UA1996MAENG

I expected them to be 1-3 at this point, but it seems that the tide has risen for the MAC opponents I thought UA could beat this year. BGSU? EMU? UB? In August I would have said these were potential wins; today I can't see it.

I agree. I'm pulling for him, hoping for success, drinking 8-dollar beers at Infocison Stadium to support my alma mater, but another 2-10 year would be the end for him. I was optimistic in August, had reasonable expectations consideirng the non-conference schedule, but now it does look like a tough task to improve on 2-10 last year. Kent is a possible win but based on recent play of the other MAC teams, I just do not see a third win, let alone 3 or 4. 😐

Agree totally. For the top of the football world, teams play in maybe 1-2 games that are compelling. OSU this year? Maybe 1 in the regular season. I've tuned out of P5 football almost 100%.

I think UC dropped men's soccer about five years ago. I can't imagine that UC in the Big12 doesn't have the funding to sponsor this sport, but as it goes across the country, even for "rich" universities, the cuts are always in the olympic sports in order to elevate FB and BB.

I was there in the cheap seats and I enjoyed the game after the first quarter. I just don't know what to think. Does this team have the talent to win a few games in the MAC? Yes. Will it? Hmmmm. I'm trying to be postive in that maybe this type of game allowed the team to work out timing (and work out the bugs) in real time, something that was not really possible against OSU and Rutgers. I think the Zips will start to gel over the next few games. We might even see some progress against South Carolina.

A recent ABJ article about UA Football. Probably pay-walled, but at least they are writing something. https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/sports/college/zips/2024/09/12/akron-zips-college-football-coach-joe-moorhead-colgate-raiders-home-opener/75151099007/

Yeah.....but I'm going anyway with my wife and I'm dragging my kid out of South Residence Hall to go too. Go Zips!

Exactly. I had thought eventually that all of the MW and P-2 (OSU/WSU) would merge and rebrand as the Mountain-Pacific Conference or under some such name. Now half of the MW is cast off and will have to join some other G5 conference, which will surley increase the travel/accomdations costs for programs that are already losing money.

Do I understand this correclty that the Pac-12 (six members) will still be a Power Conference in the future? That seems unfair to a few of the Group of 5 conferences that are, honestly, as good or better than those six programs collectively.

Just when I think there are a few wins to be had in the MAC schedule for Zippy and Crew, NIU knocks off ND, BGSU plays really well against #8 Penn State, and EMU somehow did not seem all that bad in a loss to Washington. Or is Penn State really overrated?

Kent signed him to an extension after one year in which he went 1-11 (and a very bad, hopeless kind of 1-11)? Well, they deserve what they get then.

Would a loss to Colgate be the end of Moorehead? From a financial point of view, UA can't fire another coach under contract... or can it? KSU losing to St. Francis looks like the essential end of Kenni Burns'; KSU can't afford to fire him, but I think the writing is on the wall that he's not the guy. Same fate for Moorehead? His winning % is hardly better than Ionello's 2-22.

I have a scar on my knee when I fell down drunk in the RB parking lot in 1994. We could induct that.

Well, like for any private institution, 87k is the sucker price. On average, almost nobody pays that much.

A good point, but wasn't it pretty much unavoidable that UA had to build a new stadium? Was the Rubber Bowl still viable? I had not been there since the 90s, but I heard it was a nightmare to operate. I liked it as a fan though.

Why don't college soccer teams play overtime in the regular season? There's OT in the tournaments, right? The lady Zips went all the way to Moon Township PA last night and tied Robert Morris. Frustrating.

If true, UA could flop at a much reduced rate by not hiring Joe Moorhed for a base salary of 600K. I'm not saying you're wrog, but whatever UA makes from three blood money games against Power 5 teams is certainly not much more than the overall "cash" football budget (salaries, travel. equipment) as opposed to what the student activitiy fees also cover.

So see now that Tim Sykes left for VaTech, and two of the top runners from the 2023 MAC championship team went to Arkansas, but it seems like UA was slow to hire Syke's replacement. As of this morning there are only nine runners on the men's team. Also, Mary Munga is still listed on the women's roster but she transferred to University of Toledo (At least that is what the UT site says). I know I'm the mental patient for looking at this so closely, but Sykes today is still listed as an assistant T&F coach. At the very least, the UA SID needs to update some information on the website. https://hokiesports.com/staff/tim-sykes

I can hardly believe it. The ABJ actually ran a story about UA football: https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/sports/college/zips/2024/08/28/akron-zips-college-football-season-prevew-roster-coach-joe-moorhead/74922598007/

The UA residence halls are indeed sold out every year. Overall enrollment, as has been discussed in other posts, is way down due to a number of factors, including a nationwide downward trend in college enrollment (except for the "elite" universities and large land-grant "flagship" universities like Ohio State). NE Ohio is the perfect storm of larger national trends: a stagnant economy, a declining population, fewer academically viable males enrolling (fewer males surviving year one if they do enroll), and a lot of nearby competition: UA, KSU, CSU, YSU all within 50 miles of each other plus a lot of private institutions.

OSU main campus is already very selective in both general admissions and for specific colleges. My son had a 3.7 GPA and good ACT and OSU-main admitted him, but he could not get into the College of Engineering. He also didn't care for the whole OSU environment/culture (he is not interested in athletics or the Greek system, etc.). He chose The Univerity of Akron for many great reasons. I just wish more kids would look to UA as a destination.

Yep, or worse... Sorry to any closeted OSU fans on here, but Ryan Day seems like just the kind of asshole to run up the score on a MAC opponent. If he hadn't fallen into coaching, he'd be ripping off your dad at the Buick dealership.

I live in Columbus, but sorry, Zips, I just can't face this game. I'll open my eyes again in September. The only thing UA gets out of this is money. Everything else is a negative. Pray for an injury-free game.

I have been to many UA soccer games over the past 25+ years. I know very little about the sport in general and even less about the landscape of NCAA soccer. Maybe I'm wrong, but I kind of felt like at the end of last year that the steam went out of this program. Did UA get poached through the portal/NIL? The tie against ND sucked me in. Now I'm worried.

This seems like a good idea, and I'm pretty sure that the new UA President, Nemer, must be beind this initiative.