Non-Conference Future Schedules

[dre22era]

Its like folks take pride in wanting the program to go underground and be irrelevant 

Not understanding marketing and how bills get paid 

Taking pride in wanting college football to basically be segregated. 

Fact is the past few weeks they were more eyeballs on Akron playing Power 5's than there will be on ANY MAC Conference game this season. But I guess folks rather see us play St Francis PA. 

[MangoZip]

19 minutes ago, dre22era said:

Its like folks take pride in wanting the program to go underground and be irrelevant 

Not understanding marketing and how bills get paid 

Taking pride in wanting college football to basically be segregated. 

Fact is the past few weeks they were more eyeballs on Akron playing Power 5's than there will be on ANY MAC Conference game this season. But I guess folks rather see us play St Francis PA. 

Agree, shoot for the stars. I know it doesn't happen very often but look what PJ Fleck did at Western Michigan taking them to a New Years group of 6 bowl game, almost beating number 8 Wisconsin. I don't know if Joe can pull in enough talent at Akron to repeat that but he's certainly a good enough coach to say it's possible. 

[dre22era]

1 hour ago, MangoZip said:

Agree, shoot for the stars. I know it doesn't happen very often but look what PJ Fleck did at Western Michigan taking them to a New Years group of 6 bowl game, almost beating number 8 Wisconsin. I don't know if Joe can pull in enough talent at Akron to repeat that but he's certainly a good enough coach to say it's possible. 

Yup and NIU too playing in the Orange Bowl against Florida State

[LoyalZIP]

2 hours ago, MangoZip said:

Agree, shoot for the stars. I know it doesn't happen very often but look what PJ Fleck did at Western Michigan taking them to a New Years group of 6 bowl game, almost beating number 8 Wisconsin. I don't know if Joe can pull in enough talent at Akron to repeat that but he's certainly a good enough coach to say it's possible. 

Fleck was able to do that because they set up their schedule well for success. They scheduled a pair of Big Ten bottom feeders, a G5, and an FCS. If they had scheduled Wisconsin, Ohio State, Tennessee, etc. early in the year, they most likely lose the game and there’s never a WMU Cotton Bowl to speak of. 
 

Everyone can believe whatever they want. I choose to side with JoeMo, who rightfully says this whoring out for money strategy is a joke. Let’s play one a year and give it our best shot, and then we can actually try to win some games and maybe possibly go into league play at .500 once in a blue moon. In Joe We Trust, Joe knows best. 

[LoyalZIP]

22 minutes ago, dre22era said:

Yup and NIU too playing in the Orange Bowl against Florida State

Lost to Iowa, beat UT-Martin, Army, and Kansas in nonconference. No blue bloods on the schedule there either. 

[kreed5120]

5 hours ago, LoyalZIP said:

Fleck was able to do that because they set up their schedule well for success. They scheduled a pair of Big Ten bottom feeders, a G5, and an FCS. If they had scheduled Wisconsin, Ohio State, Tennessee, etc. early in the year, they most likely lose the game and there’s never a WMU Cotton Bowl to speak of. 
 

Everyone can believe whatever they want. I choose to side with JoeMo, who rightfully says this whoring out for money strategy is a joke. Let’s play one a year and give it our best shot, and then we can actually try to win some games and maybe possibly go into league play at .500 once in a blue moon. In Joe We Trust, Joe knows best. 

Tennessee is obviously good this year, but you're way overestimating the program as a whole. The last year they finished a season ranked was 2016. They aren't remotely in the same class as an Ohio State, Clemson, or Alabama. And the last time they had sustainable success to be compared to a Wisconsin would be 1990s-2005 so like nearly 20 years ago.

[Hilltopper]

15 hours ago, Hilltopper said:

Hang in there GP1 because this is where Akron is heading starting in 2023. I think the MAC is going to place limits on these sacrificial pay games. The one P5 will include limits like no scheduling top 30 teams from outside your home state. Also a minimum of 6 home games.

Looking back at my post from yesterday I see that I mistakenly put 2023 instead of 2024. The 2023 schedule can not be changed at this point. 2024 is when we will stop whoring ourselves out for cash and supposed national exposure.

[Hilltopper]

15 hours ago, Hilltopper said:

Hang in there GP1 because this is where Akron is heading starting in 2023. I think the MAC is going to place limits on these sacrificial pay games. The one P5 will include limits like no scheduling top 30 teams from outside your home state. Also a minimum of 6 home games.

Looking back at my post from yesterday I see that I mistakenly put 2023 instead of 2024. The 2023 schedule can not be changed at this point. 2024 is when we will stop whoring ourselves out for cash and supposed national exposure.

[MangoZip]

Every year MAC teams beat power 5 schools and often times they are competitive. Grow a pair and play them once or twice a year. When did JoeMo say he doesn’t want to play these schools? 

[GoZips86]

9 hours ago, MangoZip said:

-The MAC schools get much needed money for their program.

-The players want to play on the big stage against the best competition, on bigtime TV networks and love the thrill of pulling off the major upset.

-The P5 schools get their win...usually. 

-The MAC fans love to travel to these big venues to watch their team play in front of 80,000+. I would much rather travel to watch them play at Kentucky, or Indiana, or Tennessee than Buffalo or Central Michigan etc.  Sure it sucks when it's a beatdown like the Zips got this year but as they improve they will compete. 

 

9 hours ago, dre22era said:

Exposure to compete and showcase our school on a national stage should always be the answer. 

If not then we are nothing more than a intramural program draining money 

 

 

I respect both of your opinions for sure, I just disagree. I'd rather drop down to FCS and have a chance at winning per these points. No, I'm not advocating for that, but what's the point if people would rather sell our program for easy wins for other schools just to get money for the program? 

 

Yeah, MAC schools get money for going to these slaughtering's called games. Not much fun for a fan. And I couldn't care less as a fan traveling to a big stadium to see the Zips lose 9.9/10 times. Sure, an upset is possible, but not really likely in recent years. 

 

And as far as exposure goes, its done nothing positive for program. Literally. The Zips are seen as a bigger joke these days since the MAC is deemed as a preseason cupcake scrimmage for these big schools to get an easy win to jumpstart their season. In fact, by the time the Zips come back home 1-2 or 1-3, the local community here is even more turned off by them because a 1-3 hole looks like the season is a wash anyways. ESPN makes snarky comments in their articles about us being in the bottom 10 weekly. All these years of exposure sure hasn't done us any favors. 

 

Like I said, I'm all for ONE game like Tennessee or Ohio State per year, but other than that, I'd prefer the Zips to play against other MAC schools or so. 

 

I see both your points. Usually I'm of the mindset of "if its not broke, don't fix it". But sadly, this scheduling IS broken. It needs fixed in my opinion. 

 

[GP1]

9 hours ago, MangoZip said:

-The MAC schools get much needed money for their program.

-The players want to play on the big stage against the best competition, on bigtime TV networks and love the thrill of pulling off the major upset.

-The P5 schools get their win...usually. 

-The MAC fans love to travel to these big venues to watch their team play in front of 80,000+. I would much rather travel to watch them play at Kentucky, or Indiana, or Tennessee than Buffalo or Central Michigan etc.  Sure it sucks when it's a beatdown like the Zips got this year but as they improve they will compete. 

Let's take these one at a time.

• Money - Every time the MAC does something for money, it blows up  in their face. These games are no different.
• The wishes of the players - Too bad. They aren't old enough to understand the long term consequences of stupid decisions. If a player enjoys humiliation on a big time TV network, we have the wrong players.
• P5 schools get their win.  Ok, they win, we lose. Some might find success in that....I don't.
• MAC fans love the travel and big crowds/stadiums.  Let me ask a fan who did this recently..... CK, how was it getting kicked in the back by an inbred from TN for 3 hours?.....  Personally, I like my experience of a college football game. That includes tailgating, an overnight trip and a competitive game. I can get that in Buffalo, Toledo, Oxford or Winston-Salem.  
• The last word you use is "compete". It's an interesting word because the origins of the word are much different than how we use it today. Originally, it meant to bring out the best in each other. That could be those on your team or the other team. The G5 vs P5 games are not competition. They are really practice games for the P5 schools and less so for the G5 schools. Both teams aren't doing their best and if they were, the scores would be much more lopsided than they are. People who go to these games are paying a lot of money to go watch a practice. Even the large schools know this and it's why schools like OSU are not filling their stadiums for them.

[LoyalZIP]

18 minutes ago, MangoZip said:

Every year MAC teams beat power 5 schools and often times they are competitive. Grow a pair and play them once or twice a year. When did JoeMo say he doesn’t want to play these schools? 

Check out literally any of his media availability from that stretch in the schedule. He is fine playing P5s, as are all Zips fans, but loading up the schedule with blue bloods to “play the best” or whatever that means is not doing what you think it is, and that’s according to Joe Moorhead, head coach of the Akron Zips, former OC at Penn State and Oregon, former HC of Mississippi State. I’ll side with him. 

[GP1]

18 minutes ago, MangoZip said:

When did JoeMo say he doesn’t want to play these schools? 

It shouldn't be his say. The Presidents of MAC schools need to get together and make that decision because those below them aren't responsible enough to make them in the best interest of the schools.

[GP1]

32 minutes ago, Hilltopper said:

Looking back at my post from yesterday I see that I mistakenly put 2023 instead of 2024. The 2023 schedule can not be changed at this point. 2024 is when we will stop whoring ourselves out for cash and supposed national exposure.

Thanks for making me look it up. I love you and hate you for it. It reinforces my opinion of how stupid athletic directors are and makes me depressed. Below is the link to it. At one point, did an athletic director sit down and say, "What are the four most uninteresting teams I could put on the OOC schedule that would destroy program momentum and hurt my employer?.....Oh, who cares......I'll be long gone before the games are ever played."

 

https://fbschedules.com/2023-akron-football-schedule/

 

[Blue & Gold]

I like next year's schedule with Kentucky and Indiana.  Those are the types of P5 schools we should be scheduling (ala, NC State).  We should not be scheduling national championship contenders... unless it's Ohio State, or, IMHO, Michigan.  (And, yes, I know, just our luck that Kentucky is really good this year and might be next year.  That's just Akron luck; what are you gonna do?)

 

What I feel our OOC schedule should look like every year:

FCS - open with an FCS school. Get a W at home. (Heck, make it YSU & bring back the Steel Tire Trophy.)

G5 - schedule a G5 like we did this year w/ Liberty

P5 - middling-to-lower tier P5 school. No Alabamas or Georgias.

 

Also - postgame fireworks at each home game through October

[LoyalZIP]

1 hour ago, kreed5120 said:

Tennessee is obviously good this year, but you're way overestimating the program as a whole. The last year they finished a season ranked was 2016. They aren't remotely in the same class as an Ohio State, Clemson, or Alabama. And the last time they had sustainable success to be compared to a Wisconsin would be 1990s-2005 so like nearly 20 years ago.

 

Fair enough. But when that game was put on the schedule ~18 months ago, Larry Williams didn't do it to give Tom Arth (or whoever he expected to be the coach at the time) a chance to make a big splash win in front of the national audience.

 

Williams was told to cut a huge chunk from the athletics budget. So in addition to making budget cuts within the department, he saw the football schedule as an opportunity to help. So he called around and got in touch with Tennessee. They agreed on $1.5 Million, but had to pay $500k of that to Army to buy them out. The Zips were going to host New Mexico State that week instead (the trip to Las Cruces in 2020 was canceled by COVID). 

 

So instead of a winnable G5 game in front of the home crowd, who has never seen Akron defeat a nonconference G5 opponent at InfoCision Stadium, the Zips lost a home game to get humiliated by Tennessee's first, second, and third stringers 63-6. Took away a chance for the people who actually care and love Akron football to see their favorite team in their beautiful, state of the art, Mecca of a football stadium in their hometown.

 

I suggest anyone reading this thread, full of great discussion, to go back and watch Zips Live on Facebook leading up to the Liberty game. Joe describes in detail why these games at this volume are problematic. 

[MangoZip]

These are all D1 schools that all get 85 scholarships. Even many FCS schools with only 65 scholarships make the jump and play D1 powerhouses. The biggest negative factor right now is that Akron is bad, and has been bad for a long time. That is our problem. When you lose 52-0 or 63-6 I would agree with you, that is no fun and a waste of time. But how about if you’re Kent and you lose 39-22 vs the number 1 ranked team? Or if you’re Miami and beat Northwestern this year? Or if you’re Eastern Michigan and you beat Arizona State this year? Etc etc. Bottom line is that we need to get better and these games will make more sense. 

[LoyalZIP]

4 minutes ago, MangoZip said:

These are all D1 schools that all get 85 scholarships. Even many FCS schools with only 65 scholarships make the jump and play D1 powerhouses. The biggest negative factor right now is that Akron is bad, and has been bad for a long time. That is our problem. When you lose 52-0 or 63-6 I would agree with you, that is no fun and a waste of time. But how about if you’re Kent and you lose 39-22 vs the number 1 ranked team? Or if you’re Miami and beat Northwestern this year? Or if you’re Eastern Michigan and you beat Arizona State this year? Etc etc. Bottom line is that we need to get better and these games will make more sense. 

 

Also a fair point. EMU is a good example to bring up. I think they've won the most games (as a MAC team) vs. Power 5 opponents since 2016 or so. Go check out who they've played, spoiler alert: no Blue Bloods! They've feasted on the likes of Purdue, Illinois, Rutgers, and Arizona State. Not programs with long standing success by any means. I like that strategy. But what has it meant for EMU? Still living in the shadow of Ann Arbor, same crappy stadium, same crappy attendance, and they haven't won a MAC title since Cain and Abel were eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch together on Saturday mornings. 

 

And Kent's 17-point loss to Georgia, 30-point loss to Oklahoma, and 25-point loss to Washington have them set up nicely for a big bowl game at 2-3 at just about the mid way point in the season. They were very battle tested in those ball games and it helped them gain 750 yards on Ohio so they could fumble the ball 5 times and need overtime to beat a below average Ohio team. I'm not really seeing this magical correlation.

[GP1]

20 minutes ago, Blue & Gold said:

What I feel our OOC schedule should look like every year:

FCS - open with an FCS school. Get a W at home. (Heck, make it YSU & bring back the Steel Tire Trophy.)

G5 - schedule a G5 like we did this year w/ Liberty

P5 - middling-to-lower tier P5 school. No Alabamas or Georgias.

I like this, but I would like to order it and add a fourth game consisting of a MAC school.

 

Week 1 - Divisional MAC opponent. I thought the Northwestern vs. Nebraska was an exciting and meaningful week 1 game.

Week 2 - P5 game and get it over with.

Week 3 - G5

Week 4 - FCS game to tune up for the bulk of the MAC schedule.

Weeks 5-12 MAC schedule

 

When the divisional MAC school is played on the road, the G5 game should be in Akron and visa versa the next year. I want to see meaningful and compelling games to start the season. MAC fans should not have to wait until October for meaningful football.

[zippy5]

56 minutes ago, MangoZip said:

Every year MAC teams beat power 5 schools and often times they are competitive. Grow a pair and play them once or twice a year. When did JoeMo say he doesn’t want to play these schools? 

2-19 this year. Seems fun

[GP1]

5 minutes ago, zippy5 said:

2-19 this year. Seems fun

Where do I buy tickets?!?!?!?!?

[kreed5120]

30 minutes ago, LoyalZIP said:

 

Fair enough. But when that game was put on the schedule ~18 months ago, Larry Williams didn't do it to give Tom Arth (or whoever he expected to be the coach at the time) a chance to make a big splash win in front of the national audience.

 

Williams was told to cut a huge chunk from the athletics budget. So in addition to making budget cuts within the department, he saw the football schedule as an opportunity to help. So he called around and got in touch with Tennessee. They agreed on $1.5 Million, but had to pay $500k of that to Army to buy them out. The Zips were going to host New Mexico State that week instead (the trip to Las Cruces in 2020 was canceled by COVID). 

 

So instead of a winnable G5 game in front of the home crowd, who has never seen Akron defeat a nonconference G5 opponent at InfoCision Stadium, the Zips lost a home game to get humiliated by Tennessee's first, second, and third stringers 63-6. Took away a chance for the people who actually care and love Akron football to see their favorite team in their beautiful, state of the art, Mecca of a football stadium in their hometown.

 

I suggest anyone reading this thread, full of great discussion, to go back and watch Zips Live on Facebook leading up to the Liberty game. Joe describes in detail why these games at this volume are problematic. 

The Tennessee game was scheduled 12 months ago when Arth was very much on the hot seat. The Zips needed the game to pay for Arth's buy out and getting Arth out sooner than later was much more important than playing a meaningless game against New Mexico.

 

I'm very much against the scheduling Kent State does even though that has seemed to work for them under Sean Lewis as Kent is likely the favorite to win the MAC this year. I just don't think Akron's schedule was all that bad this year. MSU is sitting at 2-3 and still has games left against OSU, UM, and PSU. They will be lucky to make it to a bowl game this year as that leaves them little to no margin for error. Tennessee just happened to have their best year in some time the year we played them. Liberty we played against their 3rd string QB and very much had a chance to win.

 

College football is very much the bigger fish eating the smaller fish. The problem is we're a bottom 5 roster in FBS so we're always going to be an underdog pretty much regardless of who we face. I expect that to change with Moorehead, but that will take some time. 

 

I see people talking about how tough next years schedule and we play Temple, Indiana, Kentucky, and Morgan State. Kentucky is certainly good, but they were pretty mediocre when we scheduled them. The other 3 schools we play are all very beatable. 

[kreed5120]

Just to add onto my prior post I actually like that 2 for 1 deal we signed with Kentucky even though they turned out to be pretty good. We talk all the time about how we can't get anyone good to come to the JAR to play us in basketball, but here in football we very well could be hosting a ranked team in 2024. When is the last time Akron has hosted a ranked team? Would it Marshall back in Leftwich days or Miami during the Big Ben days?

[LoyalZIP]

1 minute ago, kreed5120 said:

Just to add onto my prior post I actually like that 2 for 1 deal we signed with Kentucky even though they turned out to be pretty good. We talk all the time about how we can't get anyone good to come to the JAR to play us in basketball, but here in football we very well could be hosting a ranked team in 2024. When is the last time Akron has hosted a ranked team? Would it Marshall back in Leftwich days or Miami during the Big Ben days?

 

I agree, I am a fan of our 2023 opponents as far as being winnable games that set up the program for success. I hate that they only have 5 home games again, though.

 

8 minutes ago, kreed5120 said:

The Tennessee game was scheduled 12 months ago when Arth was very much on the hot seat. The Zips needed the game to pay for Arth's buy out and getting Arth out sooner than later was much more important than playing a meaningless game against New Mexico.

 

And this is false. Williams scheduled the game before he left, the releases for these games do not come out for many months until after they're scheduled. Guthrie was not happy that this game was scheduled, and has made that very clear. Williams wasn't going to fire Arth if he had stuck around, either. That info is directly from UA Sr. athletic administration.

[kreed5120]

1 minute ago, LoyalZIP said:

Williams wasn't going to fire Arth if he had stuck around, either. That info is directly from UA Sr. athletic administration.

If that's true then we're very fortunate Williams is gone