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I was born in West Virginia and I am looking forward to any hillbilly humor this hire may bring on this board. Then.....I will put you down as one of the people who likes that Bowden wants to build a good football "progrum" If he takes after his father, it also won't be long until you hear him say "dadgummit".

They can go swimming together in the cement pond in the natatorium. I hear they have a hot cousin. It's all good. Awe he ain't comin' here. I hear he was fixin' to be a double knot spy! "If brains were lard, he couldn't grease a skillet." - Uncle Jed Clampett UH OH.....I knew the hillbilly references were going to start coming anytime !!! I'm still laughing about how Bowden says "Progrum" in his YouTube video. I'll be excited about anyone he brings here who is a D-IA assistant, and/or was associated with him at Auburn. I'm a little leary about anyone he brings from his old D-II school. Although, with his history, I trust that he can evaluate good asst. coaches.

Tells us all we need to know about you. Akron lost to freakin' Gardner-Webb. And you think the national runners-up couldn't have knocked off a 1-11 team that had stopped playing for its coach? That tells us all we need to know about YOU, my deluded friend. The difference between Div. II (WSU) and I-AA (GW) is pretty huge. And just think. Earlier in this thread, some people on here were bashing on Thomas for what he didn't know. Do any of us really believe that there would have ever been any posts here touting the greatness of D-II football in the last month if one of the candidates who they were supporting was not a D-II coach?

I don't think anyone is "piling on" Winters by expressing our relief that this "search" ended up leading us to a coach with a fantastic history. And in my case at least, I didn't change my mind about Winters once Bowden was hired. I feel the same way about him as I did last week, and 10 years ago. I also feel that it's appropriate that he has extended his contract to stay in D-II for many years to come. Maybe someday down the road we'll still see that he'll become a highly sought-after D-1A HC commodity, and a few people here can have fun telling me that I was wrong about him. I wish him luck.

No they wouldn't. There is a huge difference between the size and mentality of a person between the ages of 16 and 18 compared to a person between the ages of 18 and 23. It's men vs. boys and the men win. I think you're giving a cliche of a response, while forgetting that so many Moeller players were heading right to top-level BCS schools the following fall. A typical high school player might not be good enough to compete against a D-II college plaer. A typical Moeller player in the 1970s?...Absolutely.

Faust won big at Moeller because he was able to recruit the best HS players from 3 states. Once he had some actual competition in recruiting and talent, he couldn't win. Apples and oranges. So, I think we agree that Gerry had success at a lower level, or are you saying Moeller was at a higher level than the Zips? Gerry's Moeller teams would have beaten teams like Wayne State. But, they were still just a high school. I wouldn't use this example to say that Gerry coached at a low college level. Running a high school program, no matter how big, is so much different than running any college program. I don't want to cut on Gerry at all. We always have to keep in mind that Gerry had mild success here, with absolutely NOTHING to work with, at the infancy of our D-1A years. But, as much excitement as Gerry generated, this is going to be much bigger. Bowden has Gerry's notoriety, plus the high level success history. This is going to be huge.

Most sports fans probably don't even know that Wayne State even exists. So, he's a step above that.

Unfortunately, like a lot of my college buddies, I haven't seen Dave in almost 20 years. If I do see him on-campus, I will certainly be a responsible ZipsNation member and pose the appropriate questions. And I agree that Snowball would have a place on the Zips. Maybe only special teams...but he's a tough kid and a winner. He's the type of player we need on our team beginning next season. I haven't seen him Dave in a couple of months. But as of last weekend, I've been told that his son has not committed to anyone.

Makes sense. In business, you interview a number of candidates before offering the position to the one who you find through the interview process to be the most qualified. There are things that are brought out during the interview process that may cause either the interviewer or interviewee to decide that there is not a good match. It appears that UA and Bowden found each other mutually attractive during the interview process, and that mutual attraction did not work out with the other candidates. And if the first one you make the offer to turns you down then you don't count that as an offer and make your first offer to the second best candidate. Key word in this is "technically" Absolutely. The Akron folks drove up to Detroit to make a nontechnical offer. Exactly Meister, They went up to gauge interest in receiving an offer that didn't happen. You know like the ole junior high date question "you wouldn't, possibly, maybe be interested in going to the dance with me, if I was maybe to ask?" It could very well be true that offers were just "floated" to other candidates. You always try to get a face to face meeting (as opposed to telephone) when you are trying to get someone to respond right away. And in our case, we needed an answer quickly, based on us already being 3 weeks into the process. Maybe we'll find out more soon on how all of this actually transpired.

Interesting. And now that we know that Bowden was a candidate, that seems to make sense.

How about proven ability to win at UPPER levels? In fact, the HIGHEST levels. That's the kicker that we've never had with any other coaching prospect in our history. The name will also have immense benefits.

Guys, guys... We went from no one paying attention to the program, to being front page of ESPN and CBS for a bit, Plain Dealer, Beacon, Canton Rep and we were trending on twitter. The "leak" was on purpose. People follow footballscoop on twitter. Akron leaked it to them, social media has done the rest. I'll go out on a limb and say that this hire will get 1,000 times the publicity of hiring Winters or Loeffler. This is EXACTLY what Zips Football needed, and I've been pushing for this kind of move all along.

I remember watching the Louisville game on TV. And we've discussed the Delaware St debacle here before. Someone has to recall the 1986 QB. I'm pretty sure Vernon Stewart was a SR in Dennison's last year (1985). Maybe I'm mistaken. Johnny. I get confused between the last year of I-AA, and the time Faust came. Faust coached us for one year in I-AA before we swtiched, and I now think Vernon was indeed the QB.

I share the sentiment that Bowden was one of the best available. Correct me if i'm wrong, didn't he spend some time with the Zips as an assistant? Anybody that experienced the Rubber Bowl trough's has instant street cred in my book!! WOOT Go Zips!!! Ku*k Fent!!! Yes, that's why i've mentioned it. He was our QB coach under Faust back in about 1987 Who was our QB in 87? I was 10 forgive me for my lack of knowledge. Mike Johnson, I believe. Maybe that makes him an OC candidate now?

Yep. I hear Muse had a lot to do with bringing him to Auburn. Muse would have been our President when Bowden was here.

I share the sentiment that Bowden was one of the best available. Correct me if i'm wrong, didn't he spend some time with the Zips as an assistant? Anybody that experienced the Rubber Bowl trough's has instant street cred in my book!! WOOT Go Zips!!! Ku*k Fent!!! Yes, that's why i've mentioned it. He was our QB coach under Faust back in about 1987

I wonder if Gerry Faust's old connection with Bowden helped us pull this off ??

ABSOLUTELY!! Where did this come from? I said from Day 1 that I wanted an experienced D-1A coach as my first choice. I never imagined we could get one from the SEC, who had some great success! Fot God's Sake, this guy was once the D-1A COACH OF THE YEAR! I've been making a lot of phone calls in the last half hour. Everyone is excited. This is exactly what we needed to jumpstart our program.

Foiotball Scoop just reported it. OMG !!!

He doesn't cut the most attractive profile, but he still might look good on the Akron sidelines. We'll just have to put in a special order of some size XXXXXXXXL Shirts, Sweats and Jackets for him. No big deal. Kangaroo: Are you sure you didn't confuse him with the old Toledo coach? It's easy to make that mistake.

If the dining is as bad as I felt like it was 30 years ago, I wouldn't consider that a "perk".

Hey. We had the chance to land a real gem, so we had to jump on the opportunity very quickly.

I'd have to believe that getting a bright, young coach, like a Campbell or a Loeffler, has it's own distinct challenge right now. If you fail as a HC coach in D-1A, even at a bad school, at a young age, you're road back could be blocked forever. That has to be a risk they have to consider, knowing that other better opportunities should surface in due time. And they have plenty of time to wait.

That's pretty funny. Actually, I am hearing that there may not be a Day 29. We'll see if what I am hearing is correct in a little bit.

Has anyone searched for information on coach Loeffler, and seen a picture of him standing with Tebow with a playbook in the front of his pants? There's two ways this can go: 1) He comes from the same mold as ICoach. 2) He's actually ICoach's polar opposite, since his playbook is in the front, instead of the back. I'm hoping for the best.