UAZippers

I agree, I'm not happy with .500 football from my coach that is now in the latter part of his first decade with the team.

What awful defense by every player on the court.

Zips announce 12 signings, including reannouncing Eric Bentley and Reggie Corner Jr.. Bentley, Corner, Hall, and White are early enrollees. http://www.gozips.com/news/2017/12/20/football-signing-day-release.aspx

Which might be true, but doesn't mean that the Zips don't need a new OC. If Bowden is calling the plays then they need to convince him to give it up and hire someone who can be more effective.

They do have a punter!

Maybe, also possible it wasn't offered to him. Kelley is back next year, might as well give him some reps in case we ever need him.

I agree. I loved it. It's a killer's mentality. I'd much rather have a coach who does that rather than one who runs it up the middle every time on 3rd and 11.

You can say that, but I think the Zips were a not good football team this year who way over performed in games when they absolutely needed to. Is it his fault that the team is not great talent-wise? Yes. Is it due in large part to his coaching that they overcame the talent difference so often? Yes. What i hope to see (but doubt will happen) is an extension with a clause that increases salaries for his assistants fairly substantially with the condition that he removes some of the coaches currently in place. Particularly Milwee and Jeff Bowden.

I would be stunned if Bowden didn't get an extension. He brought a not great team to our second ever MAC championship appearence. I want to see a lot of change from the Zips in the offseason, but I doubt a change in head coach will be one of them. It would also be a huge mistake to let him coach a lame duck season. That is a good way to ruin recruiting for years to come.

I have been looking for any sign of one and as far as I can tell, there is nothing official. It blows my mind that the university didn't help arrange something.

Very sloppy game against an inferior opponent. Not much to learn about the Zips other than there is a lot of work left in front of them. I'm really happy to see Eubanks back, I didn't realize he broke his cheek. That is not a fun injury.

Well the Zips Gameday appearence today featured Lee Corso calling Bowden fat and Kirk Herbstreet saying there is no reason to have them predict the game because it is obvious that Toledo will win. Akron can hopefully gain a solid chunk of respect today.

There is a $20 ticket that includes a bus to the game and some other perks for students.

Attendance is about as good as I could have hoped. Both lower levels are pretty full, upper levels barren like always.

Kato takes the field to start.

I really don't see a joke about Dambrot losing weird early noncoference games as trying to degrade him or "turn him into a villian". The fact that we won so many games last season just proves further how bad the YSU loss was. Its certainly true that Akron always seemed to have one really bad effort early in the year. I can think of the Green Bay game off of the top of my head as another recent example. No need to be so uptight.

Its a great quote and all but we are talking about a player who Akron tried to recruit out of high school and he repeatedly turned us down. He went to 2 different junior colleges before committing. Sounds like the 21 wins seasons didn't exactly set his heart on fire. Quite the coincidence that he finally committed right after Dambrot left and the Zips are heading into a "down" year. Either he is settling hard, or the 21 win seasons isn't actually what convinced him.

From what I have seen, Lester and Jackson will both be RS Sophmores next season. Riak will be a RS Junior. We will have 8 players expected to be seniors in the 20-21 season.

My immediate (over)reactions to the game: 1. Great comeback win to start the Groce era. It is easy to give up when things don't go well and that first half was brutal. 2. I am amazed that Kostelac only played 2 minutes. As the only true center on the team, I expected him to be on the floor for the majority of the game. I don't know if it was just the matchup, or if JG is committed to playing small ball all year. 3. I was really impressed by Parrish. He performed like a much older player, calm and collected at all times. He also showed that he has a really well rounded set of skills that make him a threat in multiple ways when he is on the court. 4. On the flip side, I was thoroughly unimpressed by Cotton. He seemed to rush everything and made way too many mistakes. Hopefully, he can find the flow of the game better in time. 5. Ivey had a pretty bad game by his standards. It looked like he knows that he is the "star" of the team the year and he pressed a little too much. Once Utomi and Parrish got going, I think that took a bit of the self-imposed pressure off of Ivey and he played a bit better.

Nasty block followed by an even NASTIER dunk! That's what i want to see out of this team!

This game has pretty much gone as I expected. Zips are showing zero chemistry and the freshmen are making some rookie mistakes. Missed passes and unforced errors everywhere. Most of what I am seeing can be fixed with just continued practice time though.

https://twitter.com/ZipsMBB/status/928372576920985600

Small in the frontcourt, but that is probably our tallest backcourt in quite a while. The shortest player is Duvivier who is listed at 6'2". It is going to be strange after seeing two players 6' or under on the court at pretty much all times for the Zips last season.

I would guess Olojakpoke and Kostelac. They are the two others that have experience playing at a level above high school (only slightly above in Kostelac's case). I believe Utomi will start at the 3, but play the majority of the game at the 4 as the Zips are super short on front court players.

I expected that we would be 4-4 at best by this point in the season, but that doesn't mean that I am happy that I expect the Zips to win 50% of their games or less.