72 Roo

I'm willing to welcome him and give him a shot. I guess that is depending on the offense actually discovering how to use the TE as a weapon. That will be a new concept to the coaching staff. Either way he comes to Akron at a time when excuses are fading and performance, as defined by wins, is required.

Meister, stop picking the lint out of your belly button! We have more important issues here like you chaperoning Zipoutsider to Auburn to cheer on our coaching staff. Reminder: check for weapons first.

This may be good news for the MAC, so it can keep its automatic bid to the tournament, but it does not make the MAC stronger. This only allows the MAC to survive in soccer.

If coach Wilson is announcing an addition to the team that will be a bomb for the community I'm not sure this fits the bill. Nonetheless welcome to Akron. Hope you make this team far better.

Sorry to get you pissed off again. I love your posts. We need to support this program, and all Zip programs, that reach excellence. We also need to expect excellence of the ones that aren't there. I'd tell the coaches you are either on the way to excellence or on the way out, you decide. Now go have a beer and lower that BP.

I agree with you LZ, not a big loss. I do hate to lose senior leadership and Ohio guys. I suspect he waited this long because the staff told him he had to get a lot better in the off-season to get PT. I also suspect the hand-writing was on the wall so he elected to bail. I don't blame him and I don't blame our coaches. Probably best for all. Isn't it insane that the only news we get is negative. Again, why is the university content to let other information sources control the narrative about our program? Brilliant!

I don't think it's Embick's mess. It's the university's and the AD's. Embick is getting poor support for a program that considers itself in the top 5 in the country. He has had a volunteer coach taken away, a director of administration taken away. The university refused to honor scholarships this past season for seniors who were granted an extra year to play this spring. The soccer alumni funded those scholarships. Recruiting and travel budgets have been cut 20%. Jared is a better coach than this situation deserves. Yet he has hung in there. He is human and has made mistakes, but he is a fantastic asset for us and he will win if supported. Make no mistake, he wants to be at Akron. Just support him. That $100,000 spent by Miller to find the AD who reported to him at UWGB could have done wonders for our premier sport.

I don't care to get into that rabbit hole of love Bowden, hate Arth or love Arth, hate Bowden. I just want some engaging information on next season's football team. We get nothing and it is obvious it is planned that way. So why? How can that strategy possibly help rebuild our program. I'm not into conspiracy theories, but I have to admit that I have given thought that Miller and the board of trustees may want to scrap football so they are trying to reduce any interest in the team. I think it's sad to even debate that possibility.

Congratulations to coach Bowden and the ULM sports information dept for putting out something different and fun. It shows there is excitement for the program. Do you think there's a lesson in this for our SID? Maybe it is communication engages the public, who may want to see your team perform. That may get people excited to actually buy tickets. Just a thought. Let's just keep doing nothing for football and then make every excuse we can except that those who run and support football are doing nothing. Brilliant!

Can you explain the concept of a TE to me? I haven't seen that position at UA in the last 8 years. I've forgotten what a TE is. So, apparently, have the coaches and play callers. They may need to be reminded also.

Kudos to the coaches for dipping into the portal and increasing our talent level. I hope he is an immediate contributor. Our track record with transfers is not the best. Hope that is changing. Are we supposed to celebrate this or follow the SID's lead and say nothing about off-season football? Is this a new secret strategy to catch the MAC by surprise? Again, Brilliant!

You are correct. He makes more money, runs a bigger dept and the Akron AD job rounds out his resume because it gives him experience with managing D1 football, which he lacks and will never go further w/o it. Even tho' we are arguably the worst program in D1 he has filled that resume gap. It's a good move for him. It remains to be seen if it is a good move for us.

Guys and Ladies, are we living in some parallel universe where every athletic administration issue is handled with unbelievable incompetence? As I said in an earlier post you can't make this up. We hire the AD from our president's former university and we pay $100,000 to find him when our president knows more about him than any recruiting firm could. Why, because our new AD reported to our president weekly for years. On top of that football is our biggest issue and the guy we hire to solve that problem has no D1 experience of any sort. Don't you think a competent recruiting firm would have recommended someone with a plan and experience to restore the football program? You can't make this up. I'd like to remind you that the $100,000 we found for this search could have more than funded a men's cross country program along with outside funds that were pledged for years. It also would have kept our most decorated olympian Clayton Murphy supporting U of A, not that that was critical. But it would have been nice.

Two whole questions. The excitement for this hire is out of control. Apathy reigns. No mention of football issues. His number one priority, "assessment". If he doesn't know what he is getting into when he takes the job he is more hopeless than I thought.

Let me get this straight. We have our greatest single problem in athletics with the football program. It affects all of athletics. The president says he is committed to maintaining and developing a top level D1 MAC program. So he demonstrates that commitment by hiring an AD who has absolutely no experience, expertise or success in D1 football. Brilliant! We have not had an AD who knows how to competently build an athletic program since Mac Rhoades. Either Gary Miller is incompetent (probably) or the board of trustees have told him to prepare to scrap football. Either way there is no hope to build a better football program with this hire. If Miller feels this guy can learn on the job, then he has very little regard for our athletics. You can't make this s**t up that goes on at Akron. A culture of incompetence.

Wait! our archival actually puts out information on its football program? Now that cheating. Our sports information dept believes the least you know about the team the better. I think this is an effort to lessen the pain of losing and the dept is actually doing the humanitarian thing for all concerned. I'd hate to see the community pain we would all share if we were actually led to believe this team was getting better in the off-season. Gotta love their effort to make us feel better. I have it on good authority (I heard it from Meister in a bar) that our athletics administration plans an all-out media blitz for the Bryant game. They feel we might win one, but for the other games why risk it. Sheer brilliance!

I wish Lance success at Kansas. He has to be an extremely confident guy to go to the graveyard of coaches, but he just might change the culture of losing if they give him enough time.

LZ and others closer to the program..... what the hell is going on with football's promotion, or better yet, lack of it? I don't get it. There is nothing positive coming out of the SID's office or from Chad Welker. That is not a knock on him. I know he would love to hype the program, but is being held back. How can no publicity be a benefit to the growth and return of a competitive program? I am proud of women's lacrosse and enjoy seeing Christie Mitchell's post game comments. Why not a daily comment from Arth and staff? I don't care which UA sport you passionately support we all need football to compete for championships. That will help every program and stop the drain on resources. Our athletic leadership is crying out for a major overhaul top to bottom. This is nonsense. I know others have raised this issue, yet there has been no explanation. Please comment ZNO.

He's a solid coach as in a brick and we all know how well a brick rises to the top. He could never deliver and at best was a mediocre coach. They can do better.

I get the feeling that our athletic administration felt they could not market football no matter what so they just quit trying to get people excited. How else can you explain such incompetence? It seems they are hell bent on missing every opportunity to hype Akron football. Chad Welker can give post event interviews on WLAX or baseball or track, but not on spring football progress? Maybe the team will be so bad they have given up. This athletic administration seems incapable of generating excitement and not wanting to do so. There has been no good news about football for months. A dept overhaul is needed an unfortunately that means we will wait another 2-3 years to see the results.

Can someone summarize for those of us who do not subscribe? Thanks.

B & G, no one in law enforcement, university administration or the judicial system are out to ruin his life. He is. He is accountable You put a bullet in a gun for only one purpose, to shoot it. Athletes do not deserve special treatment because they may be our star.If character counts he should be gone.

He made a bad decision that he has to be responsible for. A loaded gun is unacceptable. His lie in saying he doesn't know where he got the gun only digs a deeper hole for him to get out of. Arth has been very vocal about high standards of character. Considering that I can't see Dollard playing this season. His troubles are way outside football and football does not have to keep him because he needs a rehabilitation program.

Back off Francis and calm down. No one but me talked about pairing Aziz and Freeman so don't rip the rest of the forum. I even prefaced my comment by saying many may not agree. I was just enjoying the thought of toying with next season's hopes. Now go take that tight underwear off, have some warm milk and cookies and then get tucked in. You have had too big of a day getting annoyed. You really need a nap. Save your ripping for the rest of the MAC.

I like your lineup too. We have outside threats nd inside ones also. I like two bounders in Freeman and Dawson. If Ali could commit to rebounding we could potentially limit teams to one shot. That's big if, but well worth demanding it of him. Except for Trimble the defense will be solid. Well thought out.