kreed5120

I wouldn't even label YSU a good FCS team right now. Their records the last 3 seasons have been 6-5, 4-7, & 6-6. I'm not saying we'll win as with the season we just had we can't afford to take anyone for granted, but this isn't your Jim Tressel era YSU.

I'm not exactly sure how YSU got the game. I did notice the game was actually played at the Covelo Centre instead of YSU home court. If the HoF village ever gets around to building that arena they were talking about, I wonder if we could ever get someone to agree to play us there since it's a "neutral court".

We need to start packing the paint. It's clear we can't stop them in the paint. We need to at least make them shoot over us.

Towson-Tulane is in OT so expect a delay in start time.

Liberty's strongest opponent coming into today was Vandy. Akron's nearly 40 spots ahead of them in kenpom rankings so I'd say it's an accurate statement.

I came a crossed the below article written by a Liberty fan previewing the match-up. It looks as though we should have a decent size advantage. https://www.aseaofred.com/liberty-vs-akron-preview/

Akron always has at least 1 game they have no chance of winning of the schedule. New Mexico State and UMass are FBS bottom feeders and YSU is an FCS school. If we were just mediocre MAC, we'd have no trouble going 3-1 with that schedule.

This has to be the easiest OOC schedule we've had in years.Hopefully it translates into wins.

SOS can be a little misleading. It doesn't factor non-D1 games into the equation. EMU has played 3 of those games thus far. Tulane has actually played 0 of those games. Sure Alcorn State & SE Louisiana are terrible teams, but they're still better than D2 and NAIA teams. Tulane could quickly improve their SOS by dropping those low D1 opponents and schedule 2-3 D2 teams instead.

I would say as an added bonus he comes at a position of need, but that pretty much summarizes every position. Are any of these OL expected to start day 1? It doesn't matter who we have carrying the ball if we don't get better blocking up front.

I wouldn't look too into EMU record. They've beaten a lot of very bad teams by very narrow margins. I'm guessing they will be their usual 7-11 or 8-10 during conference play.

Boise State isn't considered a P5 in football, meanwhile, Rutgers and Kansas are. It has always been a measurement of what conference you're affiliated with, not the quality of the team.

Williams still played 4 games this season and only amassed 10 catches for 96 yards. Its not like he transferred before the season began. Overall I felt WR was the 1 position we had some talent at in the beginning of the season before injuries and transfers started taking their toll.

NET rankings are much more sensitive at this time of year compared to Kenpom as it doesn't have preseason expectations built into the model. Kent lost last night on a neutral court to a UC Irvine team that would place in the upper half of the MAC and it still led to them falling 32 spots. Kent fell maybe 5 spots in Kenpom over that same loss. Kenpom is the more proven and likely accurate measurement of whose better than who. That being said when it comes to seeding and such for the NCAA tournament, the NET rankings is what the committee looks at, not Kenpom so it's still worth looking at.

Akron moved up to #57 in NET rankings. A full 34 spots ahead of the next MAC team ?.

Buffalo seems like a roller coaster this season. They have two of the MAC's better wins this season in Depaul & Harvard, but have also had some head scratching losses. They seem to lack any sort of consistency.

The NCAA released the NET rankings today. Akron came in ranked #63, which was 2nd best in the conference. Liberty is currently #19 and Tulane is #127. https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/basketball-men/d1/ncaa-mens-basketball-net-rankings?utm_campaign=trending

You really can't put it in top 7 neither as the AAC has consistently been much better. It seems these days everyone has their own definition of what constitutes a mid-major and what doesn't. I quit paying attention to it.

I'll always prefer the tournaments that provide us the opportunity to play Louisville and WVU type teams on a neutral court. It's so hard to pick up those resume building wins when you're forced to play at their arena. Liberty & Tulane are having good seasons, but those are the type of teams we could (and should) schedule home and homes with.

$150k seems to be the going rate for a MAC defensive coordinator so I'm not all that surprised. Now arguing that he was under qualified for the position in the first place is a whole other discussion. If Arth was insistent on bringing in his cronies, I would have at least liked to have seen him go out and get an experienced OC/DC. Perhaps with one of those guys having some prior FBS head coaching experience. I don't find it all that surprising that I-coach is the highest paid assistant in the MAC. At this point he's a veteran assistant and has thus far been a much better assistant than he was a head coach.

Kelley transferring to Bama to replace Tua confirmed

It was nice to see Xeyrius have back-to-back good games from behind the arc. Hopefully he has regained his confidence and shaken off the rust. Edit: After my initial post I saw Williams won MAC East player of the week. https://gozips.com/news/2019/12/9/mens-basketball-williams-named-mac-east-player-of-the-week.aspx

This is usually the point in the game where the more talented teams pull away. Let's see if the Zips have it in them to go on a run to create some separation.

University probably caught win of @NWAkron posts and decided it was too much of a liability risk. They're already being sued because of 1 player incurring a concussion. They probably don't want a second lawsuit.

You typically see a few of these per year. Marshall had been playing Akron, Toledo, and Ohio annually the past few years. It was mentioned in the broadcast that Marshall wanted to continue the series with Ohio, but Ohio wanted to take a short break from the series. This left an open date in Marshall's schedule, which I'm guessing conveniently matched up with a date Toledo was looking to fill.