ZipperRoo44

I am a huge fan of Paul Winters and think that he should get the job hands down. That being said I fully expect to have an announcement by Tuesday that has someone other than Paul as the new Zips coach. I have heard or read about the following people being involved in the search. Joe Tresey, just fired UCLA Defensive Coordinator > former Akron Defensive Coordinator Mike Stoops, recently released head coach of Arizona > Youngstown native Scot Loeffler Offensive Coordinator / Quarterbacks Coach at Temple > Akron native Bobby Johnson, Offensive Line Coach at Indiana > former Akron assistant coach Shawn Watson, Offensive Coordinator at Louisville > former Miami of Ohio assistant coach and the mystery candidate that has been secret until now is former Minnesota & Can't State head coach Glen Mason. Current Akron assistant Mitch Browning has been pushing Mason and his Big 10 ties strong to Wistricil who also used to work at Minnesota. Mason would be a big name along the same line as Solich at Ohio. He took Minnesota to 7 bowl games in 10 years and has also been the head coach at Kansas.

ESPN's Dan Hawkins just used the terms confident, poised, in control to describe Paul Winters. When was the last time those adjectives were used around Akron Football?

Touchdown Warriors. Nice drive for the Wayne State offense. 11 plays, 85 yards, over 5 minutes in length and the game settles into more of a rhythm. On to the 2nd quarter with WSU leading 14-10.

Warriors on the march

10-7 - wild game so far. Defense is flying around for both sides. Offenses look a bit nervous. Special teams are kamikaze for both sides. Reminding me a lot of early 2000's Zip football.

7-7 now 2 minutes in. A KO return for TD, two interceptions, spread offense v power running. Should be a great game to watch.

Warriors take opening kickoff back for TD, 7-0. Warriors get INT on first defensive play. Big Mo for PW!

Great exposure for KD and the program.

Cannot wait to watch this game today. When is the last time that anyone who played football at Akron was involved a national championship game? Go get'em Paul!

Keep trolling for unproven D1 assistants and the recent history of embarrassing football will continue. the last 4 coaches at Akron have come from Notre Dame, Ohio State, Pitt and Notre Dame. 0-4 using the theory of getting someone from a name school. Perhaps Akron is just meant to be irrelevant in football.

So, you have the only valid opinion in these forums? You use a stupid post from one person as an argument to shut down the coaching search, and to select the guy you like best. A bit arrogant, don't you think? I happen to disagree with you. I would be angry if UA did not conduct a thourough search to find the best coach to lead this program. Not my point at all. Perhaps I mixed messages but the original point was that the post, since removed by moderators, by the poster GOZIPS personally attacked one of the persons who is allegedly a candidate for the head coaching position. Since I would bet cash money that GOZIPS has never met this coach, spent time with him, been coached by him, or even had a meaningful conversation with him, I call GOZIPS out for his/her lack of class. As for the merits of the coach in question I feel that those facts are pretty clear, as is the factual history that I have laid out. How you choose to interpret same is certainly up to you. It's a free country. There is a clear difference between facts that are on the record as opposed to personal opinion based in nothing.

Every game that Wayne State has won in the postseason has been on the road, meaning they have been the underdog. All they do is keep winning. Every time out.

The attack on Paul Winters found elsewhere on this board is stupid. Frankly, most of the posts on the topic of the coaching search have been without foundation and are based on nothing more than some random facts that some lonely guy reads on the web at 8:30 p.m. and then spews back as if it is personal knowledge. This cycle is repeating again and again and it is sad. It would be nice if people would stick to posting facts and things that they know first hand. Trouble is, this board and others like it would be blank if fact were a guiding light. Opinions should be based in something other than what your mind can conceive or what your barber's third cousin's carpenter told you over a beer over at the Moose Lodge. All of the ignorant posts here shape the environment that is part of the program. Akron Football is toxic - a career killer - because for all of the great things that we have going for us there is an overriding sense of false entitlement and that bricks and mortar make a championship program. It's a part, but what can anyone state factually about this program over the last 10 years other than when we played at the Rubber Bowl that we had more entertaining teams and a more Akron type attitude. Blue collar -go to work - get it done. Here are the facts. Akron Football is in the toilet. Easily the worst in D1 FBS football. Akron Football has the best facilities in the MAC. These facilities have the potential to lift us up but in hindsight have made us soft. Akron Football needs someone who knows how to build programs to revive the tradition of Larson and Dennison. We have gone the big time assistant route for the last four hires and NONE of them were ready to be a D1 head coach in all facets and NONE of them had any type of winning head coaching history on the D1 level. Not Faust, not Owens, not Brookhart of Ianello. Akron Football, save for a very scant few moments, has been in the crapper since Jim Dennison was dumped for Gerry Faust. The University of Akron can hire all of the consultants to help with the hire - national firms with big resumes - but in the end all politics are local. A big firm hired Rob Ianello - the biggest of them all - how did that work out? A big firm hired JD Brookhart, how did that work out? At some point common sense has to come into play. If there is a God then the only reason why a search firm was paid $25,000 to participate in this search was to cover the butts of the President and his overpaid administration in bringing in the most common sense coach to take over this program - Paul Winters. The problem is that none of these people have the knowledge or the fortitude to make this hire without an outside person telling them that it is OK. Most search firms want to make hires of coaches from big time schools because it makes them look better. See the previous four hires who came from Notre Dame, Ohio State, Pittsburgh and Notre Dame. Big names, big let downs. Those who do not respect history are doomed to repeat it. Get off the psycho cycle and make the right hire. Akron has now invested over $120,000,000 in football over the past decade with salaries, buyouts, facilities (field house, outdoor practice facility, stadium, offices) and for that the deliverable has been one MAC title and only 3 winning seasons. 43 wins, 77 losses, 3 head coaches, 3 ADs, 1 President. There is one head coach that is still coaching a team in 2011 that can lead us to a better place.

+1 Listening to the announcers, I believe this is what they said about all four teams WSU has beaten on the road: 1) St Cloud St hadn't lost a home game in 15 games 2) Nebraska-Kearney hadn't lost a home game in over 2 years 3) Defending national champion Minn-Duluth hadn't lost a home game in 17 or 18 games? 4) Winston-Salem was, of course, previously undefeated Wow! Have they mentioned that it's Division 2...it's kind of important You mean to tell me they are playing D3 teams?? How can that be...they let a D2 team into D3 tournament?? Boy is the NCAA corrupt!!! Are the D2 WSU required to spot the D3 teams some points at least?? If you cannot distinguish the D2 Championship from the D3 then you need to quit posting on the web and get immediate help. Perhaps you can enroll in the same clinic that will be treating Proenza and Wistricil if they cannot lock up a coach who is an alum and who is playing for a NCAA Championship.

It's Dr. Seuss, not SUESS. Good grief. No way that a coach who is still active in the playoffs is taking time away from game prep to interview for a job. The fact that Akron has not announced a new head coach is proof that they are waiting to speak with Winters, which could be as early as Sunday or as late as December 18 - the day after the D2 national championship game. The group handling the search is led by former Vanderbilt, Washington, and NC State AD Todd Turner. Collegiate Sports Associates is a new but growing name in intercollegiate athletics. We are in this business at the urging of College and University Presidents and Athletics Directors from around the country. CSA Founder and President, Todd Turner, was formerly President of ISP Sports' (now IMG College) Division of Consulting and Executive Search and has over thirty years of experience in intercollegiate athletics, twenty-one of which were as the AD at four major NCAA Division I FBS/BCS institutions. The absence of CSA’s on-campus perspective among the more traditional consulting and search firms has been a concern for many Presidents and AD’s. Mr. Turner’s experience in managing four major NCAA Division I FBS/BCS athletics programs has given him a profound understanding of the differences in culture that exist on campuses around the nation. Having personally managed four major athletics department transitions during his career, his experience is unmatched when it comes to assisting university leaders in addressing current issues in athletics that challenge today’s university. While relatively new to the formal title of “Executive Search Professional”, Mr. Turner clearly has the experience required to set a new standard for executive searches in intercollegiate athletics. During his career in athletics Mr. Turner has hired dozens of senior administrators and coaches. Unlike his search executive peers, he has then mentored and developed his hires with noteworthy success. As an example, fifteen of his former associates have gone on to become Athletics Directors at Division I institutions. RECENT CONSULTING CLIENTS Central Michigan University - Athletics Program Review Duke University – Naming Rights Analysis Can't State University - Management Transition Mid-American Conference – Strategic Plan University of North Carolina, Wilmington – Strategic Plan Old Dominion University – Strategic Plan University of Richmond – Strategic Plan Sun Belt Conference – Conference Membership Study RECENT SEARCHES Cleveland State University - Director of Athletics University of California-Berkeley - Chief Operating Officer for Athletics University of Colorado - Head Football Coach Duke University - Head Field Hockey Coach Can't State University - Director of Athletics Northern Illinois University - Head Men's Basketball Coach University of Oklahoma - Head Men's Basketball Coach University of Richmond - Head Football Coach University of South Dakota - Director of Athletics

Donations from people who want to see this program succeed. Why do you believe that the athletic department is a closed system that can only spend what it makes in ticket sales? LOL Other peoples money Because I can read the budgets that have been posted on this site and know that Akron is not awash in cash. You made your thoughts known and I disagree. It's not the end of the world. I just do not think that Akron is going to pay someone $120K more as a head coach than we did for the iCoach AND pay for a solid group of assistant coaches to go along with them. The Assistants are the key to any staff so if you are going to break the bank then do it for the top 3-4 assistants. Akron will pay somewhere in the 425K range plus incentives and should have a salary pool of around $850K for the assistants if we are going to be a player.

No way Akron pays anything close to 500K a year. Where is the money coming from? Buyout of iCoach, no ticket sales? You cannot write checks that are going to bounce.

Outside of 3 years with the Browns from 1992-95 Hill has never been in Ohio and has never worked at a college east of the Mississippi. Bad mix there, along with he has been on the downward spiral not having won his league since 1999 and no better than 2nd since 2003.

If a new coach was hired today it would take 2-3 weeks to get assistant coaches processed and on the job. Given the time of year you can add a week to that time frame which puts a new staff on the job no earlier than January 6 - giving them 4 weeks to sell the program. Unless they have been recruiting Ohio already and have relationships this is a lost year, just like two years ago was. Last year was no peach either so there is 1 of maybe 5 classes that will be worth mud for the 2012 Zips, that being the next to last recruiting class for Brookhart. His last one, the two iCoach classes, and this one were all wasted classes. Only the 2008 HS grads were attractive recruits and not many of those guys are left. It's going to be a long long rebuild for someone and that is pretty unattractive.

You are living in a dream world if you think that MAC schools get a bowl payout. Not a dime is shared from these games and there is actually an assessment paid by the member schools to buy slots in the extra bowl games. They bowls pay the league and the MAC writes checks back to ESPN in a money trading operation for the extra bowl slots. Check it out and you will find that this is 100% true. The only money that is made for MAC bowl teams is what comes from the school's who play in the games and what they sell in tickets. There is no actual cash payout.

This has the potential of being pretty bad based on the rumors flying around of trying to make a splash hire. Not a lot of cash to float as a result of the buyout and non existent support for the program from donors and ticket sales. None of the names being mentioned here are responding according to one former coach that I talked to who told me that Winters may even have hesitation in going to work for Akron. There has not been a major coaching hire since 2006 that has worked out and the only money that is coming in that is significant is the men's basketball NCAA Tournament multi-year revenue share. This cycle of uncertainty is a reflection of the merry go round of athletic leadership and the lack of a clear direction from the Upper Administration of the University. We need to get a coach who is capable now. Recruiting is already underway and more than likely we will not have a coach in place for another 10-14 days. That means we will not have a staff in place until after the first of the year so recruiting is pretty much toast for the class of 2012 high school graduates. The last two recruiting classes have been pretty bad so 3/5 of the roster for 2012 will be putrid. Only by getting the right coach can we reverse this slide, which may actually get worse before it gets better. Hard to fathom.

Perhaps to cut costs we should just cut the band. I'll bring my iPod and play music that people really enjoy hearing instead of that 1970's stuff our band plays.

Nick Lou Saban, 55, named for his father Nick Saban Sr. and cousin Lou Saban, a former coach for the Buffalo Bills, grew up in Fairmont, W.Va.

Kehres would never leave Mount Union because his wife and son both work there and he is the AD - so he has a pretty solid relationship with his boss. He does handle scholarships, namely taking in a ton of transfers from D1 programs and working the need based aid regulations of DIII better than anyone in the country.