Captain Kangaroo

In defense of Finley- it is miserable outside in NE Ohio right now. A 39 degree pouring rain. It is really tough to throw or catch a football in these conditions…conditions that were in Illinois about 13 hours ago. In reasonable weather he’s shown a strong arm and good accuracy. He’s also shown that he can throw too high a volume of inexplicable INT’s. He’s way better than Undercuffler, but after nearly a 4 year career sampling, probably grades-out as a slightly-above-average MAC QB.

As of right now...

I think you’re missing 58 other game minutes.

How many losses can one severely depleted fan base take? The Zips ain’t no fun to follow. Bad football.

Can the Zips play clean game, and not simply hand it to NIU on a silver platter with fumbles, INT’s and bonehead penalties galore? If do, they can win. Some of the Zips players have obviously spent a ton of time choreographing various celebration dances and pantomimes. It’d be a shame if the couldn’t use them.

Harris is 2024’s Xerius Williams.

Reminds me of when I used to play basketball with my son in the driveway and I was a foot and a half taller than him.

Man are we getting smoked on the boards.

Whatever the opposite of a roll is, we’re on it. A schnide?

Gael’s Talk

Testify, brother Hilltopper!! 🙌

At the beginning of the football season my wife wanted a couple of new Akron shirts. She ordered them from the University's shop on-line. A week later she got an email that both items were out of stock. You can't make this ineptitude up.

The Infocision team shop didn’t open until 30 minutes before game time for the homecoming game. There were 10,000 fans there, and the tailgate crowds arrived early. Lots of alumni were looking to buy gear, and the shop was closed. Ditto the last home game, with a lesser crowd. The bad news is the Arby’s A is lame. The good news is the team shop is never open so nobody can buy the items.

Then why are we slashing our budgets so severely if he was so good at bringing in donors? Why does football have $0 NIL? Kaulig and Wenz were around long before Guthrie, and will be around long after. I don't see giving Charles any credit for not offending them over the past three years.

I'll disagree. I don't think anyone connected the "pouch + kangaroo = female" dots until many years into Zippy's existence. I never heard of it until maybe a decade ago. And I'm old. I hate that our mascot wears a pink tutu at Halloween weekend football games and dresses overtly feminine at others (tiaras, etc.). It is a bad look. If people within the University are militant about promoting that Zippy is a female, just having a pouch is good enough. Mascots should not be marsupial Barbie dolls. Not a popular opinion in 2024, but what can you do.

Oh, he got it alright.

We always lose measuring stick games like this. It would be awesome to finally break through. My biggest three questions after the Arkansas State game- 1.) Can Isiah Gray play under control in crunch time? His pulse rate ramped up at the end of the game and he made some pressure related mistakes. 2.) Groce voiced displeasure with a player that was dogging it up the court, and out of condition against ASU. Said player didn’t like getting benched for being called out for an unsatisfactory effort. I’ll guess the player was Wilson? How does he respond? 3.) How does Tavari respond to the competition from Young? If Tarvari isn’t making buckets, Young’s gonna get an increasing amount of minutes.

For some history context- if the Zips didn’t have a D1 football program we wouldn’t be in the MAC. And our basketball program wouldn’t be where it is today. With basically a 40% chance of getting in the NCAA tournament every year. If we drop a division we won’t be in the MAC. Unless there’s a new Division for those who can’t, and shouldn’t run with the NIL big dogs. And basketball would suffer. Be competitive in the MAC in football and build from there. It’s the most financially responsible route while staying relevant across the collegiate athletics board.

Joe did what he was told. The customer is always right. During the selection process there were better designs. More clever designs. And Guthrie forced his lame, amateur Graphic Designer effort on us. Beyond that, he fixed a problem that didn’t exist, when he should have been focusing on real problems. Yay…he rearranged the deck chairs on the Titanic. There’s a reason the guy’s gone, and it isn’t because anyone was impressed with his graphic designer capabilities. Hope our next AD isn’t a putz. Based upon history there’s a 75% chance he/she/they will be.

We don’t need stability for the sake of stability. Guthrie isn’t gone because he was anything but bad AD. It heartens me that UA recognized the mistake and cut bait.

With all the problems and challenges associated with Akron athletics, this guy chose to focus on a new logo…which I contend is the least creative thing I’ve ever seen. He did it because it is on the check list of things AD’s do to fill their resume (I grew University gear revenue by 5889% with my new branding). Don’t get me started on his last basketball coaching hire at UWGB that impressed Akron enough to hire him. So glad he's gone. But not supremely confident we’ll pick a winner to succeed him.

Hope the takes his sh!tty Arby’s A with him. Good riddance.

Years ago...maybe during the Brookhart era...we were playing Kent (at Kent). The Zips were forced to punt from their own endzone late in the 4th quarter. If Kent just let the punt drop on the field, they could run out the clock and win the game. The Kent return man tried to field the ball, dropped it, the Zips recovered and won the game. Completely improbable. This era of Zips football reminds me of that Kent team. Or the Morgan State team that could have beaten the Zips last year if they just took a knee instead of running it and giving the Zips a scoop 6 on the ensuing fumble. The Zips do stupid things. Incomprehensibly botched executions of fundamentals. And it is repeatable. Dropped handoffs to close-out games against CMU and Buffalo 2 years ago. Missed 31 yard FG's to beat Indiana. Three turnovers + a turnover on downs against Buffalo last week...in the first quarter! Weekly fumbled punts... If you're a Zips opponent, just hang around long enough against them and they'll beat themselves.

Emil had 20 goals this season. His former LIU team had 19 total goals in 2024.