LoyalZIP

Secondary has taken a big step back today. Playing well up front but giving up huge plays and conversions.

Wow!

This stadium is cursed

Ohhhh DJ….

Happy Gameday!!!!!!

Not sure where this would fit best, so I'll put it here. So damn cool, these clips give me chills! This era of Zips football just felt different. They were tougher, and grittier. Joe can bring that magic to Infocision!

That's a nice little pull right there! I'm hoping that in addition to Joe sticking around for a few years, a lot of those young guys on staff get a few years in here before they inevitably move on to bigger and brighter things. I also like to think that down the line, some of these guys who will become great coaches will remember their time at Akron in a positive light and see it as a great place to take their first job as a coordinator or even the head coach. I loved this hiring strategy by Joe from the start, these guys are the real deal.

I don't want to make any score prediction, as I will probably jinx the Zips or something will go horribly wrong! But I do like their chances tomorrow. If sports betting was legal in Ohio, I'd drop a unit or two on the Zips against the spread. There have been nice signs of progression after the first month, but I still expect this to be a season full of growing pains and quite a few frustrating moments. To me, I expect them to play every MAC team within 3 scores at the very least, maybe with a blowout sprinkled in. As for games against similar competition (such as BG tomorrow), I no longer fear of the threat of a blowout like we saw against Ohio and Buffalo last year. A blowout loss tomorrow would be very troubling, and it would be oh-so-Akron to do, losing on homecoming to a beatable opponent in embarrassing fashion. It will take years to scrub the Akron football trauma of the last 13 years, and while Joe is indeed a superhero, he's going to need a little more time to wipe away the past and bring back the Akron football magic of the early 2000s. So, with that said, I expect there to be more growing pains tomorrow. I think the Zips will come out with some fire. I'm really hoping and quite honestly expecting Joe to start to empty the playbook a little more like he did last week as we start going for wins instead of million-dollar paychecks. Am I ready to outright say the Zips will win this game, even by a couple of touchdowns? I don't think I'm there quite yet. But I am expecting a pretty close ball game, with the winner coming out on top by no more than 10 points. BG has the edge in continuity and experience, but Akron's got the massive edge in coaching. I think it will win us some ball games in the league this year, hopefully starting tomorrow! GO ZIPS!!!

It should be on the Akron Zips Facebook page. They do a live stream of it where you can submit questions.

He talked a lot about his staff and how they’ve managed this year, despite a lot of them being on the younger side. Mentioned that it’s hard to build an experienced staff with the budget he’s got. Which kind of goes back to that Athletic article. Said BG will be a tough matchup, they’ve got a nice little pass rush. And McDonald is an experienced QB that can put points on the board in the offense. Also, on the topic of coaches being out for games (Loefler missed BG’s game last week, hope he’s doing well): he talked about his experience with diverticulitis last year. When asked who is next in line if anything like that happened at Akron, he said coach Fess (QB coach Billy Fessler). I found that very interesting, he’s very young but has an impressive resume for his age.

Another fun night at Zips live. The Brickhouse is a pretty cool venue! Nice comments from Joe and Jared Embick.

I fully expect McDonald to play, and I suspect JoeMo is preparing for the game as such. It was a smart move, without the HC especially, to hold him out at Mississippi State in a meaningless game after he had taken a few beatings against tough teams to start the year.

PAYWALL WARNING: https://theathletic.com/3635348/2022/09/28/middle-tennessee-miami-football-unlv-jmu/ Great little blurb on "fixing the MAC" Mentions that when you think about it, MAC teams, many of whom start 1-3 because of how they schedule, sometimes only get to have their home fans tailgating on Saturdays 2-3 times a year tops due to how the schedule works out. Specifically mentions how the big rivalries MUST be on Saturdays. It isn't just MAC fans that see this stuff and understand it. Smart minds in the college football media see the MAC killing itself year in and year out, and we've seen it fall far from where it was a decade ago.

Oh I know. I’m just curious as to why the public is hammering BG so much.

Up to BGSU -9.5. Hmmmmm…

I enjoy reading their board whenever I want to catch up on the latest at BG. Their department is a bit of a hot mess right now, having just let go of the AD a little before the season began. Football is bad, men's basketball is sputtering out of control, and their ice hockey program is looking for some upgrades. I am pretty surprised by the level of confidence going into this one so far. That win over Marshall really gave the fan base a jolt, which is awesome. They have lots of good discussion over there, almost as good as ZN.o! *** With that said, I would be a little surprised if either team won by anything more than maybe 10 points. Both of these teams are firmly in the bottom third of the league, but with Akron's steps forward so far, I pretty confidently say this is the best these two teams will be for this matchup in a few years. While Tom Arth left Akron with a 2-1 record against BG (LOL), the Falcons have shown some nice signs of improvement here and there. Matt McDonald, who is by every measure a bust, is having a decent final year so far. He's got 10 TDs and no picks thrown, and sat out the last game at Mississippi State dealing with some injuries from the Marshall game. That was the right call, as he'll be rested and ready to go. He has shown some running capabilities in his career, so that will be a concern of mine. The Zips were able to get to Bennett at Liberty a few times as he wasn't a running threat. If they can get pressure on McDonald and push him out of the pocket, there's much more of a threat of him getting some chunks of yards while improvising. That's how so many teams over the last few years have killed the Zips. SFU's QBs averaged 6 yards per carry, many of those runs coming from the middle of the field becoming wide open. I'm not nearly the football expert @catdaddyp is, but I wouldn't mind seeing the Zips run a spy and just force BG to beat them through the air (curious to your thoughts on this and how it would change the D, also who would you have spy?). The secondary has made some improvements, and hopefully Golden-Nelson comes back this week. I loved what I saw from the D on Saturday, if the offense can open up inside the 20 like it has in between the 20s, we'll see this team win a couple games in MAC play and perhaps play spoiler in late October into November. All that said, I look forward to Joe's comments at Zips Live tomorrow, and I am pumped for this game! Still nervous as all get out, and we can never rule out a let down blowout, but I look forward to and expect a great MAC football atmosphere this weekend!

Such a horrible drop, by one of the most talented guys we ever had! There's a couple Zip fans in the back of the end zone you can see their reaction as it was happening, just total despondence!

Yes! 🤣

I’m almost always going to be in favor of burning the redshirt in these situations. If the guy can play, don’t mess around and let him play. Then he’ll only be more ready for next year and so on and so forth. If the recruiting program does its job, it will be next man up when it’s time to replace him instead of trying to squeeze this year go get another year out of him in 2026. In 2016 when we were down to our last QB, the head coach at the time elected to go into the last couple games looking for bowl eligibility with a WR instead of giving Kato his first shot, just to save the redshirt. The Zips had yet another 5-7 season, dropping a winnable game at Ohio and losing to a God-awful BG team at home on senior night. It was sickening. Burn the redshirt.

Public is hammering BG. Line already up to BG -8.5

Well said. Different sport, but there were a few people complaining a lot about the MAC Championship basketball game. For those reading who made not remember, this is when Akron defeated Kent State by the final score of 75-55, with Sincere Carry doing a dance for the camera after making a 3ptr. while still trailing the Zips 34-33. I think Akron committed 7 fouls in the game, and forced approximately 65 turnovers. Kent fans openly complaining about the foul disparity when the Zips simply didn’t foul, they played excellent defense. It happens sometimes.

Finished watching the replay. Wow, if not for a handful of stupid/small mistakes and a couple of questionable penalties, the Zips had quite the opportunity to come out on top. The biggest thing that stuck out to me were the crazy obvious drops. While Price's ended up resulting in the Adams TD pass, that's on par with one of the worst I've ever seen, and I can't blame Joe for spiking his headset like Gronk. DJ played a good-not-great game. He made a ton of excellent throws and there were a lot of really good routes run. Adams with a couple of bad drops as well, but he played his best game, and so did Daniel George. Hell of a grab by Shocky too. Though he also dropped one he should've had. The play where Wiley dropped it/had it knocked away was such a pretty ball by DJ. Both teams tackled pretty well in space too, DJ had a few chances to break one and the Flames made some nice plays. He seems to have healed up nicely, mobility didn't seem to be an issue and he was oh-so-close on the 2pt. try. When I was listening live, it kind of felt like it was over to me when the punt was downed at the one, and sure enough, it kind of was. Liberty got momentum from that and totally turned up the volume. I love Morton and have from day 1 last year, the story of how he got to Akron was pretty wild. He was all over the place Saturday, and nearly made a big play on the Liberty final TD drive, he had the RB by the ankle in the backfield on third and long but he slipped out for a big gain. The Zips should be pissed off and more hungry after this game. While I'm sure there was some disappointment in the locker room, I hope and expect a big sense of hunger and confidence throughout the week getting ready for Saturday. The offense had one of the better G5 squads on skates for a lot of the night, failing in the margins to put as many points on the board as they should have. Defensively, it was great to see some pressure and see DBs keep guys close. They had no choice but to beat Akron by running to the outside, that's a nice sign of better things to come. JoeMo is a master. The way he puts these guys into position to be successful impressed me the most in that game. The playcalling is elite, it's just up to the talent and execution to make things happen. I'm not ready to talk about the BG game in depth or MAC play in depth quite yet this week, but after watching enough MAC games so far, I am fairly confident in saying that the Zips should be competitive in every MAC game, at least for a lot of the game, barring meltdowns and bad performances, which are bound to happen. Altogether, that was one of the best nonconference performances against an FBS team by this program in a long time, and it was against a very talented team. Still a lot of work to do, but this was a giant step in the right direction.

Students are not allowed to swear, campus is dry, they must attend Chapel twice a week at least, and students get fined if their room is dirty! Yay college!

Zips open as home doggies. Akron +6 for this game against the Falcons.

I will go back and watch the replay when I have a chance, hopefully in the next day or two so I can better visualize what happened and what the issues are. It’s tough to get a good idea of how the game went listening to Skoczen. He barely describes anything that’s happening. “Here’s the snap, fakes the handoff, throws and it’s caught” doesn’t do much and it was quite hard to follow. Anyway, it sounded for the first time like the defense was opportunistic. While giving up two bad touchdowns early and a ton of 3rd-and-long situations, they stepped it up for a huge chunk of the game and made things tough on the quarterback. With the secondary being what it is, getting pressure and forcing tougher throws may be the only prayer this defense has in a lot of games. Offensively, I’m encouraged once again by Irons’ performance, but I still have many concerns overall. Another red zone turnover is very problematic, and the overall constipation when down in that area is something that bad teams universally have issues with. It’s almost like they’ve got the yips. When they get down inside the 15, I don’t expect them to score touchdowns. Hell of a throw by DJ to get the touchdown, but if they can punch it in a couple more times, they walk out of there with a pretty decisive win, which is hard to believe. The inability to run the ball is beginning to really worry me. I am still a fan of Wiley, but I simply don’t think the O-line is ready to really run block well. They don’t seem to have great footwork to even get in position to run the ball to the outside. There has definitely been improvement in the line, but I don’t see enough improvement yet. I like how Joe has been implementing more catch-and-run type plays, and they’ve been pretty successful. You see a lot of teams do that when the QB doesn’t have the best down-field ability. And a lot of the best offenses in college football like to run them for easy chunk plays. Sounded like a lot more drops too, which is also concerning, but also tells me there are more and more easy opportunities for playmaking that haven’t been there in the last few years. The arrow is pointing upward. Maybe not as fast as we’d like, but last night was a promising performance against a very good team. I would still consider Akron to be far from great, but they’re also inching further and further from the atrocities of 2019-2021. In Joe We Trust!!! F B G!