72 Roo

Can someone contact the Pope or the Dali Lama and see if they will talk to God about our players leaving the program? It seems He or She is the one common thread in all their announcements regarding their departure. What's God got against Zip football? We are facing a tough off-season and He/She doesn't have to pile it on.

This just sucks. I realize you can rebuild like current champion OU did when they lost 9 of 11 offensive starters and I hope Joe does. But this is Akron. Our All MAC's will continue to leave until we can establish a winning culture. Even then, with the shifting sands of college football, we may not be able to sustain a program w/o more support for the players. Nemer has to make a statement and back it up. It is a total shame we don't have a training table, let alone a winning program or attractive culture. A D1 competitive football program is worth the investment. It is part of the remedy for restoring the enrollment. Look at Liberty's enrollment after football took off. Same for Coastal Carolina.

Joe is not responsible for putting together a collective for football. But why not former players? Can't they get in touch with Bud Wentz to understand the mechanics of putting it together? Once they set it up they could find events to fund it like: Toledo had pilates on the 50 lead by Candle's wife. It sold out. Repeat what basketball did with a night with the coaches. Bring back former coaches and players. Have an open Q & A with Joe on what he expects in the season, or maybe at mid-season. Sign gear and memorabilia by the players for a small fee, If legal. Basketball sold out at $100 per ticket. Host a golf tournament in the stadium like OSU does. All 9 iron shots from fun locations. afterwards is a buffet and cash bar. Offer guided tours of the facilities such as the Info, the field house and the JAR. Do a night with a coach once a month. Charge $50 to attend. Have Joe or the DC or STC take questions at a pub with a separate room. Seek donations from those who support NIL. Members of the collective could organize all these and the U would have little if no cost. If football needs a collective the alumni should be first to make it happen. Personally I don't believe in the NIL concept, but there are many who would support it. If they want to be part of a collective, like basketball has shown, give them a chance to help.

When I need a realistic assessment I go to you. Thanks for telling it like it is.

Help me understand how a player, who could not get on the field with a program that was not much better than us, will help us have a dominant OL? Are there other issues here? Joe is raising our talent level, no doubt, but his looks mediocre.

I bet the coaching staff was more involved in these decisions than God was. All three have players behind them who are younger and possessing a greater upside. Still, I wish them well wherever they go.

At first it looks like a lateral move, but maybe not. All MAC schools are strapped for resources. Charlotte seems to have an administration that is saying whatever it takes we will supply. He also goes to a major city, better climate, better conference and a better salary. Personally, I think he could have done better possibly at a low P4 school that wants a turnaround. But who knows?

That makes sense. This could have been a case of addition by subtraction. Thanks.

In what world does a player with a checkered background, and also injury prone, go into the portal from a program that until this season was in the bottom ten of FBS. Good luck with a half scholarship in DII Laurance. This does not hurt us.

I have been a fan of RJ Nemer since he took the dean position of the CBA (College of Business Administration). Because of his efforts the CBA showed a 9% enrollment growth this year over last. He thinks outside the box and he knows UA has to get out and recruit students. His decision to give $1.3M to the Browns is a real head scratcher. It is Scarborough-esque and he deserves to be called out on it. How did he get this thru the BOT? That money could have paid for a training table plus advertising reaching all Ohio high schools. One of the biggest boosts to enrollment is having a football team the region takes pride in. Give Joe the resources, w/o busting the bank, and excitement will return to Akron. That, more than an association with a decrepit pro football team, will pay off in growing enrollment.

I would take James and Nunally back, knowing full well that if James has a good year he would probably go in he portal again. Kellen seems to be a great kid, but he is a limited RB. He has no breakaway speed, he is not quick and can not make people miss in the open field. We have more talent waiting behind him who have a higher upside. Let them play. Charles Kellen has been a good team member, but since he wants out and he has limited future here I'd tell him to go somewhere that he will get on the field regularly and be a featured back. Probably DII.

Sorry this was vague. I attempted to reply to LZip's fine post

I think you have captured many of my sentiments regarding our returning team as we know it today. Yet I disagree with you on the OL. I am not comfortable with it and losing James makes the situation more of a concern. The TP may solve that issue as I don't see high school signees or current backups stepping in and playing at a high level. I hope we find a punter as good as Book was and another long snapper. Smith was a better than average kicker who I hated to see go. I am hoping this is the opportunity for Wiley to take the position and own it. We can't build a team with the return of past inferior Zip special teams. My concern over the DL equals or exceeds that of the OL. What a rebuild we have! Dall will probably give us a good DE, but after him who do we have that can put pressure on the QB? Lavea and Moore were emerging players at DT, but they failed to bring heat in the big games. Lavea's injury robbed him of the chance show more as the season went into the second half. If we can find some DT's in the portal we have a shot at 6-6 next year. I pray that the portal will help us more than hurt us, but who knows how returning eligible college kids view staying at Akron, especially if they feel NIL dollars will be available somewhere.

It appears we have lost Kellogg, Golden, Rush, Smith and Moore to the portal. Losing the first three is not a big loss in my opinion. They all had limitations, even for the MAC. But I hate to see Smith and Moore go. Smith was the reliable, consistent kicker we have lacked for years. Moore was on his way to All-MAC. I realize he will find a better program and probably get some NIL money. That is the nature of college football today. We took a chance on him and his bad grades, but he played so well other schools will now take him and make sure he gets the necessary grades, one way or the other. Our DL is a rebuild at all four slots. If this is the end of the transfers we lucked out. I'm not holding my breath that we are done.

I appreciate the Meister bringing this great moment in Zip history to the attention of the board. To appreciate this game it is important to know a bit of the background leading up to the game. Tampa, coached by Earle Bruce, was moving up the ladder of respectability. I believed they had three future NFL players, one being John Matuzak, the second overall pick the year he went in the draft. They were moving up to D1 and they wanted to make a splash. They wanted to play Ohio State on a date OSU had open in their OOC schedule. At the time they offered an unheard of guarantee $250,000 for OSU to play them in Tampa. That was indeed huge for the time. The only problem was Tampa was suppose to play in Akron that day. Tampa said no problem Akron was nothing and Tampa would gladly forfeit any guarantee to Akron. OSU refused to consider the offer. You can probably guess how Akron took that. Gordon Larsen, Akron's best football coach ever had that plastered all over the locker room. Better than that he prepared the team magnificently. In front of the second biggest Rubber Bowl crowd ever (40,000+) the team came out on fire and dominated Tampa. I was on the sidelines with the soccer team, who played before the game, and I witnessed the most ferocious hitting I have ever seen. Against better athletes Akron destroyed Tampa. If you are looking for a time to be proud of Zip football this game is rivaled only by the 2005 MAC championship game. Hang in their Zip football fans. We have moments to savor.

This game is one to be savored. It's no time to bitch: schedule, coach, AD, Info, etc. Forget it for a while. We won a damn game at the end of a brutal season! The team never quit and we can celebrate that. I realize Toledo handed us the game. Talk about role reversal, we have done that too many times to count. We didn't play that clean of a game, but for now, who cares - we won! I don't know if this will turn the program around. That is to be decided in the off-season as we search for talent and next season as we put that talent on the field. For now, we have hope! Thank you Zips. Thank you seniors.

I thought that IU was very talented and tough at home, but eminently beatable. More than the loss of key players I felt our style of play cost us more. We started playing long ball against Princeton and it didn't work. It is too much to expect Emil to pull a long pass out of the air with sometimes two guys hanging on him. If he does get it the service to the players running off him is not good. Again, not his fault. We did not play our game. The ball was in the air way too much and that played to IU's physicality. Zip players were heading rather than bringing the ball down. We are best playing the ball out of the back on the ground, getting it to the mids who find wings and #9 getting behind the back four or in space. I feel our style would have beat IU if we had stuck to it. But when we played w/o possession we chased and got tired. The final 20 minutes IU had more energy. If this sounds like bitching, it isn't. Despite losing two key players our depth was still able to carry us to a win. We just didn't play Akron soccer.

To date I haven't commented on Charles leaving, not that anyone cares what I think which is fair enough. From my viewpoint I see posts that are unfortunate because they are making fun of a man who genuinely tried to do what he thought was best. Like Moorhead Charles came at a time when the sands of the position shifted. For Moorhead it was NIL. For Guthrie it was repeated budget cuts due to enrollment. Charles did not want money games, but he had to take them to keep from cutting even more. He took the OSU game when he found he was losing $3M in the budget. University administration wanted him to take the game. In fact the week before Charles resigned UA administration asked him to schedule another money game for next year. Charles was the one AD who could think big. To get there he improved facilities, went thru the rebranding, found new sources of funding (Summit Circle, Children's Hospital) and held coaches accountable. He wanted all coaches to be in the top three of the MAC. Some give him credit for soccer going to the BE. I give the credit to Jared for working the BE soccer coaches and having them work their AD's. Still Charles had to support it and he did. Just as he supported Bud Wentz forming a collective for basketball. He brought in professionals to run athletics. Nearly all of Williams staff was replaced except for Paul Hammond, assoc. AD for facilities. Once Hammond retired he farmed his duties out to his staff, again due to budget cuts. He worked the deal with Children's Hospital to build a clinic in Stiles Fieldhouse and staff all our trainers. When our longest serving trainer, Brent Draper, was close but not yet qualified for retirement Guthrie saw to it that he received full retirement and got him a job with Children's as their trainer for soccer, which he had been for many years. The rebranding seems to be a hot spot for some. They let us know about it in every post. Yet it needed to be done. Like Hilltopper I sat on the alumni committee that reviewed the final product. I preferred the Z and argued for it. It was unique and solely ours. Guthrie said he was told by the board of trustees he could not consider it as our primary logo. That had to be an A. They wanted closer linkage with the city of Akron. Hence Zips is no longer in one of the end zones at Infocision. Both ends say Akron. I still prefer the Z, but I have come to like the new A. I see the Z in it and that helps differentiate it in my opinion. I will not crucify him for doing what he thought was best. That's what a leader does. Akron is not an easy place in which to be a leader. You make decisions and then listen to the criticism. Guthrie's hires have been encouraging. I would say that w/o football he has done well. He kept Embick, Peresie, Groce, King and Engle. Good new hires are Gensler and Nicholson. Jones, Kiptoo and Faulds appear to be encouraging. Bad hires seem to be Moorhead, Simonetti, Gonzales and Norton. Everyone, including me, praised the hiring of Moorhead. No one knew he would be so prickly to deal with and inflexible in adapting his coaching style to the needs of the team. Still that is a hire he made and it is bad. Was Charles the best we could get at the time. I'll let you answer that one. As for me it took me a year to understand what he was doing, what he was dealing with and how he was planning ahead. I feel he was good for us. He made mistakes and rubbed people the wrong way. He didn't explain his thinking and actions well. The collapse of football ruptured his plans. That coupled with Miller resigning and the recent death of his dad led to him leaving. He is from Albany and his wife from Binghamton. Charles is close to his mom and sisters. Moving to Akron from Green Bay was a blessing for him because he could get home more often. Now he felt a need to be even closer. Fordham doesn't fit his career trajectory, but it does put him four hours from home. I wish him well. Charles introduced change to an athletic dept that needed it. Some say he was all about himself. I can see that, but if he was making athletics better I feel some leaders are like that. We will be better off for what he did in his time here though I sincerely doubt we will find a better AD with the state of the university. I could give more, but that's enough.

The win over EMU is like water in the desert for us. It is something to be celebrated, but reality reminds us that the fundamental weaknesses of this team were also on display: player control fouls, a stupid hand gesture penalty, interceptions, fumbles, tackling, rushing three men on D allowing the QB all the time in the world to pick us apart, discipline related issues, etc. We still have the same problems that are not being cleaned up as the season progresses. Until that happens we only have a shot at 4 wins. Forget about a bowl.

Only started 2 games this season. Was he injured?

I don't have a strong feeling one way or the other on the women's program other than I want to see them win big like the men. However I do feel the coach deserves another season before judging her leadership.

We all know the players are coached on how to field punts. We all see the poor decisions the players are making game after game after game. Inescapable conclusion: the players are ignoring the coaches. Why? Pick one: no respect for the coaches, no discipline, no consequences for bad decisions, no hope for a better future at Akron so do whatever you want. You pick the answer.

I thought this was the case, but after talking with Toledo's director of operations he has said Toledo runs a number of fundraisers to support NIL. How they administer the money was not discussed.

I admire your optimism. I find myself agreeing with almost all your posts. For this one I take a different view. I believe Joe stays, as long as he desires to, for the full length of his contract, which I think is 5 years. At the end of it he is gone one way or the other.

No one coaches to catch the ball inside the ten. Still players do it. Sportsmanship and character issues still plague this team. Why? The answer is simple. No discipline. There are no consequences for violating behavior issues (think Gaithings all last year). You can correct the punt fielding, player control fouls and unsportsmanlike penalties by having no tolerance and showing those players the bench. A soccer coach I learned under said his best assistant was the bench. Players learned real fast what was expected.