ZachTheZip

George Thomas feature on Moses McCray

5'11" 205lb Longsnapper Hayden Grover from Spencer Van Etten HS in Spencer, NY has committed to play for the Zips. Ranked the #3 longsnapper in the country and 16th best prospect in the state of New York by 247sports.com

ABJ Article

I don't think any kind of public dedication or recognition for Jacquemain or Campbell during a game would fly, but I am all for having something in the lockerroom for the current players to see. Maybe they find motivation, hopefully they learn something.

You guys sure are putting a lot of hype onto somebody that we really don't know much about.

Drew Phillips is coming to Akron. Originally signed with BYU, before leaving for East Mississippi JC, and then College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, CA. He is finishing up his classwork and will join the Zips for camp next week once he's through with that. Will have two years to play, and will be eligible immediately. Drew went to Boaz HS in Alabama, same as Zips OC A.J. Milwee. Here is a link to his JUCO highlights. Here is his senior year in high school. And junior year: There are also highlights of him winning Alabama state championships in track on youtube, for those so inclined.

I believe that George Thomas mentioned his name in an article already, but does anybody know anything about incoming JUCO Nmesoma Okafor? 6'6" 230lb DT from Nassau CC. Maybe will help fill the (considerably large) void left by James Price.

Two reasons I'm optimistic: 1. - Depth: We haven't had any real depth at most positions for a while now. But this year we have added both depth and talent on the O-line and D-line. We have talent and depth at every offensive skill position except for TE, and I don't know how much we'll even use a TE in Bowden's offense. I would say that our biggest holes overall are on defense, with a lot of unproven talent at LB and Safety. Special teams are set, provided we find someone who actually wants to return kickoffs this season (Bowden said one of the problems with last year's team was a revolving door at KR/PR because nobody wanted to do it. This year he will find somebody and groom them for the position). 2. - The entire coaching staff is returning. Really, how rare is this in the MAC? To have consistent coaching for every position group from one year to the next is huge, especially going into year two of a new coaching staff. Nobody gets a new position coach with a new personality and a new way of doing things in camp/practice just one year after having to learn everything from scratch. I'm also happy that we don't have to deal with a bunch of ridiculous weekday games that throw the schedule out of whack.

Thanks, George.

I don't believe that for a second. The ratio of kids like that to kids who don't acre about that crap is the same, the issue is that teams are catering more to the first group, and that's what get the headlines so that's all that people think are out there now.

Re-check his twitter.

No. If there's a recruit out there who would choose Akron over a similar offer somewhere because the uniforms are better, then I don't want to waste a scholarship on that kid. I want players focused on actual football, not on the glitz and glamour of being a D-I football player. The kind of kids that a garish uniform attracts are the kind that get arrested at frat parties and that miss class and end up ineligible to play.

Parents of players, and people with way too much interest in high school football. No group can be more petty or willing to tear someone down because something good is happening to someone else instead of "their" player.

Article from when we offered him.

5-11 175lb ATH Blake Dennis from Rittman HS has verbally committed to play for the Zips! ScoutingOhio.com profile

C-USA is essentially the Sun Belt from 10 years ago, plus Marshall. That is not where we want to go. The AAC is basically C-USA from 10 years ago, but with UConn. Better in basketball, and a lateral move in football. Very susceptible to raiding from the power conferences though and by the time we might look to join they might have all the good programs taken away again.

Terry Bowden looking to spark Akron in his second season at the helm in 2013

If you recall this article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about QB recruit Chandler Kincade, it said that he would try to recruit several players from Beaver Falls HS: Brock Boxen (verbal to Akron), Elijah Cottrill (verbal to Akron), and Sage Curry (undecided). Hopefully he can complete the set.

According to BCT Sports (@timesscores on Twitter), 6'2" 175lb ATH Elijah Cottrill from Beaver Falls, PA has verbally committed to play for the Zips! Rivals profile ESPN profile 247Sports profile Had a basketball scholarship offer from Creighton.

Truth if, is the JAR was built to the original design, we wouldn't be having this converstion. But it was scaled back, repeatedly, from what we wanted until we were stuck with something that was woefully inadequate in almost every possible way.

Hadn't heard this. Thanks for the info. Coach Dambrot (and Shaka, when he was an assistant here) has some former players that played in Germany. Maybe that's the connection.

Depends on how they calculate that. Do they hold transfers against the university if they go somewhere else and use our course credits to get a degree? Do they count continuing education (aka job training courses) as students who don't graduate? What about the high school kids in early enrollment that go somewhere else after they get their high school diploma?

I'd wait until camp starts to make any comparison. Right now it's Pohl and a bunch of unknowns. Might be good, might be just as bad as what we had in the spring, although that would be pretty difficult to do.

A new arena doesn't solve everything, but it does solve a majority of it. More is fixed by building a new arena than by any other action we could take, and the return on investment would be higher than anything else we could do. To say that we shouldn't try a remedy because it is not a panacea is absurd.

It distracts from what's really important: playing the actual game of football.