LoyalZIP

Happy Gameday! 🥲

Preview from Hustle Belt: https://www.hustlebelt.com/2023/10/18/23922099/akron-zips-at-bowling-green-falcons-football-game-preview-outlook-notes-week-8-2023

The SP+ model once again predicts Akron beats the spread and loses close. On the surface, this is certainly a winnable game, but they pretty much all will be in this league. I guess we've gotten to that point, for what it's worth. The league is bad, and there's no excuse to not get one or two of these before the season is over. Again, I can't even believe I'm saying that. I've lost sleep over this season, I hate to say. This is one of the few teams in the league with QB(s) that aren't that much better than what we're trotting out there right now. Their strength is in the run game. Terion Stewart averages almost 6 yards per carry, and Camden Orth, one of the QBs they use, is a strong runner. Under Loeffler, BG has been one of the most up-and-down programs in the entire country. He's in his 5th season and has never finished a season with a winning record, the closest being last year's 6-7 effort with a loss to NMSU in the Quick Lane Bowl. In his first year, they went 3-9 but beat Toledo for the first time in 10 years, in year two he had the worst team in the country that lost to Akron by 4 TDs, in year three he beat Minnesota before losing to Akron at home two weeks later, finishing 4-8. And last year, they started 0-2 with an FCS loss then beat Marshall, who was fresh off a win at Notre Dame. He then went on to beat Toledo again. Typing that out, even I didn't realize how wild a ride the Loeffler experience has been. Their new AD was hired to fix football and had no choice but to extend him after last year, and it looks like he's doing the thing again. Beat GT, shutout by Miami, go to Buffalo and dominate, home vs. Akron...?? Let's hope this is a down week for the Falcons. A home loss to 1-6 Akron may further push the AD to make the move, which their fans wouldn't exactly be mad about. I'll never forget in 2018 when BG came to Akron. They had fired Mike Jinks a month prior and were being coached by Carl Pelini. Akron, still with hopes of making a bowl game, lost on senior day 21-6, failing to find the end zone against a team that wound up giving up 30+ points a whopping 10 times that season. That was the last straw for me. It would be nice to have that effect on someone else for once.

FWIW, I asked someone close to the coaching staff at Hoban who is well connected with Akron. They said good riddance.

Akron football has won the MAC Championship more recently than the following teams have won the MAC tournament: Ball State Bowling Green Toledo Northern Illinois Eastern Michigan Central Michigan And in that same amount of time, WMU has won the tournament once

KenPom's 2024 rankings dropped in the last couple of days. They start with Akron at 102, 3 spots ahead of where they finished last year. The Zips opened at 110 last year and climbed as high as 95. For whatever reason, the site seems to be still filling in some holes, as it has the Zips opening with Southern Miss. KP has SDSU at 117. Their schedule is loaded once again. They play Kent again (this time at home), they go to Kansas State, Southern Miss, and Wichita State. Not quite the gauntlet of last year, which included a back-to-back road trip at Kent then at Bama. The opener last year felt like a tournament game. The atmosphere in the JAR was the best it has been in November in very long time. This game on the road will be no easy feat, and I wouldn't be shocked to see ZN melt down that night. Appel was in street clothes for the opener last year. Mayo was held in check most of the game. Matt Mims got hot from 3, and he may be one of the most under-the-radar best shooters in the country. William Kyle, in his first ever college game, played very well against Freeman. X was heroic.

Looks like they overcorrected and decided to make it almost invisible

You know what they say, the Miami of 40 years ago is the Akron of today. Or something like that. How much would Sean McVay want to coach Akron?

Fair response indeed. But in most cases, the focus on NeO is totally overstated, as is the legit level of talent. Akron public schools are terrible, only producing maybe 1-2 legit D1 prospects as a whole every year. Hoban produces the most D1 talent aside from schools like Ed's, and Hoban has had far most busts or flameouts than guys who've gone on to have successful college careers. The whole idea of recruiting locally to save the program or improve the program is a pretty outdated thing. College football is more national than it has ever been. I don't dispute that Akron should be in play for more of the high level local recruits, but the landscape around here isn't as fruitful as it once was. The portal is a much more complicated game than the average fan realizes. In basketball, you often need to have some kind of prior connection to land someone of substance who has a lot of experience and talent, like an Ali Ali. Or, you take a shot on a guy from the bench with limited experience but flashes of talent, like Xeyrius Williams or Maishe Dailey. Same thing applies for QB. The best FBS transfer QBs are going to be from P5 looking to stay P5, or G5 going to P5. We're not, in all likelihood, ever going to see a QB go from tearing it up in the P5 or G5 and then come to a school like Akron. Even the best FCS QBs are going to go low-tier P5 to get a look for the draft, or somewhere like an American conference school to do the same. That leaves the Akrons of the world looking for a QB and winding up with a pool of guys like Undercuffler, who was an okay FCS QB, or Bullock, who was not a good P5 QB but has some nice physical traits. Transfer QBs who have been decent in the MAC are Rocky Lombardi, Connor Bazelak, and Matt McDonald. You could argue that the 2 from BG are bad, but they have at least shown to be capableat times. Bazelak was a turnover machine at Mizzou and Indiana, and McDonald was never going to make it at BC so he came to BG with the coach. Lombardi was a flameout at MSU, and has become a solid game manager for a lethal run game in his years at NIU. Maybe I'm forgetting others right now, but that's not exactly a ringing endorsement of the idea that going out and getting a good QB from the portal is even possible for Akron.

Chuck Martin has won a MAC Championship, and has maintained a level of success since they started his third season 0-6 before running the table. He's been on the brink of deserving to be fired quite a few times, but has assembled a very strong program that has had the same starting QB for 5 seasons. He has been more than mediocre, especially with how up and down most of the rest of the league has been since 2014. The secret to solving the QB problem is to recruit your own and build them up, as OU, Toledo, and Miami all have enroute to championships and/or appearances in the title. Perhaps the portal will provide the MAC with more talented QBs as the years go by, but most of the best QBs in the league come in as freshman. I want to see what Wasel can do at some point before this season is over for that very reason. Get his feet wet, get him hungry and keep him interested if he was indeed brought in to be the QB of the future.

This week's advanced box score: https://collegefootballdata.com/boxscore/401532420 How about that, Akron scored every time they got inside the 40! But they only did twice. So if we look at the early portion of the game, we see that Akron's defense forced a long field goal, which was missed. Then Akron went 3&out, Then Golden-Nelson picked Bauer and took it into plus territory, followed by a short drive and made field goal (praise the Lord!). Then ANOTHER pick, this one was huge, as CMU was driving. After that pick Bullock ran 27 yards to get into plus territory again. Two plays later, that awful, horrible, unbelievable, etc. etc. interception. After that, the teams exchanged punts for the entire quarter until CMU nailed that long FG. Akron's defense gave them so many opportunities in that first half to bust things wide open. Even if it had been just 10-14 points mustered by the offense in the first half, the D could have ridden that tide to ultimately bring us a win. Things weren't necessarily looking promising before that pick, but they sure as hell took a further turn for the worst after. At this point, it's safe to say that the QB and OL are what is holding this team back. Sure, there are things like penalties still and plenty of blown coverages, untimely special teams gaffs, but as a whole, the team looks to be where it probably should right now. Only, the lifeblood of the offense is a mess. My heart hurts to think of what this team would look like if we had even just a QB playing at the level of DJI in 2022, which was usually nothing more than "decent." This season has become some kind of sick joke. It's almost as if a deceptive genie granted all of our wishes. Zips fans from 2018-2022: "Genie, all we ask for is a competitive team!" Genie: "Here you go! They will play nearly every opponent close, and even hold the lead for a decent amount of time, but they will never win!" Zips fans: "Genie, we just want a decent QB this year, DJ Irons is going to be back, right?" Genie: "Yes, DJ will be back! Only he won't be the QB he was last year, and he's going to get hurt at the start of MAC play!" Zips fans: "Genie, all we want is a coaching staff that can bring in the recruits we need to win!" Genie: "Can do! Here's the best receiving corps in over a decade, a top 3 running back talent of the century, some nice OL prospects, a P5 QB transfer, and a defensive unit that features some great transfers and even LBs that can make up for the loss of Bubba!" This is the most frustrating season I've experienced as a Zips fan in so long. It's usually blind optimism only to be disappointed and not surprised. Well, this season has been pretty shocking. We are every bit as capable as most teams in this league, but can never put together a 60-minute game on both sides of the ball. We can't even finish more than one drive, maybe two, per game on offense. I said before the year that we've got expectations now and it was horrifying, because we know how that goes at Akron. Well, here we are. There's such a solid foundation to this team, especially with a defense that's been answering the bell week after week, dealing with 3&out after 3&out from their offensive teammates. A funny thing I noticed while digesting the game the last 36 hours: DJI first drive of the season: Long TD on 2nd play JU first drive of the season: 5-play, 67-yard TD drive Bullock first drive of first start: 12-play, 65-yard TD JU first drive of relief at CMU: 8-play, 70-yard TD What does that mean? I don't really know. I would say it points to having some really good skill players and potential, but the QB play and line play simply isn't good enough to adjust to the defense's adjustments. Lingard has run for an average of 4.5 yards per carry during MAC play. In those 3 MAC games, he has touched the ball 41 times between runs and passes caught. In the MAC, teams have been relying on their running backs for years. It's usually a guarantee that when your RB is the most talented-or close to it-player on your offense, you're going to do everything in your power to get them the ball and put them in position to make plays. Whenever he gets the ball in space, he runs away from the secondary, leaving some of the fastest players on opposing rosters in the dust. Even when he doesn't have a lot of space, he falls forward and finds any space he can to gain yardage. Of all the failures of 2023, the most egregious is the usage of Lorenzo Lingard. I get it. Coaches are stubborn. Coaches have tremendous egos. They're often drunk on their own power. But rarely, and I mean RARELY, have I ever seen a player of Lingard's ability in this league not get used. Even the 2017 Ball State Cardinals, who had a worse MAC season than any Arth/Bowden/Ianello team ever did, had a stud running back and gave him the ball because it was their best chance to be successful. He ran for 1,000 yards on almost 5 yards a pop. Akron hasn't had a 1,000 yard rusher in 15 years. What they have done through 7 games with Lingard has been upsetting and incredibly disappointing. Between Moorhead, Arth, Bowden, and Ianello, Moorhead has still done more winning than those guys did through 19 games. In 2013, Akron finished 5-7, its best record since 2006. They started that season 1-6. Their run to 5-7 and a .500 MAC record kind of came out of nowhere. Even with a couple of beatable teams coming up for this 2023 team, I just don't have the belief that they will actually win. It sucks. This season has sucked. Every game has been so frustrating. It felt like we were about to break through against Indiana, only to be punched back down. I always enjoy going over to BG for basketball and football games. But I'm probably going to pass on making that trip. Maybe I'll change my mind later in the week. Finish...? It hardly even feels like this team has started...

Well said. Gritty. Been a weird season for the Zips, unlike just about any I can remember. For having the leading goal-scorer in the country, they don’t have a very dynamic attack. BUT, they have out played just about everyone on the entire schedule, and have played well enough to win most if not all of their games. That will sound like criticism to some people on the board, but I’ve been pleased with the team this year, especially after how they ended last year.

First time in a while the Zips didn’t dominate most of the game. I can live with this draw, strong effort that would result in 3 points in many nights.

Yes. I said they may be the best team in the league. 3 games in. With 5 games left to play. Discussion and nuance is no fun anyway.

Hello? “Don’t the best teams win?” I’m giving NIU credit for their solid start to conference play despite the loss, just like I would that Akron title team for weathering a few losses to rally and win the whole damn thing.

Well, I guess you’re right. Every MAC champ in the league’s history has been undefeated. Akron famously throttled every MAC opponent en route to their 9-2 regular season record in 2005.

Funny enough, this team should be 1-6 except the lone win at Indiana. Or 2-5 with wins over IU and UB. Splitting the tiniest of hairs. You is what you is. 1-6 and heading to BG.

NIU may be the best team in the MAC. Took Toledo to the wire, blew out Akron, made pretty easy work of Ohio. Weird year for them.

It’a all relative! They got a P5 “bump” if you will. Beat South Dakota State!

The lack of confidence by 13 on the last drive was staggering. Nice final throw, good coverage. Would’ve been so much better chucking it OB on 2nd and 3rd down. And I wouldn’t have clocked it after the 1st down gain either. This team is a mess. No reason they should be 1-6. It was great to not roll over after last week and the lack of offense, but that’s yet another squandered opportunity. We have become Scott Frost’s Nebraska.

Championship effort by the D today. Again. Props to coach Tibs.

Nice punt. Bullock-esque pocket presence from Jeff. Welp.

Blocking penalty on punt that bounces into the end zone. Mhmm.

Do or die time, folks.