kreed5120

I did the same thing for basketball, which is even more of a challenge to attend all the games given the volume of games. Instead of buying 2 season tickets (one for me and 1 for my fiancé), I swap them out 2 tickets to 7 games we can both attend. I think a single game ticket to the Kent game last season was around $25 as Akron charges a premium for it so getting 2 of those as part of my 7 games already reflects like half the cost of the entire package.

The comments replying to him seemed a lot more serious and less jokes about funny play calls. So many of the people were amazed by the $75 for a season ticket when it costs that just for 1 P5 ticket at many schools. A lot of them said if they lived nearby they would attend. Hopefully all this talk builds on itself and people become aware about how cheap tickets really are and the talk surrounding the program gets more students and fans to at least attend the home opening for nothing more than the spectacle. Then just a matter of building off that. A big hurdle for Akron football is just getting people to remember it even exists as it's overshadowed by so much else.

I would become the most insufferable member on this board if I led an opening touchdown and then they proceeded to get shut out afterwards. The captain would have to hit me with a 30 day ban 😂

I saw several randoms that have no affiliation with the program post ticket receipts on X. I wouldn't be surprised if a few hundred season tickets got purchased between people wanting to share it on social media or in group chat with friends for the memes. The best part though is the free publicity. Edit: Maybe Akron's most successful promotion since the legendary Acme Zips games.

I shared this earlier for our other commits so I figured I'd share Evan's as well. He's in the 64th percentile of wings in scoring efficiency, but is pretty elite at everything else, which seems to check out based off what we all saw last season.

Thanks for sharing. I like to hear they're consolidating and right sizing the campus. Also, the designs for Spanton/Bulger seem like a huge positive to make them more attractive to potential incoming freshman. It's hard to find much fault with the current administration. It seems the have a very deliberate plan and are executing on the objectives.

Thanks for sharing. It's nice to hear all the positive outlook surrounding the University as a whole given how negative the outlook has looked the past 7-8 years.

I imagine they use the term help very loosely. I imagine it would mostly be sitting in a room with a few coaches and listen while the discuss. Perhaps pick their brain for knowledge. I'm not as opposed to this as I probably would have been 5, 10 years ago. It's a unique experience and as someone who really isn't all that invested in Zips football I would attend something like this just for the experience on learning the finer details of the game. Anything we can do to engage fans is a positive.

We don't really have a position or money for him either. It's not really a winning formula if our 2 highest paid players are 2 6' guards who both demand the basketball offensively and are both defensive liabilities. IMO if we were able to pull magic to create an open roster spot plus find the money I would rather bring Lyles back. He would be a much bigger upgrade at C compared to what we currently have on the roster than what Tavari would be over Tahj IMO.

@Zippy87 shared a tweet from Jeff Goodman. Jeff is one of the most credible sources in all of college basketball. If he says Tavari is in the portal I'm inclined to believe him. The method of how we was able to enter I don't know.

I believe the court ruling that granted the extra year of eligibility also opened the portal for those specific players. That way they could have an opportunity to find a roster.

I saw on social media that Tavari visited Groce down in Charleston a few weeks ago. Not that I've followed CoC offseason closely, but I don't recall them having the kind of signing that would make it seem they're dropping the kind of cash that they advertised they had. Perhaps they have money left over to make a run at Tavari.

Another thing to take into account is a lot of the earnings endowments make are intended to be spent to fund scholarships, research, or whatever its designated purpose. Money will really only double every 7 years if you keep it invested. Money compounding in perpetuity without ever being spent while looking nice on a balance sheet would kind of be pointless. The goal is probably to spend 3-5% of the endowment per year, but have the investments grow at 6-7%. That way the endowment still steadily grows in size, but is making the differences the donors intended. It growing as much as it did in the last 10 years probably has more to do with stronger than expected market returns combined with an increase in gifts.

The University of Akron's endowment has grown from $204.2 million in 2016 to $376.5 million in 2026 per the audited financials. That would indicate to me that they aren't depleting the principle on restricted endowments to cover operational costs. Personally, I feel it's a positive these small private schools are going out of business. There is clearly a student debt crisis ongoing and frankly a Notre Dame College wasn't worth the ~$50K tuition+room and board it was charging. Both Akron and Kent were ranked ahead of them academically in just about everything and you could attend either school for ~$20K less each year. If they were a Case Western caliber school academically this would be different, but they offered a lowered quality product at an inflated price. Schools like them going out of business should help strengthen the ones that remain.

Thanks, maybe it didn't display for me since I'm not subscribed. I'm interested to hear what changes they have in store for EJ in particular. I usually try to hit up a play there each year as my fiancé enjoys them. It's closer and a fraction of the cost compared to playhouse square.

I see pictures and captions, but no mention of specific work is being done. Did I miss it somewhere?

Exactly, if I wanted to watch professional football or basketball, I'd watch the NFL (which I do) or the NBA (which I rarely do). College sports is now trying to mirror professional sports, but frankly the product they offer is inferior. Its lost what made it unique.

I think UMass and Buffalo both have potential that they could be attractive to a conference like the AAC given their media markets. Their athletic performance, particularly in football, is what has held them back.

This is pretty spot on. I don't see what Miami would bring the AAC. Cincinnati and Xavier already own the Cincinnati market. OSU has a monopoly over Columbus. In-between even Dayton is a much bigger basketball brand. Their ceiling is SunBelt as they're already in a saturated market.

I also think 5-7 is the most likely outcome given this schedule. The team on paper might be slightly improved, depending on if O-line doesn't severely regress, but not sure it's improved enough to make up for a more challenging schedule.

The jersey sponsorships are relatively new. I think it was just in the spring that the NCAA announced that they would be a thing. Now you have 350+ D1 schools and I'm not going to try to guess how many none D1 schools all trying to seek deals. I don't think it's as much that Akron and other MAC schools don't want them. It's more about finding sponsors who are willing to pay mid-six figures. Especially since many of your local credit unions and regional mid-size businesses might have already had their marketing dollars already budgeted and allocated for all of 2026 before they knew jersey patches were going to be a thing. New Mexico State in CUSA signed a deal that pays around $350K/yr. If Goodyear, Timken, Cleveland-Cliffs, or whoever was offering Akron $300K-$500K/yr I'm sure they would have already accepted. It takes two to tango.

The most painful loss IMO (if you want to call it that) was the cancelled tournament. That IMO was the best Zips team to not make the tournament. There were a few Zips teams better, but those teams had the opportunity to make noise. If we exclude that, I'd say Big Dog/Kwan senior year. That was the one year we had legitimate P5 size and couldn't be bullied down low. I actually feel Big Dog could have been a huge mismatch against the right opponent. That team just wasn't built to win 3 games in 3 days in Cleveland.

Weird, I didn't get a paywall when I viewed it from by phone, but I am now that I'm at my computer. I was able to view @Dr Z article though.

It worked fine for me. I'm on my phone right now. If I remember later I'll copy and paste the article from my pc.

The Toledo Blade asked coaches questions during media day and they answered them anonymously. The Blade usually puts together a few of these good articles each year between football and basketball. I figured I'd share if others wanted to read. https://www.toledoblade.com/sports/college/2026/07/25/briggs-mac-coaches-anonymously-dish-leagues-best-jobs-worst-trips/stories/20260724086