Lee Adams

Since the other topic was 'locked'.... Its been pretty obvious that the Leakin' Urinal doesn't have the cozy relationship with UofA it had when LP was Prez. Coverage of football has certainly changed. Maybe part of that is due to the person who was assigned to cover Akron football. Maybe part of it is due to the new regime on Buchtel Ave. In any event,if Bowden starts winning on a regular basis,even the BJ won't ignore it.

I said after last week that if they could go to La and win I would start to 'believe'. For what its worth I now have hope. They still have a lot to cleanup. Too many 'empty' plays,too many penalties. Woodson is still raw but he gives them the running threat from the QB that should help him improve in the passing game. One would think these last two weeks should build his confidence in running the offense. It looks like they have finally figured out that Hundley can be as much of a threat out of the backfield as he can be running the ball. He dropped weight and is obviously much quicker. As long as the coaches allow Woodson to play within himself and not put him in situations he is not ready for they can continue to put up enough points to be competitive. Its funny that Bowden pulled the plug so quickly on Woodson last season and had him buried on the depth chart this season behind Chapman and Pohl. Necessity is the mother of (fill in the blank). OU is an entirely different animal this week. Have a feeling the points will be harder to come by. More plays on offense will have to be 'positive' and the penalties will have to be near zero. This week could be a statement game for this team in the MAC.

Since Bowden has not been able to recruit a solid QB in 4 years we are left with a 'QB du jour' situation. Woodson 'seemed' to perform better today than last year....but...S.State was crap. So Chapman couldn't produce against a shitty team. Pohl seems to be pretty much history. He has to go with Woodson until? There is a Hoyer on the bench. Anybody know anything factual about him? If these guys can beat ULaLa,start believing. But,don't count on it. OU looms on 10-3.

The troubling thing to a trained eye would be that,among other things,Bowden has been unable to recruit a solid QB to run whatever the offense is that he and Milwee are trying to run. At this point in his tenure,can't blame the shortcomings on what happened before he got here. He owns the results now. One could go on about the offensive(lol) game plans but given what is going on inside and outside the athletic department,with two new sheriffs in town who have no connection to any of the coaches of any of the varsity sports,time might be shorter than it otherwise would to produce tangible improvement on the field,in the gym etc,etc.

Well,couple of things. Its obvious that most of you can't predict the weather or the the games. Please try to refrain from predicting either in the future. If Bowden hasn't found a QB after 4 years and doesn't go 6-2 in the MAC he should be gone. Not pretty what might happen after that. Got soaked at the game.

Scarborough is president of the UNIVERSITY. He is not the AD or a coach. He has responsibilities far beyond athletics especially at a school like Akron. He will hire somebody,just like the University hired him and will expect the next AD to produce something better than has been occurring for the last 25 years. If the new AD and/or coaches don't produce something better, as has been common around here,'see ya!' If he doesn't produce better results with the crap he was left,gone. There are many more priorities at Akron than a DI football or B.ball program. He obviously isn't a PR genius but he is going to get rid of anything he sees as 'dead wood'.

Well there is no 'wishful thinking' (your uninformed term not mine). If anyone is unrealistic to assume that this type of information made public would not affect a future prospect's decision then that might be more accurately deemed wishful thinking. And I have to inquire, why would it be 'wishful thinking' to assess that that information might affect future recruiting? Please? I await.

Pluto hasn't been relevant for 20 years.

How about Savannah State?

How do ya think recruiting will go now that it has gotten out that the faculty has recommended that UofA drop down to DII or DIII to save money? And, there is no foreseeable way that the f.ball program or any other sport is all of a sudden going to start raking in the cash. May not make any difference if it doesn't immediately happen. Any legit DI prospect isn't likely to commit here when they know it may not be a DI program for long. Do what you gotta do given the history!

You are correct when you say that this is Proenza's mess. It goes beyond decisions inside the university. There was the University Park Alliance debacle. That wasn't all Louie Pro's doing, obviously. A lot of politicians and rich people had there fingers in that smelly mess.They all made bad decisions. But, building Info was an overreach that wasn't justified given the state of the program. Now,as the bills are apparently coming due the entire university and athletics specifically will suffer a long term hit. Its a shame that the educational side is going to deteriorate more and more because of what has been going on for the last 20 years. Frankly,I'm glad that the students got some break with the decision to not impose the 50.00 fee. But, unless priorities are changed on campus and in Columbus,institutions like Akron will continue to suffer over the long term.

Might want to talk about the fact that in August schools will be able to offer 'stipends' or whatever you want to call it of at least 5,000 big ones to 'athletes' in football and b.ball. Do you think schools in the MAC and other similar conferences are going to be able to pay athletes that much money and be able to compete with the bigs? No. Whether its deferred or not,schools like Akron don't generate that kind of money whether its deferred or not. Those schools fall further and further behind the BIG DI schools in recruiting.

Possibly being football competitive and being in a tournament possibly playing for a national championship is 'giving up the football program'? OK just don't go to the games. Looks like a lot of people are not already. Got my season tix AGAIN. Will be there every home game,some away whether they play DI,I-AA or D-II. Its supposed to be about HIGHER education,RIGHT?

Do you think they are not ALREADY looking?

Can't say the events of the past couple of days are surprising. The new Prez came in,looked around and didn't like what Proenza had left him. Its a shame that students are getting it up the wazoo for all the fluff that has been accumulated not only in the Athletic Department but all over campus. I'll bet Dambrot and Bowden are already looking. They have obviously seen what is going on. They may not want to hang around to see the finale of this movie. Can't imagine that if the football program doesn't show some progress on the field there will not be further repercussions.

Whatever 'study' was done was done long after the RB was salvageable. If UofA had renovated the RB when it should have back in the 80's or early 90's at the latest it could have had a decent facility for the caliber of ball that was being played at UofA. Thats a lot of bad water under the bridge.And the mistakes that were made 20 or 30 years ago with the football program are pretty obvious today. Hard to imagine at this point this mess is going to get cleared up any time soon.

I think we can all see what has happened OVERALL over the past at least 4-5 years. No interest. We can talk all we want about weekdays vs. weekends. The Prez has to get money out of the fball program NOW. Thats why the TV crap. Gotta feeling thats going to change.

Like I said you people are humorous but maybe nothing else. Its, as I was going to say amazing how y'all tend to attack individuals, well y'all know. The new Prez finally made a decision that should have been made years ago. That was to look at the fball program for what it has been for decades. That was a black hole for student fees and athletic department resources with no return on the investment. Universities in Ohio are under pressure to make financial dollars go further than ever before. Whether we like it or not, university $$$$ at places like Akron are not going to go to sports programs that provide no return on investment. Student fees and other $$$$ that go to athletics will have to go to actual education. How much has the university paid over the past 20 years to buy tix to fball games to meet MINIMUM NCAA attendance requirements. We all know they have done it. So the Prez has a white elephant at Info. He has a fball program that is supported by student fees among other sources of income. I have actually spoken with current students who are pissed off because they have their student fees going to support sports programs while they are being charged outrageous tuition to attend classes. And, we all know that students do not attend games in any significant numbers. These are people in their early 20's who are going to school to get an education not to support,the baseball,soccer and football teams. The rich can do it. But this isn't the 70's or 80's anymore.

You people are humorous if nothing else. We can rationalize and make excuses all we want. The problems with the fball program have been going on for literally decades. There has been and continues to be little community interest in the program. Look at the most recent successful years of 2003,2004 and 2005. Subtracting any tix bought by the University,what was the attendance for regular season games? And those were if I recall .500 or better seasons. Hell Scarbourgh likely didn't even know about UofA back then. He has no 'ax to grind'. He sees finances being wasted. University presidents are under pressure for doing a lot more important things than supporting an fball program that is sucking up resources. The way DI is structured now Akron and MOST programs like it have no chance to be competitive even in their own conferences year in and year out. This is likely only the first volley. I want to see the program play at a level where it can be competitive every year,not just once every decade.

Wow! I really hope that BJ article wasn't 'news' to anyone. And all the woulda,shoulda,coulda questions are really meaningless at this point. The new Prez has realized as others did several years ago that this fball program did not have the support to warrant an expenditure of this magnitude on this type of facility. It didn't really take him very long to figure it out,to his credit. Only question now is what to do with that elephant in the room. The article in the BJ was pretty damning. When the university has to buy its own tix just to stay DI eligible it means the program is not DI caliber. And, it doesn't matter what Can't and the other MAC schools do. What matters is what this Prez is going to do to stop the bleeding. The dominoes have started to fall with the ouster of Tom W. Thats not a coincidence. Unless the fball program under Bowden miraculously starts to put butts in the seats there will be more changes. Hopefully!

Boomer Sooners baby. Barry, The Boz. We hated 'em in Texas but they were always pretty good.

Have to chuckle when I read stuff like this. If folks had been paying attention to the 'University Park Alliance' from the start, might have been able to see that this was just another way for 'rich' people to enrich themselves more without having to take responsibility for their "F' ups. Of course that is what politicians and the politically connected do with our money. There were a number of people who posted in other venues about this long ago. In any event,it is a shame that the whole Infocision thing will never be anything close to what the propagandists spouted. Just put up your money,go to the games and hope that TB eventually puts a competitive team on the field on a REGULAR basis. 2005 was a great ride.

About 30 years too late. Structurally salvageable in the '80's. Way past that now. I miss it. Watching games there since high school in the mid-'60s. Thats when the program was a 'winner'.

Back in the '80's U of A had a chance to upgrade the RB before it deteriorated beyond salvage. It wasn't done. When the RB was first built it was still pretty much a 'make work' project. 1939-1940. The US was spending money to get out of the recession and to gear up for war. It wasn't built to last 60-70 years.It is surprising that it was as good a facility as it was for so many years.

The so called 'one read offense' IF Bowden actually changes his philosophy is nothing more than a further 'dumbing down' of his offensive beliefs to suit the talent or perceived lack thereof that he has at the QB and WR positions. Might be a positive as long as they can run the ball consistently and the WR's he has can catch the ball consistently and the O line holds up. Pohl will never be a 'runner'. And opponents will not view him as a running threat. Not someone they have to 'game plan' for. Maybe a Woodson or a Chapman would be better in that role. Still BIG question marks going in to next season.