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Posts posted by skip-zip

  1. I am even more impressed with Pat Hill after conisidering his students success in the classroom.

    It will be interesting to see if the same people who claim they want a more difficult OOC schedule will make any comments about Fresno State’s record. It appears rather unimpressive until you consider who they played. Pat Hill would move to the top of the list for me. He spent enough time in Ohio to understand the culture here. His success on and off the field are what we want and need as a HC. But if he does not want to consider Akron...no one should criticize him. People make life choices and should not be criticized because they do not match what we want or need. And Paul Winter would still look good in my eyes. Pat just looks better right now.

    "Pat Hill currently has 17 wins over BCS automatic qualifying conference teams, which is tied for the most wins for any non-automatic qualifer with Utah."

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Hill

    I don't know if this guy is the best candidate. But, this particular fact should be a major attention-getter for us. And his overall record is pretty good, and so is his length of D-1A coaching experience.

    Instead of looking at all of these wins against BCS schools, there's some people here that are still stuck on looking at a guy who's beating teams like Lake Erie High School in Painesville (oops, sorry, "college") and has a mediocre record.

    I just don't get it. We should all be hoping that our administration will aim as high as possible with our list of candidates for this job. I think a guy like Hill should be very attainable for us, if you look at who programs like UAB and FAU just landed.

  2. Temple vs. Wyoming in the Gildan New Mexico Bowl

    Ohio vs. Utah State in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl

    WMU vs. Purdue in the Little Caesar's Pizza Bowl

    Toledo vs. Air Force in the Military Bowl

    NIU vs. Arkansas State in the GoDaddy.com Bowl

    I see five winnable games for the MAC.

    If all the bowls give out their full payout, Akron can expect a check for a little under $275k in bowl payouts thanks to the MAC revenue sharing plan. But don't think of this as some windfall that we can use to pay off Ianello's contract. This payout is expected every year, although it fluctuates slightly, and is built into our budget.

    It's too bad that NIU lost their best defensive linemen against OU, because Arkansas St is playing very well right now. I agree, these should all provide opportunities for wins, but without checking any odds I believe Temple and WMU might be the only two MAC teams who will be favored heading into these games (Toledo and Air Force should be close). All in all it's been a pretty decent year for any MAC team who wasn't coached by a guy whose name rhymes with jello. I'd like to see the entire conference come through in these bowl games for a change.

    Okay, with the pay-off fluff. I just wanna know how in the world Western Michigan is going to be favored over Purdue??? That's the one we have the least chance of winning. I'd say NIU and Ohio have the best chances. Wyoming is a very underated team. Air Force is a tough opponent. Too bad none of them get UCLA this year. ;)

    Wow. I'm surprised to hear someone say that, and even more surprised that NIU is only +1 in that game. Arkansas State is on the verge of being Top-25, and they are on a big roll, and are just pumelling people.

  3. Although it wasn't football, Bob Huggins came to Akron from Walsh, where he was quite successful. He went on to take Akron to our first NCAA Tournament appearance in our D-1 era. Then he moved on to Cincy, Kansas State, and WVU and throughout has been to the Final Four several times. A successful lower division head coach can definitely be successful at D-1 if the coach is a winner and is driven to be a winner.

    No. He was an assistant coach at Central Florida right before coming here. He also had served as an assistant at Ohio State and West Virginia early in his career.

    Yes, you are correct that Huggins spent 1 year as an assistant at UCF after Walsh, before coming to Akron. He also had other D-1 experience as you mention. I never said that he didn't. I still hold that a lower division head coach can be successful in D-1. There's no perfect answer to who our new head coach should be. There's risk in any candidate who is chosen, but I prefer someone who has been successful actually being a head coach.

    You're right. There is no formula. If there was, everyone would follow it.

    But, I just wanted to clearly point out that Huggins had much more on his resume than just being a low division head coach. And did not come here directly after his time at Walsh.

  4. Yeah. We could be the only 30,000 enrollment school in D3. We could kick butt on those sissy liberal arts schools.

    Ha ha.

    And maybe the best facilities and largest stadium in all of D-3 !! We'd dominate !! Woo Hoo

    I never thought I'd even see a post on here that suggested that the best path for us would be to take ourselves back to where we were about 50 years ago.

  5. I'll repeat what I said in another thread. The lack of assists should answer a lot of the questions we have right now. These guys simply aren't working together to win basketball games.

    2011-2012 - 12 Team Assists Per Game

    2010-2011 - 14 Team Assists Per Game

    Not a huge difference from last year.

    There were only 6 today. So, I guess it's gotten even worse.

    I'm letting everyone know that it's a pretty good barometer that guys are not working together offensively, and are making individual attempts to score. It's easy to see, and it's not good.

  6. So once again....if Winters has been pursued at any higher level.....even a I-AA school....I'd like to know about it.

    Then who's pursuing Matt Campbell?

    Five years ago he was in graduate school. Today, he's already worked his way up to an OC for a D1-A school. Does that answer your question?

    That does not answer my question. Let me repeat. Who is actually showing interest in Matt Campbell as a head coach at any level of football?

    This is really ridiculous. He's been in coaching for only 5 years, and has already moved all the way up to an OC for a D-1A school. Obviously, people have been showing interest in him, and have been moving him up the coaching ranks pretty quickly.

    It's probably the perfect example to support the point that when you are a good coach, people take notice, and your career moves forward. And he's still only 32 years old.

    I'm sure none of us could guess if this guy is ready to be a head coach right now. But, he's certainly moving upward very quickly at this point. I would guess that his next career move won't include spending the next decade at a D-II school in the pits of Detroit.

  7. So once again....if Winters has been pursued at any higher level.....even a I-AA school....I'd like to know about it.

    Then who's pursuing Matt Campbell?

    Five years ago he was in graduate school. Today, he's already worked his way up to an OC for a D1-A school. Does that answer your question?

  8. You don't need to look too much further than one stat today....

    6 Assists........SIX....in an entire game !!!

    It's great that a few people on here watched them in practice in October, running and jumping and dunking, and having delusions of greatness. Unfortunately, that doesn't equate to victories when it counts. These guys have a lot to learn about working together to win basketball games.

    Back to reality.

  9. Although it wasn't football, Bob Huggins came to Akron from Walsh, where he was quite successful. He went on to take Akron to our first NCAA Tournament appearance in our D-1 era. Then he moved on to Cincy, Kansas State, and WVU and throughout has been to the Final Four several times. A successful lower division head coach can definitely be successful at D-1 if the coach is a winner and is driven to be a winner.

    No. He was an assistant coach at Central Florida right before coming here. He also had served as an assistant at Ohio State and West Virginia early in his career.

  10. I'd be extremely hesitant to hire a D-III HC to take over a D-I program (MUC's Kehres) largely because of the necessity of handling scholarships. Not that a D-III coach couldn't learn quickly, but, none-the-less, I'm tired of UA coaches learning on the job.

    However, what's the big deal about hiring a D-II HC as opposed to a D-IAA (FCS :rolleyes: ) coach? Football is football, right? Just because the athlets are bigger/faster/stronger @ the D-I level than they are @ the D-II level, the strategy of the game is the same, right? The D-III & D-II players all know the game just as well as the D-I players. The playbooks are just as lengthy and complicated. The defensive schemes just as complex.

    Thus, with Paul Winters already having extensive experience recruiting D-I caliber players (being able to evaluate D-I talent), I don't see any risk at all in this hire.

    For those that played football at a higher level, or understand the X's & O's better than I do, what am I missing? Anything?

    False. Coaching is just like playing. The cream of the crop rises up through the higher ranks. There is a reason guys like Les Miles, Jim Tressel, Nick Saban, etc...are where they are. The same thing goes for NCAA coaches moving up to the NFL and failing. Every level is different and you can't always predict success at one level to the next.

    Thank you. This is what I have been saying all along. I think for the most part, coaches that are buried in obscurity are there for a reason...nobody wants them. And college coaching is a pretty tight fraternity. Guys that are doing a great job tend to get noticed, and get frequent offers for better opportunities.

    So once again....if Winters has been pursued at any higher level.....even a I-AA school....I'd like to know about it.

  11. They only have to look at the next destination of some of our recent coaches, who have pretty much disappeared. I'm seeing D-II schools, or a return to a position coaching job. Not very encouraging to someone who is looking to move forward in their career.

    With that said, we've now seen two high level coordinators take jobs in the last few days, at schools that I don't think should be regarded any more positively than Akron.

    Pelini has gone to a low level Sun Belt school.

    Arkansas OC goes to UAB.

    Were these guys on our radar?

    Maybe they just wanted to go where it doesn't snow :P

  12. Coach Arians is suggesting Randy Fichtner a Cleveland native for the Memphis job in today's Post Gazette.

    Fichtner was the Memphis offensive coordinator for many years according to his bio, including in 2005 when they played us. I doubt an NFL assistant with no ties to Akron would be interested in our head coaching position. It would be a step backwards. I don't know of any NFL assistants with ties to Akron at this point.

    Mike Johnson. He has tons of experience as an NFL assistant. Many of you may have forgotten about him since he jumped back to the college ranks last season.

  13. Carl Pelini expected to take the FAU job. I doubt we even tried to contact him.

    If a mid level Sun Belt team can get a guy like that, with Ohio roots, he should have been on our radar too.

    Yet, some folks on here are hanging their hopes on a D-II coach with barely a .500 record? Come on folks. Talk about lowering the bar. But I know, it really wasn't that bad if you eliminate the years where he had a bad record :rolleyes:

    I assume your last sentence is sarcasm. If so, its misplaced. Winters took over a bad team and turned it into a winner. If you look at his over-all record, it has to include the early years where the team struggled, which lowers his winning percentage.

    Put it this way, lets say the next Akron's coach goes 2-9, 5-6, and 9-3 in his first three seasons. His over-all record would be 16-18, but we'd be calling home coach of the year after three years and begging him to stay. He'd be a prime candidate to move up to a bigger job, and someone at a BCS school would be posting, "He's got a losing record."

    I remember when Butch Davis was coach of the Browns for the 2004 draft. Roethlisberger was available for the Browns in the first round, but Davis passed on him. I read that people on the staff were telling him to take Ben, but Davis had a thing about not taking a high first round pick on a player from a mid-major school. It was just a bias on his part. I wonder if TW has the same thing going on. When it came to RI, I think TW got stars in his eyes about picking someone from Notre Dame. I hope he's over that and can look objectively at a guy like Winters.

    I just saw a promo on TV for the OU-NIU game. Interesting contrast in coaches. OU got a big name in Solich and NIU went the other route. The NIU coach is another guy who was hired in the MAC who was a career assistant with no head coaching experience. You can have success ether way, or you can go the Paul Winters route and go for a successful head coach at a smaller school. I don't really care which way they go, as long as it works.

    Early years? In his 4th season at Wayne State, his team finished in 12th place in their conference. In his 6th year (just two years ago), they finished in 8th place in their conference.

    So, NO, it wasn't sarcastic.

    I can't believe some people are trying to sell themselves on such low standards. What if our basketball team had finished 12th in the MAC in Keith's 4th season, and 8th in the MAC in his 6th season. Many of you would be asking for him to be replaced.

  14. I find something humorous.

    A few of you on here want to hire a D-II coach with a mediocre record.

    But, you scoff at the idea of hiring a current coordinator with previous D-1A head coaching experience, who finished 1st in the MAC East in 2 of the 4 years that he was Miami's head guy?

    If by chance, some of you are the same people making both statements, shame on you.

    Paul Winters is 33-13 in the past 4 seasons, 19-5 in his last two, and currently competing for the national championship. If that's mediocre, I'll take mediocre. Compare that to Shane Montgomery's recent coaching records and you'll see the absurdity of the statement.

    I'm not supporting Shane Montgomery as our next coach. Just pointing out that he has two divisional titles at a D1-A school as a head coach.

    But, I also won't take your suggestion here and judge Winters tenure at Wayne by conveniently selecting the best few years, while ignoring the rest. I could probably make a case for just about any coach by utilizing that formula.

  15. I've been thinking about this today. And I'm still torn. On one hand, I want this to be over with quickly (if it's only minor charges), and have a player back on the floor who can help us win basketball games. On the other hand, I don't want to jeopardize our integrity and turn into another Ken+ State.

    Maybe we do have to start taking some chances in order to elevate the program. And maybe we can allow one slip-up by a player without losing our credibility. I don't know.

  16. Brian Kelly inherited a much better situation at GVSU, and still did not win a playoff game for over a decade there. Winters inherited one of the worst college football programs in the country, and in seven years is competing for a national championship. I'm more impressed with the latter.

    Knowing that you are not impressed with Kelly's 118-35 record tells me how much you support Winters. And that's fine. I can see what an emotional choice this is for some people who have a history with him. And I'm sure his mediocre record would be defended by someone who played for him. I'd probably try to do the same thing.

    To the poster who implied that I KNOW that he's never even gotten 1-AA interest, that's not true. I don't know that. But, if someone could tell me the schools that have shown interest in his services, since his accomplishments are more impressive than Kelly's, I'd like to know.

    I'm guessing that there has to be a some reason why Kelly has spent the last couple of decades moving from GVSU to CMU to Cincinnati to Notre Dame. And during that same general time frame, Winters has been an OC at his alma mater, and has been at a D-II school in urban Detroit ever since.

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