ZipperRoo44

Well since Liberty is coached by Turner Gill and he has a pretty good record against Akron I would say I would not read much into the Can't game. Also, Can't State won more football games last year than we have in the last 5 years combined so any comparisons about how an opponent does against them and our potential are a little sketchy. Akron Football has never been so low. I really do not see a win on the schedule this year unless the opponent turns the ball over and basically gives us the game. I'm at the point where I just cannot force myself to watch the lack of performance. I count the days to basketball and I have soccer in the fall.

Best chance for a win is against UMass.

James Madison will not only beat Akron, but they will beat the Zips by 2 or more touchdowns.

Why not Ron Zook? He's from Loudonville and has a great network of coaches to build a staff.

Their coach has been mentioned in several threads as being someone we should be looking at.

You may be on to something there, which means that TW is really running this show with no one watching his moves or caring what damage is done. Why wait until after the D2 title game to make this show if you do not have someone on the hook from the $25,000 search firm? What is the involvement of the firm if they cannot bring real candidates to the table? If no one is named by the end of the day on Friday it could be after the new year until a new coach is named.

If what was written in another thread is true and only TW went to meet with PW in Detroit then there is only one person and one person alone to blame for this search going on for another stretch of misery. Dr Proenza. Winter's was already on record in the Detroit newspaper as to having serious issues with Akron and the 2009 search. This was an obvious sign that if PW was the guy that he was going to want to feel like he was really the guy this time. If the guy you want is an alum, like PW, you take all of the above and the head of the Alumni Association. Instead of doing this we continue the keystone cops routine, dragging out the nation's longest coaching search and getting dissed nationwide by an Akron Alum/D2 coach and a MAC coordinator who is a native of NE Ohio. I would love to know who is on this committee, who is the chairman of the committee, and who from the University Administration is actually making sure that TW is doing the job that he was hired to do.

Since this post is about trust, I'm going to go out on a limb and trust every word of WNN's post is good. Thanks for the effort. I left only these three parts in for a reason. It's one thing to not trust someone and still be able to negotiate a contract, as the contract is a form of protection. Paul could have done some negotiating, yet he decided not to. Goes directly to trust and the belief TW is someone he can't trust. I can't speak to what negotiating did or did not take place, I don't know who ended the conversation, I'm sharing what was shared with me. Certainly not everything that took place was shared with me, nor was everything shared with me shared with you. GP1, I'm not trying to knock what you've said, I just take exception to 'yet he decided not to.' Again, I'm not certain how it all shook out. For the record, Paul doesn't have an agent or a lawyer on retainer, he's never needed one. If this went down as you have laid out it was amateur hour all the way around. From PW's side if he is talking with someone about a job and does not have representation then he was acting like a D2 coach with no intent on taking the offer seriously. Given that Akron had just bought out a coach after two years that was a pretty good indication that you may need someone to help navigate the waters. From Akron's side if Proenza and Wistricil did not go to meet with their top guy this late in the search then they are both amateurs. If you want the coach then you pull out all the stops. This is the CEO of a multimillion dollar part of the university and the gas of the 70 million dollar football stadium. This program has already been screwed to the hilt and now we are playing games with sending 1 person?

College sports is not run like a business so this will be a real wake up call. It's not like these coaches are brain surgeons - what is so tough about coaching or being an AD. Most of us could do these jobs, it really takes no specific skill set other than being a leader. If you can paint the picture and get people to follow you will succeed.

Why not? Not much to lose. Breaks out of the mold of having someone with experience on the college level and outing the rut that most of college sports is stuck in. Wonder if he applied for our job? If there was a real reporter covering us perhaps we would get this information. It will be fun to watch what happens. Coastal was 7-4 this year and made a coaching change and has won 4 Big South Championships over the past 8 years so if this guy does not win a title in the next 3 years is he a success or failure? Turner Gill was just hired in this league at Liberty so you know they are going to be good. Stonybrook won that league this past year. Again, great test case for outside the box thinking.

Should be a unique test case to see if success in the boardroom translates into success on the gridiron.

Minor league football coach and TD Ameritrade CEO hired as new Coastal Carolina head coach. http://www.thesunnews.com/2011/12/20/25596...xt-coastal.html Interesting hire?

The fact that our folks drove to Detroit to offer Winters and he turned them down should tell you everything about this search. I wonder who all was in on the offer as anything short of Proenza making this offer himself is very disappointing. http://www.detnews.com/article/20111219/SP...ith-Wayne-State

Narduzzi - OUT Winters - OUT Loeffler - Impressed the search committee Johnson - Not looking to go to non BCS route via comments in LA Times Tresey - Interviewed with Akron officials last week Mason - No word in official outlets With this group I would pick Loeffler hands down.

You contradict yourself in your first sentence. Was iCoach fired for losing or more than just his losing record. Nonetheless, if you think that there is legitimate MAC title level talent on the field here you and I simply see things differently. Talent takes time to develop and anyone who tries to cut corners will get caught in the gate. The lack of recruiting that you mention is even more gas for my argument as no recruiting = no talent = no results. If we find the coach that can win games on their strategy alone, without anyone to execute on the field, then we have done something altogether.

Well said. Having to pay a guy a high salary is one thing. Locking that in for half a decade before you know what you have is just, well, really dumb. All of the "name" coaches that you mention are people that have promising futures, so why would they come to Akron and work for a lame duck administration and for a school that allows for coaches, for whatever reason, to get the hook after less than 24 months. Look around at the coaching contracts that are being signed elsewhere, where the cupboards are not so bare - 5 years is a minimum. With a major rebuilding job like Akron we'd be lucky to get anyone for less than 6 years. Half a decade to you is only 1 year more than the minimum to get all of a new coach's players in to a system. Players run on 5-year cycles, not 4, because football players redshirt their first year. If you want to go all juco then you can shorten this process, but how did that work with Faust and Brookhart. The fact is that it is going to take 3 years minimum to build up a on field leadership base and some level of talent that will equal out to 4-5 wins overall in a 12 game season. If you think that we are going to hire someone who is going to shortchange that scenario then you also believe in Santa and the Tooth Fairy. This year's recruiting class is a wash. 2012 will be a bad year, worse than 2011. The coaches need to establish a system and begin recruiting for impact in February 2013. Sign a solid class in 6 weeks of hard working kids from solid programs, even if they are not MAC level blue chippers - you need people who have been a part of winning. Add to that solid MAC level blue chip classes in 2013 and 2014 which will yield us on-field talent in 2014 and 2015 respectively. Add in the occasional transfer or JUCO QB and you can get something special by 2015 that may lead us back to a bowl game. 2012, 2013, 2014 are building years. MAC teams that win do so with upperclassmen and we have no one on this roster who can get the job done.

Some of Akron's best players over the last decade have come from Walsh Jesuit and the Federal League in Stark County. Walkons were a hallmark of the success in the mid 2000's. Should be again. New coach has to recruit, but also develop talent.

Well, I'm not happy to acknowledge it, but I think UA administrators deserve that not-so-veiled dig at what has been some arrogance over the past few years. Are they humble enough not to take what I believe is valid and fair criticism and hire the guy anyway. I hope so, but I'm not optimistic. If UA had not already indicated that he's not their guy, my guess is that Winters effectively pulled the plug on his coming here with those public comments. Sad. PW's issues are that he was fired when Faust was brought in, was fired when Owens was let go and was not retained by Brookhart or interviewed for the job, and was passed over when iCoach was hired. Who would not be pissed if they were passed over for iCoach. To me he should have swallowed it and taken the brass ring. Maybe he still will. I am disappointed that he aired his feelings publicly an talked down about the job. It's a human reaction and was probably preparing himself for the worst possible outcome. Trouble is these types of media bursts do not win friends with people making the hire.

Kehres is successful at Mt Union because he is the AD and funnels all of the department resources to football, along with having his wife in charge of admissions and financial aid. That is a pretty sweet gig that not many other schools could/would replicate.

As CK stated if Jesus Christ comes in as head coach there will be issues. First and foremost there is no talent on this roster. We lost the February 2010 signing class with the changeover from Brookhart. We lost the February 2011 signing class because no one wanted to play for iCoach. The February 2012 signing class will be cobbled together by a staff that will hardly be together enough to recognize each other, yet alone sign a strong class less than 5 weeks after being hired. This represents 60% of your team. The other 40% are holdovers from the Brookhart era, if there are that many. Most likely this will be a team of at least 40% newcomers via late takes after the signing day and JUCO transfers & late qualifiers academically. For those of you who remember the Gerry Faust years I can give that as exhibit A as to how not to build a program. Year #1 will be setting the bar for expectations internally - establishing a code of what Akron football will be defined as. I could really care less about wins and losses at this point in the first year - it has to be a foundational year. There is a lot of housecleaning that needs to be done and that will be messy. Year #2 is when you start to get some tangible results, but football is not a quick turnaround sport when you do not have a base of talent on the roster and especially in the key skill positions. Year #3 is a time when you can expect 3-5 wins if things are going well. If you think we are going to go .500 in the MAC with a coaching staff change leading the way you are not dealing with reality. Reality is that Can't State won games through adding a decent coach to decent talent. They have been on the edge of a bowl game for 4 years. Martin was a bad coach. Their new guy is way better and brings some edge in. The rest of the MAC is not going to sit around and wait for Akron to improve. Ohio is strong, Toledo is strong, Temple is impressive, and other programs are on the rise as well. Only Buffalo in our division is a bad team, and they kicked our ass this year. Hard. This is a long rebuilding year and whomever is hired should have a 6-year deal minimum to clean this up the right way. We do not need a quick fix, we need a program built from the foundation up.

After reading what I can find on the web about our search I am more convinced than ever that Paul Winters will not be our coach. I think that the damage done by the 2009 search has left Paul with some great fears about the program and the direction that the University has gone. The tone in the Detroit News article http://www.detnews.com/article/20111219/SP...ext%7CFRONTPAGE does not sound like someone who believes that he would A: take the job if offered or more likely B: ever be offered the job to begin with. I am disappointed that PW would air his issues in a public forum. If you really want the job you bury that and work it out internally. I believe Scott Loeffler is the guy that we will choose http://www.owlsports.com/staff.aspx?staff=334 and with that will come some on the job training as a head coach. The good thing about this choice is that the guy was a quarterback, so he knows how to manage the game. Let's hope he can manage the team/program as a whole. He has been at a lot of great places and has been associated with winning programs. Akron Football has a lot going for it and we need to make the right hire on this one. I do think that we all need to cut LP/TW some slack - one bad decision should not define a career.

Being a head coach is being a head coach. Winters has done it and has taken a program from the dumps to the brink of a national championship. Akron has done the on the job training push with the last three head coaches and all failed. This is a program management issue. Paul has the experience in the key category that most others do not, he's been a head coach.

What if JT didn't get that gift pass interference call in the championship game? Think his legacy would be different? It is always nice to see people call that play the way it was. Among OSWho fans, maybe his legacy would have been different. They love to remind you that they won something a decade ago to cover for their more recent failures. But, to most fans outside their brainwashed umbrella, they forgot about OSWho winning a title a long, lone time ago. That answers the legacy question. My point was in reference to whether any single game should make someone change their mind about a coach's ability. You should judge a coach over the body of work against the potential for future growth. It's hard to apply this to a coach who has never been a head coach before. Regardless of who is selected here there is one thing for sure, this is not a quick fix and we are all going to have to be patient for real results because the only way it would happen quick (1-2 years) is if we start to cut corners and go the transfer/juco route. That is a lot tougher now than in the past with the new academic standards.

It could happen. I guess we will know this week if we are on the road to something new or more of the same.

I find it hard to believe that Scott Loeffler has had any significant involvement in the search for a coach. First, he is not just the QB coach at Temple, he is the offensive coordinator. He's been totally focused on Wyoming the last month. Second, its hard to imagine that Temple would appreciate him advising Akron - a conference division opponent - about which coach would be best to turn the program around. Maybe he's had some informal and minimal input. I thought the mystery candidate might have been Matt Campbell, now the Toledo coach. I think Campbell signed a contract at UT for something like $235 thousand a year as a base salary. Dirt cheap. If it is PW, the announcement should be coming pretty quickly. These are all candidates according to what I have been told.