72 Roo

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.

Be nice now 😉. You don't have to like my picks, just think about 'em. And, yes, I think we should have a good year next season.

The only thing I wouldn't defer to Groce is craft beer. When it comes to Bball I trust his judgement. He will do what is best for the team and our long term chances of success. He's a good coach and we all better enjoy him while we got him.

Good point. Personally Don't think we can be a consistent winner, in big games, relying mostly on the three. I hope that Groce relies less on the three and more on spreading the ball to whoever is open in a motion offense. What I noticed more and more as the season went was that no outside shooter from Akron followed their shot. Usually only one rebounder was under the basket, most times Freeman or Cam. That meant that we had a poor chance of getting the offensive rebound on a miss. That has got to change. Watching Trimble, Dailey and Ali shoot and then admire their shots drove me nuts.

In looking at next year's team I'd like to offer a lineup that may differ from a lot of your opinions. Post - Bandago ....... Freeman ....... Salle PF - Freeman ........ Ali Wing - Ali ....... Dawson ....... Wynn SG - Trimble ....... Mitchell ....... Johnson PG - Clarke ..... Mitchel/Johnson ...... Tribble I would start Aziz and play him into the position. He has the ability and by tournament time I think he could be that force in the paint we need. Freeman can back him up, but I feel Freeman has the Bball IQ to transition to PF where he can still rebound, block shots and score low while being a little further from the basket. Salle is a nice third option down low. Ali is my first choice at Wing. He has the skill and body, he just has to show up. If not I wouldn't hesitate to go to Dawson who may win the spot outright anyway. I love his development. At SG I will begin with Trimble, but if he doesn't start playing defense or show a willingness to move to get open more, rather than be served up the ball, I'd seriously consider a freshman. At PG Clarke is my hands down choice. One of the freshman could back him up. Unfortunately Tribble is in jeopardy of losing PT. He is a liability from 3 pt range and at the line. He cannot dribble penetrate when closely guarded. As pointed out before he also needs to finish at the rim better. Until he improves his shot and at the line I see him sitting more. Next year could, and should, be a good year for us. So bring it on.

I was also there. The excitement was incredible and I hope to again experience it soon. I lost all respect for Shaka when he had his starters in with a 40 point lead and the game was near the end. I don't care how good of friend he is to KD, that's showing no class.

No way you can rank Marshall ahead of us. We outplayed them and were clearly better. We will continue to run up the rankings ladder.

Dawson hurts the team as much as she helps. Her turnovers are high and it is because she shows poor judgement in trying to make something happen when the opportunity is not there. Rather she needs to learn how to dish off to her teammates before she is totally covered with nowhere to go, especially in the paint. There are times she doesn't even come close to being a team player. Her raw talent is exceptional, but Jackson needs to coach her into using it for what is best for the team and not Dawson's ppg.

George has been an Akron guy from the moment he was a student athlete here. Unfortunately he has not developed a track record of success to indicate he could manage an athletic dept and lead us out of the problems we now have. Williams was not the answer altho' I give him credit for spotty improvement in some areas. We need to go outside the university to find someone who will give us five years of exceptional leadership. But Akron's administration, especially this board of trustees, never misses an opportunity to blow big hires. A change in AD's should give us all hope, but our track record takes all that away. In this instance I think the board of trustees should follow the lead of George Costanza and have an Opposites Day wherein they do the opposite of anything they would normally do. It worked great for George. Why not us. We deserve a break.

The Zips were the better team, no doubt. The first half was pure vintage Akron soccer. Lots of possession, pressure and penetration. In the second half we lost the rhythm and let a less talented team back in the game. To me the midfield seemed to fall apart and the backs did not overlap and widen the field. In the first half Pol was a monster at that. He and Diago created so many problems for UK's back four. It bothered me that in the second half we stopped settling the ball and passing on the ground with our short pass game. Instead we got caught up in the momentum going to UK and we started going for more long ball and thru passes. UK was effective in cutting off any thru balls and winning their share of the long balls. The Zips are back. We took on the #12 ranked team and showed we are better. At this stage of the game the only thing I saw lacking was a burner who could stretch the D and get behind the back four. We need a mid to emerge as a dominant distributor also. Regardless, Jared will find a way to win and this team will improve. At tournament time we will be a beast.

Never liked the guy at PCCC or OU. Never respected his coaching or the way he treated players. He seemed to be all about himself. No tears here. Makes me like Groce more and more.

I grant you that and stand corrected. I'm just glad we aren't losing players who we can build on for now. I also appreciate GP1's perspective. He is right in that Charlotte, an 8 year old program, is better than ours, at least for now and next year. But on the other hand I am heartened that we have better, cleaner bathrooms. That's one our athletic leadership can put in the win column.

Cam Lyons appears to be the first Zip in the transfer portal who has gone to a similar or better program. I can live with that. Best of luck Cam. I hope you excel at Charlotte and have a great time. Thanks for what you did here.

I hope he can be a shutdown corner. That would be a huge addition. God knows we need it.