GP1

Oh yes. He is producing the same declines as other state universities.

Hopefully a new athletic director makes a good hire. We've hired good and great coaches in the past in other sports. We can do it in football as well if we approach it from the right direction.

Both are solvable problems.

Oh well.... Out of curiosity, how does posting this do anyone any good?

I choose neither. I'd like a coach that can evaluate on the field talent that can graduate from Akron and get the best of those players to sign up with Akron, win on the field and get a degree even at the lowest possible GPA for some. I don't want saints who stink but allow the misguided to wax on about the good old days when there really were "student athletes" all the while the team is winning 3 games a year. I also don't want criminals who fall out leading to 3 win seasons. Somewhere in the middle is a huge pool of potential that can win a mac championship. I also understand that somewhere in between is an at risk kids(s) that a coach has to be able to keep from falling out of line. Ideally I would like a team of saints that can win the Mac. Unfortunately, that is not possible.

He should let the rest of us know where the Foundation of Youth is.

I would like to think so since he is coaching. Is the pay increase from the Owls the the Zips worth a move from Boca Raton to Akron?

Actual coaching is the most overrated thing in college football. Recruiting makes average coaches look good. It's all the other stuff that matters. Mel Tucker added 20 transfers to a halfway decent roster already during the off season and 14 of those were P5 transfers. His genius isn't on field coaching proven by yesterday's results. Purdue is not a very good team It is getting good players or better known as recruiting. Dollard was a problem coming in the door. Would different dynamics around him have produced different results? Like I said, maybe. Success comes from evaluations and recruiting. We need a coach who can connect with really good players on a personal level. Akron can't afford a bunch of guys who just recruit like the big schools do. We need a guy who can grind it out on a daily basis in living rooms, prioritize time with the best opportunities and make the connections necessary to get good players.

Polian is a private school guy from his college days and almost entirely his coaching career. This guy and guys like him simply are not a cultural fit for Akron. It's time for people to snap out of the fantasy that a guy like him can be successful at Akron. He failed in 3 years at a school like Akron in Nevada. I don't care what his philosophy is in a book. He simply isn't the right guy. He's another Notre Dame retread. Everyone, snap out of it. We need the right guy for AKRON.

Change community to recruits.

Yes, but in reality I could care less about ESPN events.

I'd like to replace the word feature with dynamic. For instance, maybe a black head coach has a different type of dynamic with a player like Dollard and is able to guide the kid better. We have failed at guiding at risk kids down the right path too many times to count and we immediately run down an unproductive path that leads to the likes of Ianello or Arth. Maybe we should stop trying to change the players and start changing how coaches interact with the kids. At risk kids want discipline and order. We just need someone better capable of providing it in a way the kids can relate or well end up with another DIII team. I could go on all day about the recruiting benefits of a black coach at Akron so I won't. Want the University to be a center piece in a Midwest city that is over 30% black? Make one of the most visible employees more relatable to the overall community. Everything has to work together.

I've brought up Hunter and Alford as guys who would be a good fit along with Blackburn and Rodriguez. I have not read every post so please forgive me if I'm wrong, but why isn't anyone even considering the possibility of the benefits of a black head coach? Who has Vince Kehres ever recruited that set the world on fire? The recruiting at Mt. Union had to be pretty easy. The guy at Hoban would quickly become a worse version of Arth. It's fun to speculate as fans, but the ultimate decision is an extremely important one. Missing on a hire is extremely expensive in any organization. Akron doesn't need to play lip service to diversity in interviewing by throwing in a couple of token interviews. They need to put action to words and give strong consideration and take the candidates seriously. In the NFL the Steelers did this and have their third in a row Hall of Fame coach.

It would be hard, not impossible, to get and NFL coach. In addition to the earnings potential, NFL guys love not having to recruit.

That's a pretty small pond.

Maybe that Bowling Green, KY media market doesn't get the exposure we are looking for.

Why shouldn't we consider Blackburn for head coach? LBs aren't looked at like this, but he was a better college football player than both Charlie and Luke. Throw in Hixson while you are at it. He also had a good NFL career and is currently the special teams coordinator for the Panthers. Food for thought.

Who cares.....

Don't forget the Notre Dame connection. The Catholic school connection seems to matter a lot around Akron for whatever reason.

A younger version of Rich Rodriguez would be good. While WVU isn't an urban campus, he brought in players he could win with at a school that isn't easy to win at. He related to the players, they responded to him and they won. He brought in a lot of tough kids, many marginal, and got them to work together. The coach has to fit the culture of the school, not change the culture of the school or football program.

Wow, another guy with ND ties. I'm shocked to see that..... not. This guy's resume is slightly better than what Arths will be in 20 years.

Tony Alford. OSU running backs coach. A John Hunter with better current Midwest credibility. Bonus reason: Brother of the late Aaron Alford who coached early in the Brookhart years. A fantastic guy.

Look up the history of Clemson football coaches.

He's a guy with a Twitter account as far as I'm concerned.

Well, if the voice of a D3 team says so......