ZipCat

YSU is an absolute dumbster fire. I'm close friends with a lot of faculty at YSU, that is definitely not the route you want to go as a University. And hiring Jim Tressel to be President of the University of Akron was an absolute embarrassment, and does not speak well to the University that would be so desperate to do that. YSU was trying to cling to relevancy. UA is supposed, or at least was supposed, to have a higher credibility than trying to cling to relevancy.

I'm absolutely dumbfounded that someone can be so clueless as to think that it's okay to ask for $1200 IN DONATIONS (you don't even get anything for that) just to advance their own career.

Yes. And we won the game.

I swear to god it's me. I'm the problem. I turned off the game at half time, then noticed the score was tied and figured, what the hell I'll give them a chance and tune back in. The VERY play I tune back int, they fumble turnover. Good lord, it has to be me...

Does anyone enjoy watching Zips Football?

Welp this is getting ugly...

Well that wasn't great...

They have money on the outcome of the game?

Annnnnd with that, done watching this garbage.

We can't even get a play off...

Whoooooooooops. I think I had a few too many yesterday... 🤣

Let's not pretend Akron could get anyone better. Especially after Arth.

Dear god this offense sucks.

WHY. CAN'T. THEY. TACKLE!?

Jesus how do you give up a TD with 1:18 to go good lord.

HE MISSED IT!!!!!

Wow...playing 3 weeks of BIG-10 and SEC teams has made the Zips look pretty crisp.

Jesus christ ... folks is this worth it? Good lord.

So your problem is with the OP, not with my response. Perhaps you should redirect that statement at OP and not me. I merely responded to a thread, and responded to your response to that thread. That's fair game in any measure of a public forum. Nobody asked for you to respond to the "Athletic Budget" post, but it's perfectly fair game to respond to anything you say in it. The fact remains: Alumni SHOULD be invested in discussing these things.

But this is a real conversation alumni should have isn't it? Is Our Program actually worth it? Because we're not just sports fans, we're also alumni of our University. And it's more than appropriate to be having in a thread called *checks notes* Athletics Budget.

And even then, we shouldn't want that. I'd rather a Billionaire fund the ACTUAL University, to help build it's profile for the students who come, and make the U more sustainable in it's goal of academics, rather than athletics. I've always wanted athletics to be a valuable avenue for Alumni to reconnect with the U ... but let's just be real here, the majority don't. We are the few.

I'm as much a diehard zip as anyone. But somebody has got to be the canary in the coalmine. It's 2024. The answer for a Mid-Major isn't "spend more" in NIL 2024. Hell, if we're going to spend more put it into Soccer and Basketball where we stand a chance of being competitive at 1/10th the price of trying to be competitive in College Football.

This forum is just hilarious. ZERO people expected this game to be anything but a loss. ZERO people (except me the homer who alway says the Zips will win) thought this game would be anything but a devastating Loss. Yet everyone acts like the sky is falling, we need to fire Morehead now, after the two most predictable losses in the history of the program. Good lord. Folks: We've tried the fire-a-coach-every-three-years strategy numerous times, how the hell has that worked out over the past 20 years?

Next do Expenditures. Most of the Revenue barely covers the operating budget of the Football program: -$1.2 million for 62 Full-Scholarships (assuming basic tuition, room and board) -$1.4 million for coaches -$1 million at least a year for travel (The BIG-10 pays $7-million a year alone in travel expenses). -$5-million a year in debt servicing for the White Elephant (based on old data, but I can't imagine it's far from $3-5million) That's AT LEAST $8.6 million College football at UA costs. And even if we want to write-off the White-Elephant as "Infrastructure Capital Investment" (which would be an absolute, hysterical, joke) the basic operating expenses of the program are all that revenue covers. You could cut the Football program tomorrow, and thus lose all of it's revenue, and you either basically break-even, or completely come out with a net gain because you no longer have the looses. How are we supposed to compete? How are we supposed to be an actual university when we're dumping resources down the drain on a White Elephant program that's kept only because a very small alumni base expect it, and the administrative state wants to keep it because it's good 6-figure jobs they can use to springboard to other, better things by building their resume. What physical, tangible, benefit does Akron Football have to the Students of the University Akron (who subsidize the entire athletic departments $30-million budget to the tune of $19-million through student debt. There is none. Stop pretending Akron Football is something UA is neglecting and if only we spent a little more money we'd be able to compete. No, we won't. That ship sailed when you fired a named coach, with a college football pedigree in the same year the program beat it's first BIG-10 team ever, while the guy still had several years left on his contract. Enough is enough. Akron Football is never going to be competitive, especially in the years of the NIL. Takes like this are completely delusional of the reality of college athletics in 2024. They were clueless in 2012, and they're even more clueless today.