Game # 4: @ Liberty Flames

[ZippyRulz]

There needs to be a timed throw it immediately downfield play ... DJ has no time for progressions..

 

[mhowell15101]

From what I’ve seen in the 4th quarter, it appears DJ is convinced all of the problems on offense are caused by the receivers. 

[Let'sGoZips94]

It doesn't necessarily need to be said based on Freeze's past, but he's a moron.

 

Why would you throw it?

[Z.I.P.]

24 minutes ago, Z.I.P. said:

What happened on Akron's 2-point conversion attempt??  

Was it a pass attempt or what was the play?  ESPN is still showing it as successful, but no points!

[LZIp]

1 minute ago, Z.I.P. said:

Was it a pass attempt or what was the play?  ESPN is still showing it as successful, but no points!

QB power DJ made a pretty epic stretch...could have been in actually but I dont think there was enough to turn it over. High snap threw off the timing.

Edited September 25, 2022 by LZIp

[Spin]

Right now it looks like all we're doing is getting injured.

 

[LZIp]

Is Gray still on the team? Landers now appears to be 2nd string LT.

[GoZips86]

I'm so mad right now. I'm glad we competed, but I really wanted this win. So close. SO close!

[ZippyRulz]

I hope the home uni's will have some color in them.

 

At least we covered the spread, by a lot actually.

 

The BG game should be close to a pickem.

 

 

Edited September 25, 2022 by ZippyRulz

[Let'sGoZips94]

Great fight. Just not enough horses in the barn. We will get there, and are certainly trending in the right direction. 

 

In JoeMo We Trust. Go Zips!

[Spin]

That was painful to watch. Should have been in it all night against this team. 

 

I guess there is some progress. Last year's nightmare left us with no hope.

 

[Phootss]

The Zips didn’t win but anyone that has been watching this team each week can see the progress they are making.   Yes I wish the dropped passes would’ve been caught and some of the missed tackles were made.  This “team” is getting better and the building will continue. 

[Let'sGoZips94]

The announcers for a period there kept hammering home JoeMo's comments about the state of the program when he took over. I don't know if any of us realized how bad of shape we were in. So much worse than I imagined, and it's showing. You can see the coaching improvement, but because of the coaching improvement, the talent deficiency is more and more evident. Our offense is ready to rock and roll, but the offensive line isn't. Our defense has fight, but we're thin on the line and in the secondary. 

 

Continually losing to FBS opponents is frustrating, but this was our first FBS opponent under JoeMo that was against a G5 opponent. Liberty had more established talent than us, but we were in it. We will win in the MAC, and look for us to make some serious noise across the board starting next year. These games turn into wins, and P5 games will become closer. 

 

We were better in week 2 than week 1. We didn't get worse in week 3 (Tennessee is a different monster). And we were better in week 4 than the previous 3 weeks. 

 

Go Zips. 

[Spin]

I'm out of Likes, but I agree. This is a much better coached team this year. There is better talent than we had before, but in football you're looking at 30+ key players and it will take some time to build that roster up. 

 

It's easy to get frustrated, but this team went 3-27 under Arth and Rodriguez. We won 10% which is slightly over one game per season. There's the old saying Rome wasn't built in a day, a mid-major college football team certainly falls under that rule.

 

Let's get ready for some MACtion. Or whatever the buzz phrase is this year.

 

 

[Let'sGoZips94]

12 minutes ago, Spin said:

I'm out of Likes, but I agree. This is a much better coached team this year. There is better talent than we had before, but in football you're looking at 30+ key players and it will take some time to build that roster up. 

 

It's easy to get frustrated, but this team went 3-27 under Arth and Rodriguez. We won 10% which is slightly over one game per season. There's the old saying Rome wasn't built in a day, a mid-major college football team certainly falls under that rule.

 

Let's get ready for some MACtion. Or whatever the buzz phrase is this year.

 

 

 

It's still MACtion, because the MAC is so innovative that it uses a slogan it came up with for a hashtag over a decade ago during the peak of Twitter. 

[LoyalZIP]

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!

[1981 grad]

I loved the replay of Coach Joe throwing his headset down to the ground destroying it when our receiver dropped the creampuff pass in the end zone which should have been our first touchdown in 3 games.  As a Zips fan, I am glad that he shows the same emotion that I felt when that happened.  I just yelled at the TV.

[zipsalum85]

13 hours ago, mhowell15101 said:

From what I’ve seen in the 4th quarter, it appears DJ is convinced all of the problems on offense are caused by the receivers. 

 

Not much positive leadership from 0. Constantly talkin' to the refs and opposing players, can't have that in conference play where he needs to fight through adversity. Walks away from offensive line and fellow teammates. Could be in for a long season.

[LZIp]

14 minutes ago, zipsalum85 said:

 

Not much positive leadership from 0. Constantly talkin' to the refs and opposing players, can't have that in conference play where he needs to fight through adversity. Walks away from offensive line and fellow teammates. Could be in for a long season.

Probably tough when everyone else is letting him down blocking or catching. Talking about bad leadership based on split second clips we see on TV is speculation unless there is a connection with the team. Piling on DJ, who may be our best player, seems misplaced.

[Lee Adams]

1 hour ago, LZIp said:

Probably tough when everyone else is letting him down blocking or catching. Talking about bad leadership based on split second clips we see on TV is speculation unless there is a connection with the team. Piling on DJ, who may be our best player, seems misplaced.

Yea. Its certainly not all on Irons. Right now he has no run game to speak of to keep the D honest. And, if he is still hurting that doesn't help. He is not a QB who can drop back 52 times and win ball games doing it. Joe has to figure out a run game that fits what he has. If Irons could be moved around with options,sprint outs it seems it would put more pressure on defenses and help loosen up his receivers.

The D still has a few too mnay breakdowns that give up too many yards and points. They played better in the second half but there were a couple of critical breakdowns.

Can't wait for Saturday. Hope the weather is decent.

[MDZip]

8 hours ago, 1981 grad said:

I loved the replay of Coach Joe throwing his headset down to the ground destroying it when our receiver dropped the creampuff pass in the end zone which should have been our first touchdown in 3 games.  As a Zips fan, I am glad that he shows the same emotion that I felt when that happened.  I just yelled at the TV.

I cursed inside the stadium. Apparently that is frowned upon at Liberty. 🤣😂

[94zipgrad]

34 minutes ago, MDZip said:

I cursed inside the stadium. Apparently that is frowned upon at Liberty. 🤣😂

But it’s ok to have an escort service on speed dial, so I’m sure you can be forgiven 

[GoZips88]

Needs confirmation but ...

 

Irons-to-xfer-portal mentions by broadcast team: 0

[ZippyRulz]

1 hour ago, GoZips88 said:

Needs confirmation but ...

 

Irons-to-xfer-portal mentions by broadcast team: 0

 

I didn't hear any but I missed most of the second quarter. I thought the announcers were good so I didn't turn on the radio; it's annoying that it's out of sync with the espn+ video. I wish Zips broadcasting would delay longer in order to sync it up.

 

[LoyalZIP]

2 hours ago, MDZip said:

I cursed inside the stadium. Apparently that is frowned upon at Liberty. 🤣😂

 

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!