Lee Adams

The coaching staff must have been and still must be questioningi its QB situation. Didn't Moorehead rotate in another QB at certian points in the game yesterday? Coaches USUALLY, not always, but usually don't like to start a rotation at QB unless they are not confident about the starter in certain situations. Again, Moorehead relies on a QB who can make good decisions and is accurate with his throws. Doesn't need a huge arm(remember Luke Getsy in 2005?) With that saie, the loss is not all the fault of Irons. Too many dumb ass penalties, maybe not enough run. If the defense can play like that from here on out, we will take it. Now looking at the schedule, I think the Buffalo game at home, will define the season.

Not an acceptable loss under the circumstances. Up by a significant margin at half against Temple. Then your offense tanks? Defense did its job. Again, not an Irons fan after all these seasons. In Moorehead's offense the QB HAS to make plays. Has to be accurate and know when to get rid of the ball. We have seen this from Irons for too long. He is not a first or second year guy. Not accurate, holds the ball too long. After Saturday the schedule gets a lot tougher. Time for the coaches in the second season to make some tough decisions.

Was watching. SDSU was nothing special. But, when the OU backup threw 3 picks, SDSU didn't have to do much. Thats a real solid OU team with a healthy Rouke.

As everybody knows I don't normally comment in the pre-season. Need to see guys play against quality competition. I see a number of folks being VERY optinistic about this season. I think we will know in September whether Joe has really started to turned this thing around. I will be real curious to see how they stack up against Temple. Don't play close against Morgan State. I am not a big Irons fan so I want to see how much the coaches have been able to get out of him. If the D can cover up for the line, the Offense may be able to score enough to get to...6-6?

No doubt the raw numbers look better. But, teams didn't have to throw the ball last season, they just ran over the defense. As I said earlier, the entire team played better the last 2 games. This season the secondary was quite porous for most of the season to say the least. A number of big plays through the air. The pass rush improved somewhat. And, with the much improved offense scoring more points teams sometimes needed to throw more and could. Just sayin', if you can find a better option be it with players or coaches go for it. Its not rocket science to realize this team needs help on defense at a number of positions. Coach Moorehead was able to bring in some quality transfers on offense this year. Hope he can do the same next year.

Owens and Ashland lost to a very good IUP team in the DII playoffs. He brought in some really talented players when he was here, NFL caliber. Charley Frye, Chase Blackburn, Dom Hixon, Dwight Smith all made it. Had some good O-lineman also. He and Paul Winters had solid offenses. Blackburn and Hixon won Super Bowl rings I believe. Dwight Smith intercepted at least 2 for pick sixes in the Super Bowl if I am not mistaken. Best athlete I ever saw at Akron. Owens was 7-5(6-2 in the MAC) the season he got fired if I am not mistaken. Imagine going 6-2 and not winning the division. He got caught in a change of bosses in the Athletic Department. Certaily left a soilid foundation for Brookhart, Moorehead et. al.

Taking a hard look at the D coaching staff in the off season.

Tough game to lose. Tough way to lose. One too many sacks,turnovers and missed FG's. They definitely played better last 2 games. Clean up the O-line play. Try to keep the 2 really good WR's. Use the run game more. They have good RB's. The D still has some distance to cover. Have to get far more consistency from the DB's. Have to get a CONSISTANT pass rush. Not just now and then. Th LB's have to be able to stop the run closer to the line not 5 yards down field. Will be interested to see who coach goes with at QB. Buy those season tix!

Undercuffler has only gotten siginificant playing time the last 2 contests. Yep, he needs to cleanup the picks. BUT, if Coach can really clean up the O-line play and thats a must do, either Undercuffler or Irons could be better. Still don't think Coach brought in Undercuffler to sit 2-3 years. The team has looked much better last 2 games. May depend on if Irons can recover by spring ball. We will see.

I read Irons was banged up. But, has coach Moorehead turned the page? Seems with all that time off Irons could have 'healed' up some unless something more happened in practice. Can't imagine Moorehead brought Undercuffler in to sit for 2 years. Anybody?

And guess who the OC was. Is this a harbinger of good things to come?

Thank you! I realize that the offense Coach Moorehead prefers to run may not emphasize the run. But, as we saw tonight they can at least run effectively when they do commit to it more. Not only does that take some pressure off of Irons, it helps keep a really weak defense off the field. The O-line can get better at run blocking when they rep the run game. Not rocket science. But, again neither side of the ball, offense but especially defense has enough playmakers to overcome all the picks and fumbles. What is frustrating is that we are still seeing play in November that we saw in August, September and October.

Hopefully a dreadfully small crowd will not surprise anyone. Has been happening for years, unfortunately. This is a tough time for teams that have nothing to play for but 'pride' as they say. Biggest challenge for Coach Moorehead is to try to keep his best players from departing in the off season. Gonna be tough with some of the guys who have shown well and want to move to a better program. Hang on for next seson. Reup those season tix.

Even though they lost to Toledo who is real good, EMU looks pretty stout. They have a game wrecker on D. I saw them line up in a version of the pistol, with 3 RB's in the backfield with the QB. They can bulldoze you with the run if they want to. Or they can use the backs out of the backfield to create mismatches. Wish Akron would use some more multi-back sets. But that's not Moorehead.

I know Coach Moorehead likes a wide open game but he doesn't quite have the horses to play as wide open as he would prefer. You are correct about the 'red zone' offense. You have to present a legitimate threat to be able to run or you end up throwing into a ton of coverage. But, the run game hasn't been consistently effective all season. And, when your offense is turning the ball over as much as the Zips' offense you need to slow the game down at times to give your defense,such as it is, a break. Hopefully, the coaching staff will look at it in the offseason.

Yep, been the theme all season. Ya land a couple of 'haymakers' but then walk into 4 or 5. Game over.

Yawn🥱. There will be the same folks on here micro analyzing the game. This guy did this, that guy did that. We get it. Paralyisis by analysis. They will say next season will be better. It should! We ALL HOPE so. We have known this since way back when? Joe made Irons throw more than 30 times. 2 picks. RB's only ran the ball 21 times for 72 yards.. What if they had run the ball 5-10 more times? Who knows? As I have said many times if Joe makes Irons throw 30+ times the outcome is ususally not good. With the lack of a reliable defense, can't play the game that way. EXCEPT for the picks and the 242 yards Kent got on the ground, close game. Kent is not that good this year. They have had a chance last 2 weeks. Puncher's chance rest of the way.

My fear in this game is that KSwho gets that crazy offense cranked up early and Akron has to start chasing points. Its the same story, the defensive line and linebackers can't continue to give up big chunks on the ground as they did last week. CMU exploited the left side of the Akron defense on the ground quite easily. If the secondary can play with the same improvement it showed last week, the defense might have a chance to slow down the KSwho offense. Still think, Joe is going to have to give the ball to his RB's much more to help out the O-line and take some wear and tear off Irons. I would imagine that at least initially, KSwho is going to get after Irons and disregard the run. Can'ts defense is weak so don't let them do one thing only. Make them defend everything and hit some big plays. Akron has enough talent at WR and RB to make the Can't defense make mistakes.

I guess what I was thinking is that IF they could have controlled the ball a little longer and maybe put up another TD(I know they missed 2 FG's) they would have been in better position in the second half. After Irons' TD run not much happened offensively. No, I know Moorehead is not a bad coach and I realize he didn't have much to work with. Just after watching these guys for so long and not seeing better results ya wonder what its going to take.

CMU came into the game appearing to be good defensively and at least questionable offensively. Their run game surprised me especially with an apparent 3rd string back carrying a lot. Early, they ran at the left side of the Akron D-line successfully. They were able to run the ball effectively the entire game. And yes their O-line pretty much handled Akron up front. They were also able to hit on some of the crossing routes which have given Akron so much trouble. Akron did get some tighter coverage as the game went on but the CMU QB didn't have to win that game for them. I know CMU played some tight D. Their DB's weren't allowing Akron's receivers much separation most of the game. Akron's receivers made a couple of geat catches under tight coverage. I am still puzzled why Akron RB's only carried the ball 11 times for 8 yards. I think sometimes even when when you are not getting much on the ground offensively you have to stay with it so the defense has to play it and to keep your defense off the field at least a little longer. oh well.

Bad teams and coaching staffs figure out ways to lose games. IMHO, this game was lost in the first half. Akron scored on a QB run. BUT,Coach Moorehead did nothing to establish the RB's in the run game. Why? He has good RB's. At least make the defense respect the running game. Nope. He kept calling plays to the boundary, short passes and runs which got very little. He has 3rd down and makeable and he is throwing behind the line. He eventually got Irons beat up because he was handling the ball so much. Sometimes good offensive coaches outsmart themselves. CMU is a decent dfenseive team. They are bad offensively. Except when teams play an Akron defense they can suddenly run the ball effectively and hit enough passes to be effective. Afraid that was the last realistically winnable game on the sched.😟

He got beat up.

For the Zips to win: The Defense has to finally play at the line of scrimmage. Can not let CMU get a running game going that it hasn't had all season. Don't allow CMU receivers to get 'underneath' the CB's and run across the field on slants and posts. Obviously, that would cut down on some of the chunk plays that the D has been giving up. The offense has to score early. Joe has some solid RB's,use them. Don't make Irons throw the ball 40-50 times. If Irons is healthy, get him moving,options,draws. If Akron has to start chasing points again they are gonna turn the ball over. CMU defense is not giving up much. Who wins? Hell I don't know!

Was checking the stats for CMU and Akron in MAC only games. CMU has really struggled offensively. 16.5 ppg. Rushing avg. 2.6 ppg. Passing 231 yds/game. Completion at 51.2%. Conversely, only giving up 27.5 ppg. We all know what Akron is doing on offense and...not doing on defense. If Akron can continue to control the ball not turn it over and put up points they have a punchers chance IF thats a big IF they can stop CMU on the ground and not have DB's chasing WR's all over the field. Joe usually comes up with something offensively. If the D side can at least make CMU have to use long drives to score, this MIGHT be the 'break through game' for Akron. They won't win by 13 if they win but...

Somebody has gotta coach 'em up.