72 Roo

I don't have any problem with this at all. It's up to us to stop them from scoring. If we can't, we suffer the consequences.

A change must be made. Anything that keeps the status quo is denying reality. The fan base has deserted this program and rightly so. I have always felt Summit county fans know good football. They don't settle for less. The attendance and sponsorship support speak volumes about what this knowledgeable community sees in our future under this leadership. Invoke the buyout and end the bleeding.

Quite possibly. I admire your Thanksgiving Day prep, but Milwee has called a completely different game than Bowden beginning with the first year he took over play calling. And it has been consistently bad.

As I watched the game it seemed to me coach Groce needs to address two things: 1) better shot selection on our 3's and, 2) better play out of the center. If we want to shoot 3's I don't have a problem if we don't force it and we get a good look at the basket. I thought Riak was going to be the answer for us in the paint, but today raised more questions than it answered. He looked lost at both ends. Poke is limited and Klac is still a work in progress. I hope Sayles responds to whatever coach Groce wants. He's looking like the post player with the best potential. This team is going to be good yet this season. They just need time.

What a nice bedtime thought. Unfortunately it will never happen. Maybe in my dreams tonight. That's the best we can do.

Extremely shrewd observation on your part. How did you ever pick that up so quick?

Z.I.P., I criticized Williams for this hire, but if she proves me wrong, which I hope she does, I will gladly acknowledge my mistake and give her all the credit for a fantastic rebuild. Best left her little and if she wins it's all on her. Mahalo.

B & G, yes he is serious and quit calling him Shirley (Thank you Leslie Nielson and the director/writers of one of the greatest movies ever made ... Airplane!)

This is no longer a Milwee issue. It is a Bowden issue. The talent level on this team is no longer an excuse. Injuries happen to every team. The coaching staff is incompetent on the offensive side and demotivated on the defensive side. There is obvious detachment from the coaches to the belief in TB's leadership. Time to clean house. I'd do it tomorrow and eat the last year(s) of TB's contract. Name an interim HC and put ourselves in the market for the best available coach we can get. Eating the contract is probably better financially than have 2-4,000 butts in the stands. Sad it has come to this.

Glad to have him as a Zip. We can build on him being a freshman. I'm impressed with how articulate he is. I hope he excels in the years ahead. Congratulations to the coaching staff for bringing him in.

Lee Adams said: Nobody is blaming'every single loss on coaching'. What objective fans are doing is looking at patterns over the past 7 seasons. Just because some think all fans are idiots doesn't mean its true. Some fans can actually watch ballgames and understand what is and is not happening. This is not personal for most folks. But after 7 seasons this program should not be losing its first two conference games. It should not be getting waxed by the NIU's MU's,UB's and EMU's. The offense should not be as pathetic as it has been. That is seen most markedly in the poor O-line play and lack of a running game. This is finally about being consistently competitive with the best programs in the MAC. Clearly this program is not. Kreed and Lee, will you two stop being so logical! Why don't we just lower our aspirations/expectations and then our FB coaches will look like geniuses. They then will meet the challenge of winning 4-5 games a year. Please don't mention the performance of PJ Fleck at WMU, Campbell and Crandle at Toledo, Dino Babers at BG, Lance Liepold at UB or any host of NIU coaches. That's discrimination to expect Akron with the best MAC facilities, a hotbed for recruiting and an upper level MAC football budget to produce teams like those coaches did. That's expecting too much. I say we give the staff cupcakes after every game and medals to take home. Meanwhile let's expect excellence out of MSoccer, M & W Track and Field, M BBall, W Swimming, W Tennis and Rifle. They want to compete w/o excuses.

You are definitely a "glass half full" guy. I hope you are right. Go Zips!

You're damn right I do. When a coach goes 2-22 and you are sprouting that athletes are "flocking" to Akron I call bull---t. I can't respect anyone who can't admit the obvious, but turns around and asks alumni to give more and more money. Maybe athletes were "flocking" to Akron, and they were all bad athletes who no other DI program wanted. That is underlined by how bare TB found the cupboard.

I am not impressed with Williams, but feel I still need time to decide if he should go. I liked his hire of Groce, but contrast that with his hire of Jackson for WBB. I can't believe he didn't make a run at the Ashland WBB coach when Kest was tanking last season. His lack of publicly shaming Nebraska for not paying us is unbelievable. He should be fighting for us behind the scenes and also in the public. Play the David vs Goliath card because NU doesn't want to be seen on the national news as a cheap, abusive dept of athletics. Last night's issue with the lights and then Tuesday's lack of attention to our playoff bound MSoc is hard to fathom. A DII practice game (in essence) for MBB vs a step to a national championship for MSoc. How can you not focus on MSoc? I have my doubts too about George Van Horne and especially Anthony Henderson. He once tried to tell me Ianello was building a program recruits were flocking to. Go figure.

Akron has not had a good SID since Ken McDonald left decades ago. Our current SID is horrible.

You were robbed! Oh, the inhumanity of it!

Good Doctor, I agree with you on your point regarding KD. I shared the frustration you spoke of, but looked to KD to find solutions. I felt he was fully capable of doing so. The football situation is very different. You, TB and most postors agree the offense needs fixed. So who can do that? It's the coaching staff. The responsibility is squarely on their shoulders. No member of ZNO is being disloyal by asking them to fix what needs fixed. Personally, I want TB to stay. I like the guy a lot. But first, and most important, I also want him to show that he can fix things.

Thank you for your fandom. Thank you for your support. I'll stick by calling Kato stupid because he forced the refs to call an unsportsmanlike penalty on him by going to the other teams bench, which is never, ever allowed. We were going to get a 15 yard penalty on their stupid LB who ran off with Kato's shoe. Be mature, let the refs handle it. They saw it. We get the 15 yards and a first down. Kato is supposed to manage the game, not emotionally let the game manage him. I expect us to play good football. If we do the W's will take care of themselves. When we don't I'll say so. To me it starts with the coaching staff. They are there to solve it especially when we are playing worse than when we started the season. I wish you well and hope your son stays healthy and achieves all his dreams at Akron. I also played for the Zips. Go Zips.

You mistake whining for asking for a better product. Do you go to the games? Have you seen the quality of players we are recruiting and how they are being misused? PJ Fleck was 1-11 his first year at WMU. By his third year he had them in a major bowl. Coaching matters and coaching has to be held accountable. Do you really think we should rejoice when we beat a Northwestern and then lose to a poor Miami? We struggle against inferior Kent and CMU while being destroyed by Buffalo. After 7 years I expect better. Let's stop making excuses for poor performance. If Lance Leipold (sp ?) at Buffalo can build a juggernaut in three years we can do it at Akron in seven with better facilities, recruiting base and support. It's not whining to expect quality in a program.

"Larry Williams has to make a move. Insist Bowden make a move at OC. If not, I suppose we’ve gotta clean house (which I don’t really want to do). This product is not worth spending $$ to watch." "This is a ridiculous comment." Why is it ridiculous to state the obvious? We do not play good football! This team has no discipline. Look at the penalties especially the player control ones. Kato is stupid and runs to the other team's sideline so he negates their unsportsmanlike penalty. Brady bumps a ref and is tossed. Petersen is good for penalties every game. The OLine sucks and has done so for years. Council being out is no excuse. We are always bad on the line. The coaching is pathetic. Milwee is in over his head and Bowden won't make a change. We do not play well yet alone win against the better teams in the MAC. Our record is horrible against MAC teams with winning records. I totally reject the philosophy that says if you win you are doing OK. You can not build a program, nor a following, on that because the better teams will beat you when you have been used to winning ugly, like today. Remember Toledo and FAU at the end of last season. We should, and must, expect more than winning ugly and our program should be better.

Coaches recruit talent they need to be successful. Or at least that's what they say they will do in the interview process. Once that talent is on campus the coaches structure their offense around the talent that they recruited in order to be successful. Injuries are part of the game and need to be anticipated. Our coaches do not take the talent they recruited and put them in offensive schemes that let them play to their abilities. I feel our O coaches coach to what they are comfortable with , not to what the players can succeed in. There is no creativity, no doing things differently that the D is not prepared for. I love Bowden, but his total commitment to Milwee dumbfounds me and if that cost him his job, so be it. We should be doing better and I hope Larry Williams holds him to a higher standard than he is delivering.

I agree this is a heck of a hire, but I can't help but question how long he will be here. When Matt Wilson announced the return of baseball he noted that the salary of a new coach would be appropriate to a marginally funded, start-up program. That equates to low. We have few scholarships, I believe 4 are funded by private donors, and poor facilities. Sabo may be able to grow the program. If he is successful he no doubt will leave. He knows what a good program is having played at Michigan and he is young enough to have another move in him, especially seeing that his family does not live in NE Ohio. I am happy we got him. It's a good hire. In fact above our level. I am just pissed at our situation in that we are a stepping stone for most coaches except soccer and Track. Such is the life of a non-P 5 school in the MAC.

We are lucky to have them as fans. I wish we had more. I'm in awe of their commitment to the Zips. Can we just dream for a moment of a stadium filled with people like them. Wow, so sweet!

BFF, perhaps I overstated the margin we should have won by, but we still hear the same old excuses as to why we underachieve. The OL has been unable to run block for four years. In past years we said these guys were going to be so good because they had been together for three years. Mediocre linemen with no explosiveness stay mediocre and against good teams i.e. Toledo, FAU, NIU, they underperform. Our offensive play calling is horrible and has been so for years. This board has railed against Milwee. Bowden seems satisfied. Special teams are a joke. Discipline is non-existent. We repeatedly stop our own drives, or keep the opponent's going, with player-control penalties. Recruiting is the only bright spot I see, but it is still not producing a team we can be proud of. I do agree that EMU may be even better than Buffalo.

My friend you are sick. A good team beats this Kent team by 21. The only good thing about today was that we won. But we did not get better.