GP1

I watched Wake Forest beat Pitt with their #3 QB. It was a joke of a game. Boring beyond belief. Wake Forest has gone from Wolford, Newman and Hartman to Larry, Moe and Curly in one season.

Direction?.... Yes. I would say we are in a good place. The football program is poor but the athletic department is doing well.

When I watch high school football, I wonder how a D1 program gets enough players to field a team. Heck, half the kickers can barely get the ball over the line in HS Most high school starters aren't D3 material, let alone D1. A kid can look like a superstar because everyone else is so bad. Fans have been duped into believing the star rating system means something. I think at the highest level it does, but the rest appears to be throwing darts blindfolded. Coaches are still heavily reliant on word of mouth from trusted high school coaches in regions. How bad of a job do coaches do at recruiting and how bad are decisions HS kids making? The massive numbers in the TP are a good indicator. Half of those will never play again. In reality, D1 programs could get away with around 65 scholarships and the average fan would never see a difference in the quality of play. https://www.axios.com/2023/05/11/ncaa-football-transfer-portal-record

A lot more games. Akron doesn't need "secondary" (I get your meaning) players. They need primary players and players about to be primary. The juniors and seniors who can play should be retained. The juniors and seniors who cannot should be shown the URL for the transfer portal in order to make room for players who may become primary players now or in the future.

This is the sort of thing someone says when they know there is no way to be proven wrong.....or right for that matter, but it sounds great. His last five full years have been solid. He is averaging over six wins a year and two seasons with 8 and 7 wins respectively. 75% of the MAC would love to be able to say that. He recruits Ohio, but the main focus isn't NW Ohio. The point I'm making is fans from NE Ohio believe there is more/better D1 talent around NE Ohio than reality. There isn't a place in the country that doesn't overestimate the quality of high school football in their part of the country. It's natural for fans to feel a sense of pride about history and where they live. The main point is a coach can't fill his roster up with future transfer portal players just because he thinks fans will be happy if he recruits his local region. There is little evidence this works as a strategy for schools outside Florida, Texas and California. 3 of last 6 MAC Championships have been won by Miami or Toledo. I've already the point about Miami. I could make almost the exact point about Toledo and Toledo has won almost 80 games over the past 10 years.

It's awesome for recruiting. It lets a player know you think so much of him you will open a spot for him. It also is appealing to a hyper competitive kid, which we need to turn around the culture. Coach Prime has done a great job of this.

Ya!!!!! Why should people publicly voice their criticism of an organization their tax dollars support. It seems unAmerican to do so.

Is this what the QBs at Miami and Toledo make?

A scholarship is a series of one year contracts that aren't guaranteed to be renewed. Players can absolutely be fired. Many should be fired.

I'm really like Lingard, but we don't have the line to do this. Zips need everyone to contribute.

He's already a head coach! Former late 80s Zips grad assistant was Chris Ball. He's now the head coach at Northern Arizona.

You may be right. I think a couple of things come into play. First, if the kid plays well there is a lot of confidence and he stays. The key is what to do if he doesn't play well. If he's the coach's "guy", the coach needs to publicly support him as the future of the program and live and die with him. Dave Clawson did this with John Wolford. No matter what, he was going to live or die with him. Yesterday he benched a Senior starter at halftime who was badly underperforming. This year will be Clawsons first losing season in a long time. As good as he is, he can't win with a bum at QB. I predict a new face in the program at QB next year. Wake will absorb a couple of losing season for the next Wolford, Newman or Hartman. Akron doesn't have more years of losing.

A team is more than one person and the failures this season are widespread. I don't blame nil or tp for our failures either.

If you are in the woods and be chased by a bear, do you have to be faster than the bear or just faster than your camping partner? Bullock just has to be better than the 4th QB.

Take away one 27 yard run and it's less than 50 yards running. I'd love to know what their average yards per play on each down was, especially first down. Too often they are in second and long. There is just so much wrong with the offense. I think it has to do with an inability to complete passes down field for a number of reasons. Defenses can focus on stopping the running game and shorter passes. The running game would be better with an offense stretching the defense. At a minimum, the defense couldn't be so aggressive against Akron at the line.

The coach and administration didn't overthrow wide open receivers and miss game winning field goals. It's 2023 and players get to be on TV every game, cut NIL deals and transfer at will. With all of that comes a heightened level of criticism. The public face of failure is the coach. Behind closed doors, everyone knows why and who lost those three games.

Based on what NIU did to them, can you blame them.

There isn't enough high level local talent anywhere to produce a high quality G5 program. Everywhere in the country, people from that part of the country overestimate the quality of high school athletes of all types. The same thing happens here in South Carolina where I live. Everyone thinks Clemson and SC can live on local players alone and that simply isn't the case. This is a small population state incapable of making 2 P5 schools elite programs.

https://miamiredhawks.com/sports/football/roster This is a roster of one of the top 3 teams in the MAC. They just became eligible for a bowl 7 games into the season. They made a bowl for the 8th time in 9 years. They have some.local players.but don't rely on them. They aren't doing well because they recruit locally. The are doing well because they recruit good players who fit their system.

Define "everyone" please.

The oline is a huge problem. Yesterday, CMU brought a lot of pressure and they couldn't execute on a basic play like a screen pass to back off the pressure some. The team is currently swamped in failure. They should have 3 more wins and don't. I don't know how they solve their current problems and actually win games. I don't mean score a TD or two more a game, rush for more yards or complete a few more passes, but actually win.

Akron only possessed the ball for 22 minutes and only ran 53 plays. 53 plays per game is something you would not see even in stat lines from the 1960s.

Don't know what a fanboy is, but I think he's our best shot at resurrecting the program. Akron is in a position where the president, AD and head coach are all in alignment. This is typically a winning situation. Akron should have 3 more wins this season and the failures fall on the shoulders of some of the players, and veterans as well. At least Joe put the team in a position to win. He can't kick or throw the ball. My biggest complaint about him is what looks like a failure to have "his guy" on the field playing QB. Maybe the combination doesn't stop at the head coach, but looks something like this President -AD-Coach-QB.

If Akron doesn't win at least 5 games next year, the JoeMo years will begin to crumble. They will lose players and not be able to replace them. They will also begin to lose critical coaches and not fill the spots with anyone as good. Programs foundations are built on more than players. If Wasel was Joe's guy, he should have started the season. Redshirting is an antiquated concept in 2023. I've never seen him play, but he couldn't beat out the 3 bums we have started this year? It's concerning. The Bullock disaster is a good learning lesson for fans. Just because a player transfers from a school you have heard of and was once good, that doesn't mean the player is good. There are lots of failed scholarship players at big schools. The schools the transfer portal benefits the most are the P5 schools, especially the elite programs. It's a place they can dump their trash and replace with a better opportunity. Every once in a while, someone finds something really valuable at the landfill. We have to be smart about what we bring home from the landfill.

U is the best of bad choices.