GP1

Just like the Run & Shoot offense was a fad, the 3-3-5 defense was a fad that has run out of time. Everyone has figured out how to play against it. We just still happen to use it. Just about everyone who used it has given up on it.Simply put, the group of players you put onto the field on first and second downs are too small to compete against the larger players on those downs (one tight end and a fullback OR two tight ends). This forces coaches to guess as to what is going to happen. I don't like guessing. Reason beats guessing and that is why we get killed in the second half of games. Teams figure it out and kill it. Look at the past two games. As the season goes on, more teams will have film showing how to beat this junk and it will get worse. We have to be able to score more points to win.Akron needs to reduce their defense by one small player and add a medium size player with a LB. While they can't do it this year because they committed to this defense through last spring and fall camp, they need to do something different this off season. The change really doesn't seem all that complicated to me. With enough practice, the players should catch on.Quickness is not the answer. Ohio State did not lose the BCS Championship because they were too slow...they lost it because Florida lined up in a spread offense, smashed them in the mouth one-on-one and they were not physical enough to compete. Putting a smaller/quicker guy in the game for OSU would not have helped...it would have only made it worse. Having a quicker defense that is still too small for Akron is not going to help next season either. Akron needs to be more physical, not quicker. Larger players stand a better chance of making a team more physical than smaller players.

1. I was not aware of this. I would have assumed that following the switch to 1-A the program would have seen some increase in a recruiting budget. Also the 2005 Championship I would have thought would have given cause to increase said budget.2. This I would find hard to believe. My friend was cheerleader for 3 years and even as a non scholarship athlete he was required to attend tutoring. Unless the athletics programs do not have travel tutors (again I am not sure of this) I do not see why the support program would be bad. We have one of the best education departments in the state and a high profile special education program. David Harvey flunking out is on David Harvey. The tools were available to him he did not take advantage of them.3. I saw the Patriot Bowl posters. That's on the Cleveland sports administration. So I see one actual issue of the three you mentioned. Though I will add that marketing at the time being leaves a lot to be desired. The biggest thing that the program needs is for University of Akron graduates to actually support their school. Donate to the Z-Fund. This offsets the University's scholarship costs and pumps more money into the Athletics Budget.Thanks for your response. You're right about the Z-Fund.Getting to point #2, we do offer tutoring, but not at as high of a level as others and probably will never be able to for financial reasons. For example, the University of Florida has a tutor attend each class WITH a first and second year football player. The purpose of this is not to do the player's work for him. It is to teach the player how to properly study and attend a lecture. Once the player learns "the ropes" in college, they no longer need the tutor their junior and senior year. Harvey may not be stupid, he just may be like a lot of kids in their first two years of school who don't really know how to study. If Akron really wants to take the program to the next level, they have to keep at risk kids from flunking out.Point #3. I don't care if the Cleveland Sports Administration printed the posters or not. Not demanding to see any marketing material prior to printing is inexcusable. There are both legal and NCAA compliance issues with any marketing piece and they have to guard against any potential problems. When my company does joint marketing projects with our distributors, we (marketing department and legal department) see every piece before it goes out. The Marketing Department must become smarter than this and take the bull by the horns.

What is that supposed to mean?Good question. They are the type of things that any of us would see at work, even though it doesn't impact us, that would lead us to think we were working for a bad company and we should be looking for another job. For example:1. The recruiting budget is exactly the same to day that it was in 1987. It's amazing we have the players we do now.2. Substandard academic support program resulting in key players flunking out. JD can't be coach, recruiter and tutor. It's not Harvard.3. Ongoing mishaps that would lead any sane person to think they were surrounded by crazy people. For example, Patriot Bowl posters printed with David Harvey's (sp?) picture on it.I could continue.........

I hope I'm wrong about JD, but so many of his battles are internal it would make it hard to go to work every day.The thought of a draw play on second and ten makes me want to vomit. I'm feeling even more glad I was not there Saturday. I have no problem with a running play, but we should be doing what NFL teams do on second and ten. They run straight at the line and try to get four/five and make it third and five/six. NFL teams try to increase the probablity of getting the first down on third down by decreasing the yards necessary on second down. It's just one of those trends that has taken hold the past few years. First down is a passing down and if there is an incompletion, they run on second.

I hate to say this, but if you saw the game you wouldn't think that there is the slightest danger of Brookhart being lured away by a bigger program. And I am a fan of his but this offense- the worst Akron offense in recent memory- is really trying my patience as a supporter of the team. Unless you mean that by "leaving" you mean just walking away from a head coaches job.What I mean is that JD needs to get his career going. Akron, historically, is not a place to do that for a lot of reasons. Dennison did nothing after Akron, Faust did nothing and Owens is in Division II. Last year I called Akron "The Graveyard of Coaches" and I stand by that comment. JD is just sort of walking past the graveyard and not really in it...smart move. JD will be either coaching in the NFL as an assistant or at a major college as an assistant/coordinator if he leaves Akron.Dean Pees is an excellent example. Can't continued their fine tradition of bad play under Pees. Pees is an excellent football coach and is now the defensive coordinator for the best team in the NFL. If New England wins the Super Bowl this year, Pees could easily get a shot at a BCS school if he wanted it. Heck, he could get a shot at an NFL head coaching spot. One bad career stop does not destroy a career if the person in the bad spot is smart enough to get out of it before it destroys his career. Cam Cameron is another good example. Indiana was very average under him. He gets fired from there and ends up with San Diego and they go to the playoffs with him as offensive coordinator. He is now the head coach for the Dolphins.If JD is smart about his career, and I think he is, he would leave Akron after this year. Staying another year makes no sense. He's too young to continue at Akron.The real question then becomes whether or not Mack can hire a good coach the way Mike Thomas did? Those of you who don't like JD had better think loooooong and hard about that question. MT actually made two good hires while at Akron with JD and KD. I don't know if Mack could or not, but I think we are about to find out.

Good post.They have no chance with conservative play calling. College football, if you really want to win your conference, has become about scoring a ton of points. In fact, the NFL is the same thing now. Defense wins nothing. One playmaker on the offense is not enough. CJ7 needs to be in the game just to put pressure on the defense to guard against a playmaker other than Jabari. It all starts with the QB...if that person does not give you a chance to out score the other team, you can't win.I don't think you will need to worry about JD after this year. I believe that if the team turns it around, he will leave. If they don't, he will leave. His door prize will be better than Lee's though. He has had his chances to leave in the past and turned them down. After four years at Akron, what is there to really wait around for? There are a lot of paths to a coach at a BCS school than the Urban path. JD could take one of those.

Good post. I lived in NE Ohio for 20 years and I can say that Browns fans are the worst fans in football. The combination of angry and stupid is really sad. My problem is that most Zips fans are also Browns fans so we have to read this nonsense periodically.If JD is around next year, and I really mean IF (as much as some of you have had enough of him, I think he has had enough of Akron and the nonsense associated with coaching here), he needs to really only do two things. First, shit can the 3-3-5 defense. We can't go on giving up 21 points per quarter in one quarter of the second half each game. Second, decide on an offense and then hire a guy to call the plays for that offense. Our current offensive corrdinator has no experience calling plays for the offense we are running. College football is all about scoring a ton of points each week. Teams that can't, fall into the second level of their conference, teams that do, rise to the top. It has little to do with defense. If defense really won games, LSU would have never lost to Kentucky last weekend. Kentucky had a senior QB who was able to put it all together late and in overtime to beat a very good defense with touchdowns and not FGs.

I'm not exactly where this came from.....it seems to be a rambling mess. Posted on 10:44 Sunday night could only mean LA is finishing off an all day drunk at the Browns game. Faust had all the padding on his resume he needed with the name Notre Dame on it. Why do we need them to be sympathetic to Akron? You guys may not like JD, but he is the best coach the school has had since going to D-1A...hands down. He needs to change some things, but he is still a good coach. Of course Akron is a stepping stone. Why work at Akron and make $165,000 per year when they can move up and make a minimum $650,000? The real moron would stick around for the $165,000.As far as Mack, I'm still uncertain. The first thing I would do would be to turn over more responsibility for marketing to ISP and can some of the overbloated marketing staff they have. Then I would take that money and put it into a top notch sports academic program that would prevent players like David Harvey from flunking out.

They really are. Even if we had won last week, they were still in the drivers seat. Even worse, they seem to be getting better each week. Maybe they are catching on to what Montgomery wants to do. Miami might be good enough at the end of the year to win the MACC.

Absolutely. Throw in the equipment managers if you want. Akron has come too far to lose a game like that.Now why in the heck would you say 'Throw in the equipment managers?' Those guys take the losses just as hard as the team, espically since they can't control what happens during the 60 minutes during the game. I know several of the equipment managers, both current and past, and to say "Shame on the team and throw the equipment managers in as well" is a major slap in the face to them.The equipment staff did not lose that game last night. If anything, they did exactly the same jobs they do every week win or lose.Didn't say I would. Leaving the decision up to Z-P.

Absolutely. Throw in the equipment managers if you want. Akron has come too far to lose a game like that.

Didn't see the game, thank God. Two things stick out to me from afar.First, it appears as if Temple waited until the fourth quarter to open the flood gates on the 3-3-5 defense. Most teams do this in the third quarter, but Temple waited. Giving up 21 points in one quarter is inexcusable and we seem to do it too much. I hate to call the 3-3-5 "junk" as it gives the word "junk" a bad name, but that defense is JUNK. However, I can't blame this game on the defense. Given how horrible of a defense it is, 24 points is not much to give up. Even a prevent defense should not give up 21 points in a quarter so the problem is much greater than they seem to want to admit.Secondly, if the other team scores, 41 we had better score at least 42, if they score 24 we had better score at least 25, etc. I know its obvious, but there is a point. The point is that the first three quarters the defense did their job and the offense did not. Akron had two field goals...why not touchdowns? Why not a single point in the fourth? The offense is on the field to win the game, the defense is on the field to put the offense in position to win the game. What most of you never understood during the Owens's years is the offense needs to do enough, and whatever it takes to win the game, not just enough to lose.Sticking with point #2, the Browns have figured it out. They put up 41 today and they have a QB who can at least move the ball and produce points (no slap at Frye so please don't respond to that comment, it's just become a fact). It's hard to lose when you score 41....it's easy to lose when you score only 20. Akron made it easy on Temple last night. The Browns made it almost impossible for Miami. New England just went up 21-10, they are making it impossible for Dallas if they keep scoring even at half the pace. If they put up 31, Dallas will not be able to match and something tells me that Brady would somehow find a way to win the game regardless. If Dallas had scored a TD in lieu of a FG, the socre would only be 21-14 with a chance to tie here at halftime. It's all about points and getting bunches.Still sticking with point #2, if we have a 20-10 lead late, I have no problem with running out the clock. The only question is who is more able to run the clock out, CJ7 or CJ11. I'll take CJ7 and the athletic ability keeping the ball on the ground. Maybe CJ7 gets loose and the score a TD and they win 27-24. We need to have the right people on the field to move the ball. Having CJ11 in the game when you need to move the ball on the ground is like having all tight ends in the game on third and ten. The coaches need to put the players in a position to succeed by having the right people in the game at the right time.Shame on that entire team for what happened last night.

Tressel doesn't need to say anything. They had Texas the last 2 years in non-conference. They got a break this year and then jump right back into the fire with home and home's against USC, Miami (Florida), Virginia Tech and Oklahoma. They, unlike many of the big names schools, don't shy away from the big games whether at home or on the road. Calling out OSU's schedule this year is just a joke. WOW, one tough game a year mixed in with the joke that is the Big Ten. How impressive. OSU can take a risk and lose early in one difficult game, march through a bad conference and play for the national championship. I don't blame Senator Tressel one bit. I feel sorry for the mental midgets who will spend the day going to see that junk tomorrow and then will spend their days defending it.Any PAC 10, any SEC team plays a tougher schedule than OSU with their conference games alone. OSU doesn't jump back in the fire next year...there is a fire, but it's more of a campfire and the OSU has a bag of marshmellows.

OSU's nonconference schedule is such a sham Tressel can't really say anything.

That is simply the best. I walked into the bathroom in the press box tunnel at the K.e.n.t. game. The stalls were all occupied. All have no doors. I felt so embarrassed for the guys taking a dump. Are we in Cambodia? How much do a couple pieces of plywood and some hinges cost? Or three shower curtains??!! My guess is the stall toilets in the Heisman Lounge have doors? I guess that's all that matters. The amazinig thing is it has been like that for at least 20 years. They could pass a hat, like at a high school baseball game, and raise the money this weekend to fix it. It couldn't cost more than $30. One of the guys off the board would probably volunteer the time to install the door. My God I hate the Rubber Bowl. There is not a single part of me that misses going out there for games. That place is just depressing. I go to football games to have fun. If I wanted to be depressed, I could read Catcher In The Rye.

UofA has won a high scoring game, a medium scoring game and a low scoring game. One blowout per year is a reasonable expectation and Temple is the team remaining to do that against. Temple is improving but with baby steps. They are not at the point yet where they can win two in a row with the second game being on the road. UofA 42 Temple 17 Per usual, I will provide additional predictions: 1. The over/under on guys taking a crap in the press box side bathroom and being interrupted because there is no door on the stall is 2. I say take the over. Where did the toilet emotion go? That was my favorite. 2. The over/under on injuries sustained due to seats breaking is 3. I say take the under. With so many broken, it would be hard to break more. Have a good weekend everyone.

I mentioned this yesterday but I forgot where I posted it. Is Jabari the best player in the MAC thus far. I doubt any player has done as much for his team as he has, but is that good enough?

The 3-4 is no different then the 3-3-5 we are using now. Wayne Cobham would be the 2nd OLB. The truth is that the 3-3-5 is up to Akron and WVU now. It's a new style defense designed to compete with teams like Florida who try to get to the edge on the majority of their plays. Other then USF, WVU does pretty well with their defense in the Big East. Akron does very well with it's defense against the MAC. Since the idea is to win the MAC (which the 3-3-5 has done) I don't see a need for a change.Getting back to my main point that the players are too small. Lining up in the right place is not good enough. You have to have the right type of player lining up in the right place to be successful. If we are counting on a 6' 2", 190 pound defensive back (Wayne Cobham) to be the same as rushing a 6' 3", 220 pound linebacker, we are asking Wayne to do more than what his body is built to do. That is the difference between the 3-4 and the 3-3-5.....the players are too small and have trouble competing against larger players the way offenses are run these days. One more medium size player could make all the difference.I actually think JD brought the defense here to compete against Marshall and Miami. At the time they were the powers in the conference. Good choice at the time, but as much as I like JD, he wasn't looking to the future with this defense. Both Florida and USF run offenses that run up the middle more with the spread option offense. This is a terrible defense to defend against that offense. College football is becoming more like the NFL where teams run in the middle. It's actually been like that for a couple of years now and I noticed it after the Motor City Bowl. We are actually behind the times with our defense as the 3-3-5 is out dated. That's the point of the architects.I'm sure I'll continue to complain about this defense and JD will continue to win games. I can live with that and be extremely happy. We have won a low scoring game with this defense (Army), a medium scoring game (Can't) and a high scoring game (WMU). Someone knows something I don't. Wait, I do know and have been saying it for years on this board and someone has mentioned it on this thread. Defense wins nothing....it only puts the offense in a position to win. In the end, the offense has to win the game. Let's just keep winning.

All good replies about the defense. I was the first ever to complain about this defense after the MACC two years ago. I'll make this quick as I have posted a ton about my hatred for this defense in the past. The problem is not where the guys line up, it is the fact that the players are too small and it forces the defense into extreme behaviors resulting in giving up big chunks of yardage at a time.Architects always say they don't want to be the first person to try a product and they don't want to be the last person to stop using a product. I think the 3-3-5 defense is down to Akron and WVU now. Let's dump it in the off season so we won't be the last. 3-4 is the answer.

I'm impressed that a team like Toledo was able to stay as good as they were for so long.I believe a MAC school can go from good to bad much faster than any of the BCS schools. Look at a team like Miami. Let's face it, they were bad for a lot of years and then Roethlisberger comes along and they finish in the top 10. They have the same talent now as when they did then without the great player. One great player in the MAC makes all the difference. Without one, you end up looking like Toledo this year. I think Akron may have that one great player this year in JA12. Any thoughts? Is he the best player in the conference? Maybe this should be a topic.

Great post CK!Two additional thoughts. The OL had better players last year, but this year we have a better unit because......First, fewer penalties are helping the OL a great deal. They are in fewer second/third and longs this year. Coaching has a lot to do with reductions in penalties. Also, the OL has moved away from a zone blocking scheme to a more point of attack blocking. Kennedy is more of a zone blocking RB like Hart at Michigan which explains why he is no longer starting. He is still talented and will contribute, but not as a starter. This blocking is allowing them to double team more and hide lesser talent. It's quite smart on the part of the coaching staff.Secondly, a little love for the coaching thus far? For the fourth year in a row, we have won a game in the last seconds. We need to give JD at least some props for fielding a team with a tougher mental attitude than we have ever seen in the past. In addition, JD has adapted to the talent level on the team offensively and seems to be doing well with it. A lot of coaches would not have had the balls to bench Kennedy or CJ7. JD has also drastically changed the offensive plays and schemes this year. Slowly JD is turning this program away from a laughing stock to one that is more competitive year in and year out than ever before. As much as I hate out 3-3-5 defense, 3-3 is about what I expected so they must be doing something right. Those out there that think JD is nothing more than a salesman can't possibly be watching the games. I only get to watch them on TV and it is obvious this team and program is moving in the proper direction.Lastly, I don't mind the Nick Dials comparison as long as BW does not pout everytime something goes against him.

That's funny. A renovation would include two actions by UofA.1. Seats everywhere. It is exceedingly uncomfortable to sit without your back supported for two hours. At least you can recline at the Rubber Bowl because it is half empty (one of the few benefits of playing there). This will cause smaller crowds though, but they don't sell out anyhow. It could also drive sell outs. Once they sell out, they can raise prices which is a good thing for the Athletic Department if they can hold the prices.2. Assigned seating for everyone. It is a pain in the you know what to sit in GA during a crowded game...which is why I no longer sat in those seats. I'm sure I am not the only person who would not attend because of the discomfort.I would like a new BB stadium though. Although I would never see a game there.

One of the things I always liked about listening to French is his wearing his emotions on his sleeve. When things don't look good, you can tell by the tone in his voice. You can hear that tone at the beginning of this call when things don't look good for the Zips and then the change is great.

Can't is a perfect example of how hard it is to turn a loser into winner. It's not all that hard to change players, but it is hard to change a culture.

I said in another post that we are all butt monkeys at times.JD should get credit for fielding a team that was not willing to give up and played hard until the last play of the game. We have all sat through too many years of losing and coming out on the wrong side of a play like last night. Sorry if there are those out there who either can't see that, or don't want to see that.Look, I understand that there are some on this board that are made uncomfortable with winning. In fact, I think there are some on this board that secretly root for losing so they can be right about whatever they feel they need to be right about. Big Zip, I can only say that if the shoe fits, you should wear it and be more honest in your posts.CJ11 passed for a lot of yards yesterday. He also had too many turnovers. I didn't see the game so I really don't know how it really went for the team. Maybe he is the right guy. Right or wrong, I will be rooting for his success as my ego won't be damaged by being wrong about him being a good QB.