our kickoff coverage has been absolutely terrible. We've been able to attract offensive talent (Natson, Ball, Kato, and a few other P5 transfers that will be suiting up for us next season), but the well has seemed to run dry on us bringing in the same caliber of players on defense. We got Marcus and Pittman which are great, but that's kind of it when we talk about getting defensive recruits that are coveted by other P5 teams. I would never question Amato's knowledge of X's and O's, but if he can't appeal to 17, 18, and 19 year old kids that kind of limits his ability as a coach.

Toledo comes in 43rd in the country in rushing and Akron hasn't slowed down the running whatsoever this season. Combine that with last Thursday Woodson seemed to have something nagging his shoulder and I'm guessing it impacted his accuracy. Akron needs to play a near flawless offensive game to be in a position to win and I'm not sure they will be able to.

I think you are the one that doesn't understand. Toledo defense might be bad (ranked 42nd in total defense which doesn't sound terrible), but Akron's defense is perhaps the worst in FBS bad or at least close to it. Akron is giving up 483 ypg which is good for 118th in the country and is over 100 more yards per game allowed than Toledo. Akron is giving up 228 ypg on the ground. Even when they know their opponent is going to run, they haven't been able to stop it. I don't see that somehow changing this week.

Sounds like the over/under on points should be around 90 then

I just hope we can win a game for bowl eligibility.

Only 4 months until we lose a heartbreaker in the MAC tourney or make a quick 1st round exit at the Big Dance.

The division in the MAC have been unbalanced for some time with this year perhaps being the worst its ever been.

I hear his parents helped him out a great deal in raising Reggie Jr. so that he could finish high school, go to college, and try to establish an NFL career. Great that he had those positive influences in his life. Hear so many stories of kids having kids in high school then dropping out. Nice to hear a guy using it as motivation to better his life in an attempt to make a better future for his kid.