Zipped Up

Vince Kehres isn’t coming to Akron. He has the third ranked D in the country. He will either replace Candle or move with him. Or worst case, stay put as D coordinator, if Candle doesn’t move, while entertaining better G6 positions. We could’ve possibly had him after Arth.

I believe Stanford just had an alum give $50 million to the football program. With Andrew Luck as the GM, I think they’ll be OK pursuing football and academics.

Could be 82-0.

One championship last year, since 1968, and OU is the premium football program in the MAC? 😳 And under the rules of division winners the prior year, they wouldn’t have even qualified for the title game last year.

The first year members were UC, Butler, Western Reserve and Ohio. In 1948 the above four members were joined by Western Michigan and Miami. Kent joins in 1951 and BG and Toledo in 1952 which marks the year that the six oldest members have been in the league. If we are counting total wins, that is the first year that would be most logical. Here are the win totals for those six between 1952 - 1961. Miami 38 Ohio 36 BG 32 Kent 31 Kent was a decent program until about 1961. WMU 16 UT 15 So taking into account those years with all the same six, total wins are: Toledo 443 Miami 431 BG 411 WMU 380 Ohio 360 Kent 257 Kent jumps ahead of Northern Illinois by 12 wins but NIU has been in the league 35 less years overall. If one counts inclusive of the 1947-51 years the Miami leads the conference in all time wins with 445 to Toledo 443. Miami has the most MAC championships 17, BG and Toledo tied at 12, CMU 7, NIU 6, OU 5, Ball St 4, Western 2, EMU, Kent, Buffalo and Akron 1 each.

No, you have the much better handle on this. Mango is correct that a 3 star should have confidence in themselves and the coach to be successful. But since the establishment of the Portal, a 3 star (even at Akron) is going to have zero chance to win a job true freshmen year. There used to be a slight chance in the days when a school graduated a kid who had just held the job for two or three years and the freshmen could compete right away with another freshmen or RS freshmen and an upperclassmen who was really a long shot, those days are gone. As soon as a senior graduates, the staff has probably recruited a kid from the Portal the year before or are going looking for one immediately. As you said, the staff is overcommitted to every transfer they bring in. HS kids are still told “we really like you but you’re going to have to compete”, as opposed to the conversation with portal kids “ we liked you out of HS and now that you have a couple years with a program we are going to give you every opportunity to win this job as we like our QB room but JR Jonnie Doe is a true backup and our freshmen and RS freshmen have no experience”. Mango is also correct that a 3 star shouldn’t go D3 because there is little chance he is moving up, but the more likely route now for a 3 star out of HS would be to consider FCS (if you are a good student) or D2 or JUCO (if you are academically challenged ) and you will have a better chance to move up some day to a G5. I think I’m going to look at every MAC school since 2019 or ‘20 and see how many 2 or 3 star HS QBs ended up starting for a season, what year it was, how many stayed the duration and how many even played a down in their first two years before transferring. Off the top of my head, I believe Gabbert and Finn started as freshmen or RS and stayed there at least three years. Gabbert may be the only one to stay the duration. And 98% of every 2 or 3 star on every MAC team eventually had to look elsewhere for a shot. Some teams during this time frame like BG and Akron have played transfers exclusively.

Respectfully disagree. There is almost zero chance of a freshmen or RS freshmen staying if they don’t start. If they haven’t cracked the lineup then the staff is going right to the portal for a quick fix. The portal has ruined recruiting for HS QBs who aren’t 4 or 5 stars but could have been developed at the G5 level or even lower P4 programs.

I think LSU was #6 in 1986 when Miami beat them. This ND team at #5 was a joke.

Iowa’s QB was arguably the worst QB in FBS and he was playing behind a Big10 line. Labas passed on Akron for Ball St initially before decommitting and signing with Iowa when they were empty handed during the COVID freeze on recruiting. He’s not coming to Akron unless it’s his last and only D1 offer.

Tony Georges is on scholarship. Nate Williams, Ronan Chambers and Georges all graduate in spring and will most likely hit the Portal for their last year of eligibility.

Comparing prior and current staff records was not exactly apples to apples comparison. Although I’m not a fan of Arth, Covid screwed up 2020 and skewed how he handled 2021 personnel. So let’s throw out ‘20 and compare two years v two years. Arth (and staff) 2-22 JoMo 4-20. Arth got the two wins and lost 2 of the last 4 to Ball St and Western on last minute plays. Progress was coming (albeit slowly). I would also argue the 2021 schedule was a hell of a lot tougher (both OOC and within the MAC) than this year. So only two wins, but one vs a Bryant team that made the FCS playoffs ( or maybe just missed) and BG on the road, while not a very good team, they were coming off a win vs Minnesota just a couple weeks earlier. Last year JoMo needed OT to beat an average FCS team and the worst NIU in 20 years and this year needed two miracles to beat the worst team in FCS and the worst in FBS. Frankly, they were both failures in relatively comparable time frames, yet only one is heralded as an offensive guru and keeps telling everyone how he could be somewhere bigger and better.

Can’t be a Can’t alum. None would have a million dollars.

He verbally committed to Arth’s staff per their X posts in October of ‘21. He probably didn’t sign his NLI in December because of the uncertainty around the new hire. JoMo and Fessler closed the deal in January because they had only been on the job 2 weeks and hadn’t time to recruit anybody. My point is that Jennings is not Moorhead’s kid, nor Jankowski. Wasel is a different story but if they don’t give him a chance in last 4 games given where the season stands ( and his redshirt intact) then that may say something about their initial evaluation of him. I personally wish they would give Jankowski a start against the other worst team in FBS. With almost zero experience in three years, he has just a good a chance as what we’ve seen.

Jennings was recruited by Arth and he committed to Akron while Arth was still employed as HC.

Ok, my last comment on this. I absolutely agree that coaches do not give a 💩 about stars. I used the stars in my example to demonstrate my theory that the level of recruit for Akron and other Ohio MAC schools, from far outside Ohio, is not greater than that which is still available within Ohio and surrounding areas. I appreciate your X’s and O’s analysis as an ex- coach, I assume, but as a parent of two boys who played college football, my knowledge is how recruiting works at all levels.