Week 1 (Temple) Thoughts

[clarkwgriswold]

I am usually not the "downer" guy and I do have faith in Moorhead, but as long as the Zips are losing to bottom 20 teams I don't have much interest in moral victories or "looking on the bright side."

[catdaddyp]

2 minutes ago, clarkwgriswold said:

I am usually not the "downer" guy and I do have faith in Moorhead, but as long as the Zips are losing to bottom 20 teams I don't have much interest in moral victories or "looking on the bright side."

Fair, but I’m not sure if Temple is actually bottom 20. Yes, they started there because of what they accomplished, or lack thereof, last year. We’ll have to see how it all plays out. I’m hopeful the staff will take a hard look at what went wrong yesterday and make the necessary adjustments. 

[taylormade28]

2 hours ago, LZIp said:

DJ's body language is an issue and always has been unfortunately. 

 

DJ's shoulder may or may not be cooked. Unfortunate if so, but the talk yesterday was that he wasn't even able to start fall camp on time due to recovery. He's either cooked/hasn't improved, or it'll just take some time to get back to 100%. I want the best QB out there who gives us a chance to win. Obviously yesterday raises doubts for everyone, but it may just take some time for him considering the injury situation.

That was the thing for me, he was fussing at everybody and the coaches, its no leaders on this team i see. Your QB should be the leader and hes not, everytime the pocket brakes down he runs instead of looking down field.

[taylormade28]

35 minutes ago, catdaddyp said:

Fair, but I’m not sure if Temple is actually bottom 20. Yes, they started there because of what they accomplished, or lack thereof, last year. We’ll have to see how it all plays out. I’m hopeful the staff will take a hard look at what went wrong yesterday and make the necessary adjustments. 

they won 3 games last year Temple was bad

[taylormade28]

Me personally i don't see a play making WR I only see guys who can just move the chains. I heard #2 is that guy and if so they need to  find ways to get that kid the ball

[clarkwgriswold]

49 minutes ago, catdaddyp said:

Fair, but I’m not sure if Temple is actually bottom 20. Yes, they started there because of what they accomplished, or lack thereof, last year. We’ll have to see how it all plays out. I’m hopeful the staff will take a hard look at what went wrong yesterday and make the necessary adjustments. 

catdaddyp, keep it up!  I need people like you to occasionally talk me off of the Zips football edge!

[GP1]

10 minutes ago, clarkwgriswold said:

catdaddyp, keep it up!  I need people like you to occasionally talk me off of the Zips football edge!

A horrible loss in my book, but I still see brighter days ahead. 

[Kangaroo Craig]

I have never been sold on DJ Irons as a pure passer. Jeff Undercuffler has a much smaller sample size than DJ, but in that sample size, he has looked better. Maybe Irons plays well in practice, but can’t handle the pressure that comes with games? Maybe his shoulder is shot?  IDK, but I believe we would have won yesterday if someone else was under center, even if it was only for the fourth quarter. What I saw yesterday was a QB who couldn’t make a throw when he needed to. This is a very concerning problem. The defense played well enough to win and it is much improved, especially the secondary, but the LB’s held their own as well. DL is a work in progress, but we all knew that coming into the season.

[Hilltopper]

6 hours ago, LoyalZIP said:

Our first advanced box score of the season! https://collegefootballdata.com/boxscore/401531387

 

I agree with the general consensus that the team, as a whole, looked much better than at most points last year. That is, if you look at each individual unit, they were hitting above their previous average...except for the most important position on the football field. The first think that stuck out to me in the advanced box score was the fact that UA hit 1.000 in scoring opportunities, and they were obviously both in the first half. A scoring opportunity is when you get the ball inside the opponent's 40, and Akron scored touchdowns both times they did that. When watching the game, I felt good about our chances specifically because that was an area this team was terrible in last year. Yesterday, it was like a bizarro world. They couldn't move the ball between the 20s. It was alarming.

 

As for the defense, I talk a lot about them not making plays. Yes, they made plays most of the time they needed to yesterday, but when will this defense begin to read the QB and force some turnovers? Or make its presence felt in the backfield? Props to Warner as he is a damn good QB and their whole M.O. is protecting him, but not forcing any havoc, as displayed in the advanced box score, was costly. Temple, on the other hand, wasn't doing anything in the secondary to make things that difficult for DJI. Even when he did want/need to tuck and run or scramble, he seemed hesitant whereas last year he could have carved them up.

 

Some of the individuals that stuck out to me are as follows: 

 

Bobby Golden (WR): I was hoping we would see more of him last year, not sure if the muffed punt had anything to do with that. Seeing him drop that punt yesterday made my heart jump out of my chest. Maybe time to put Adams or Hester back there. Anyway, I thought he looked the part out there. He should have had a TD catch and quite a few yards as well, not sure he could have done much more on the OB sideline throw. He will be a solid contributor as the season goes on.

 

Lorenzo Lingard (RB): I just don't understand why he didn't get more touches yesterday. Same with Drake Anderson. But that play to get LL the TD was freaking awesome. It's a shame it was wasted in a loss, a damn shame. Lingard looks to be tremendously physical and has speed to separate from the D, as displayed on the TD. I'd like to see Joe mess around with he and Bullock like he did with Barkley and McSorely at Penn State. The package of Irons & Bullock got me really excited. We'll see how willing Joe is to open up the playbook

 

Bryan McCoy (LB): A blossoming star. He and Fish delivered some big hits throughout the day, and to the untrained eye, seemed to make a fair amount of plays. If we have Bubba, maybe we get more pressure on the QB and get a different result, but I am happy with our LB situation considering the circumstances.

 

All DBs: While not everyone played great, I feel the unit as a whole did a really nice job against a QB and an offense that scored a ton of points and racked up a lot of yards down the stretch last season. They allowed a few big plays later in the game, possibly in part to being on the damn field the entire second half. But, they forced 21 incompletions on the day and made those guys work really hard to score 24 points

 

The negatives largely stop at QB play. Special teams look to be improved as a whole Dante Jackson is a big step up from Gettman. Not sure on FG kicking yet. But QB and probably DL are the two areas that proved to be most costly. The aforementioned lack of pressure and push from the DL kind of is what it is given the personnel. I thought they played okay, and I'm hoping for improvement but not sure how much we will see considering who is available.

 

The QB....my lord almighty. I have always been an Irons supporter, but have also had plenty of reservations with him being the QB that really makes this thing take off. He was fine in his time in 2021, and he was good last year as a game-manager and a guy who could put the ball where it needs to be to dink and dunk down the field. But yesterday was flat out appalling. He has still never started at QB in a game where Akron defeats an FBS team. I trust Joe for obvious reasons, but I would question why he would give Irons a long leash, especially when he is clearly not the same QB that he was last year. Not many of us, except maybe @Hilltopper have seen Bullock work along side these guys in practice, but considering how quickly Joe involved him in the offense yesterday, I have a feeling they're more confident in his abilities than they are leading on. In 2015, Bowden started Tra Chapman at QB the first three games and yanked him during the Savannah State game for Tommy Woodson, who lit up the scoreboard most of the rest of the year. Maybe the same thing will happen with Bullock. In 2023, Joe Moorhead cannot take losses due to bad QB play. Simple as that.

 

Let's get to 1-1 and get this $h!+ figured out.

I haven't seen Bullock because I don't attend football practices. Very few get that privilege.

[Let'sGoZips94]

20 minutes ago, Hilltopper said:

I haven't seen Bullock because I don't attend football practices. Very few get that privilege.

 

After yesterday I wouldn't call watching Irons throw the ball a "privilege".

[72 Roo]

I don't know how the rest of you feel, but I have this nagging thought that yesterday's loss was a failure of coaching. I know, and believe to my core, that Joe is the anointed One. Still yesterday it was plain for all to see the quarterbacking cost us the game and Joe did not have an answer. Undercuffler would have beaten the Owls. I suspect that is true of Bullock. But we saw no change. Make the change now. If DJ is hurt give him time to heal while someone else leads this team. If he's not hurt he's played himself out of the starting position. This is a good team that can win with a decent QB. We have other areas of improvement but let's stop the biggest bleeder first, then go to the others.  

[catdaddyp]

Went back and rewatched the game. A few more thoughts:

 

OFFENSE

- Irons was off target too often, but when he actually stepped up to throw, he threw a few passes where his throwing motion actually looked better than last year. Despite seemingly lacking some of the velocity he used to have, the two deep balls he threw to George (1 caught and the other into double coverage) and the one on the deep crossing route to Adams stood out. Last year, he would have strong armed it straight across the field to Adams. The last interception of the game was too reminiscent of last season to where he forced a play he didn’t need to make in a critical situation. 

- Adams, George, and Gathings collected the majority of snaps at receiver. Golden played in place of the TE when we went to 4 wide sets. Myles Walker received a handful of snaps as well.
- The running backs need more touches. The run game only stalled on one drive. Outside of that, the backs picked up decent yardage every chance they were given.

- The OL probably played its best game in the Moorhead era. I counted only 3 busted assignments in pass protection. Unfortunately, 2 came in the 4th quarter and on 3rd downs. The OL consistently got push in the run game. Substitution patterns went like this: 

Subs in parentheses

LT - Blanchard (Chambers)

LG - Kilbane (Lyons)

C - T. Williams (Georges)

RG- N. Williams (Kilbane)

RT- Chambers (N. Williams) (Kindred)

 

DEFENSE

- Terray Jones is by far and away the best DT on the roster. He was the only DT that was able to create pressure on the quarterback (although not enough) and he was excellent against the run. Lavea is the next best, but isn’t much of a pass rusher. He’s a load for the OL to attempt to displace though.

- Ryan Johnson and CJ Nunnally are easily the best DE’s we have. That includes rushing the passer and against the run. Would prefer not to see Johnson dropped into coverage anymore. He was caught up on a pick play by Tallandier’s WR, which led to a Temple passing TD. Just send him after the QB. We need more production from the backups too.

- Antavious Fish was a monster. Not only did he land some highlight hits, but numerous times he came downhill and put an OL on their butt. His one slip up was on the short TD pass to the RB. Fish was caught a little too far inside and then was picked just a bit by the WR, which gave the RB the angle. McCoy was also really good and give us an impressive linebacker duo. Shammond Cooper was solid and a sure tackler, although nothing flashy. Behm is a weak link.

- Outside of the penalty, Tallandier was really good. Hunter had his moments outside of the final penalty. Golden-Nelson had more good than bad.

- Corey Thomas and KJ Martin made a solid safety duo. Not sure why Nate Thompson didn’t see any action until close to the end of the 3rd quarter, but he wasn’t really missed with the way Thomas and Martin were playing. It hurt losing Martin on the ejection. Jaden Woods struggled in the second half. Darrian Lewis did a nice job at Nickel, but struggled at times when asked to play deeper as a safety.

DE - R. Johnson (A. smith) (Richardson)

DT - T. Jones (Robinson) 

DT - Lavea (K. Thomas) (Adler)

DE - Nunnally (A. Smith) (L.Jackson)

LB - Fish (Behm)

LB - McCoy (Cooper)

CB - Tallandier (Hence)

CB - Hunter (Golden-Nelson) (Durant)

NB - D. Lewis (C. Thomas)

S - C. Thomas (Woods)
S - KJ Martin (D. Johnson) (N. Thompson)

 

SPECIAL TEAMS

- As a whole, this unit seemed improved and was really solid outside of Jackson’s one short punt and Golden’s punt return muff.

Edited September 4, 2023 by catdaddyp

[Let'sGoZips94]

30 minutes ago, 72 Roo said:

I don't know how the rest of you feel, but I have this nagging thought that yesterday's loss was a failure of coaching. I know, and believe to my core, that Joe is the anointed One. Still yesterday it was plain for all to see the quarterbacking cost us the game and Joe did not have an answer. Undercuffler would have beaten the Owls. I suspect that is true of Bullock. But we saw no change. Make the change now. If DJ is hurt give him time to heal while someone else leads this team. If he's not hurt he's played himself out of the starting position. This is a good team that can win with a decent QB. We have other areas of improvement but let's stop the biggest bleeder first, then go to the others.  

 

This isn't inaccurate. Yesterday's loss stings because we were superior to Temple in every facet of the game minus QB play. Every single flaw seemed to point back to QB play.

 

Why not run the ball more? Temple didn't respect the pass a lick and stacked the box. 

 

Why did the WRs not look like playmakers? There was an inaccurate, inconsistent, indecisive, confidence-lacking QB throwing them the ball.

 

What was up with the defensive breakdowns in the 2nd half? They were on the field too often after short drives resulting in a punt. 

 

 

Despite the correlation between the the poor QB play and the oil leak, JoeMo didn't make a move at the position. Huge coaching error. 

[ZippyRulz]

it will be interesting to hear what he has to say at the weekly press conference. I believe they're normally on Mondays but tomorrow is labor day so maybe Tuesday (?)

 

 

 

[LoyalZIP]

As I mentioned before, and something our good friend @NWAkron says all the time during basketball season where the Zips play on a Friday, losing on Labor Day weekend is always harder. More time to think about it. Which brings me to this morning, nothing to do but dig deeper into this game.

 

Liberty, Bowling Green, Central Michigan, Kent State, Eastern Michigan, Buffalo, and now Temple all have something in common for Joe Moorhead. Close losses. It is wild that we struggle so mightily to close out games, whether we are playing with the lead, or trying to come back but have played close. St. Francis, funny enough in the first game, was the only close win this program has had. It has been nearly 5 years since an Akron football team beat an FBS opponent in a 1-score game. Thanks to BG x2 and NIU, the wins have been comfortable. Somehow.

 

The advanced box scores that I enjoy going through put Temple's win expectancy at just 57% after the game Saturday. That is essentially a calculation based on the two teams' stats from the game, predicting who would win if the same game was played a thousand times. St. Francis last year had an 86%. I felt the games were pretty similar, and they came down to who won the turnover battle. 1-0 both times. If The Zip D forces one or DJ doesn't throw that one and we down and win, everything is much different today. The devil is in the details. 

 

In 2021 Northern Illinois had 7 wins by one score or less, including all 6 of their MAC wins. Their MAC losses were by 5 at Kent and by 21 to WMU in a game they sat their starters. 2023 opened in a nearly identical fashion, as they went to Chestnut Hill and beat BC in overtime, two years ago coming off an 0-6 2020, they opened with a 1-point win over Georgia Tech.

 

So, through 13 games as the head coach at Akron, Joe Moorhead is now 1-6 in one-score games, with Liberty not technically counting toward that total. I find it fascinating. I don't have any answers and couldn't really tell you the reason why it continues to happen. If you take the mean of Saturday plus last season and compare it to the last 5-ish seasons of Akron football, your head would spin when you see how much better they are. But the wins just have no been coming like you would expect considering all of the changes we have seen. Is it coaching? Execution? Choking? Mental preparedness? It is probably a combination of all of the above. And while I still have not been more optimistic as an Akron football fan in ages, a lot of that excitement will begin turning into frustration and resentment if this trend continues deep into the season.

 

So, realistically, Akron will likely be 1-3 going into conference play, 2-2 with some luck and perhaps some big changes or improvements at a particular position. Then the first two MAC games are at home. What happens with this team if they are 1-3 and find themselves down 4 to Buffalo in the 4th quarter, with the ball, 3 minutes to go. I hate to say it, but I think we are past the point of any fans really believing they can drive it down and win the game. My question is, do these players believe they can do it? At one point do the close losses begin to creep into their intrusive thoughts during a game, or has that already happened? Two games in a row, granted 2 different QBs, we have had the ball with a chance to drive and win the game, and a pair of forced throws have resulted in INTs. Throw in the Clyde Price gaffs last year, special teams miscues against BG, early picks against Kent, and it's almost like there is a greater power at play than execution. 

 

Simply put--these players do not know how to win. They are a lot like the 2013 Akron Zips. Best talent in years, best coaching in years, they just don't know what it feels like to be successful and win a football game (unless they are overpowering a team like NIU). That 2013 finally broke through with a close road win over a dreadful Miami team. When will this team's breakout moment be? We are to a point where I look at this schedule, Kentucky included, and I see no reason why we shouldn't compete with everyone on it. That's great, awesome, happy for coach. But now the hard part. FINISHING. That is a tall task for this coaching staff. It is the difference between another boring December or the 4th bowl appearance in program history. They must finish. I don't know what all goes into that, or how you can even coach it, but it is beginning to become overdue. 

[UAZippers]

One scary thought that has crept into my head is that,  as far as I have seen, Billy Fessler has a much larger role in the offense this year. If it continues to be a problem, it is almost spooky how well that would mirror the situation we used to have of Bowden/Milwee. Two head coaches who are widely known as great offensive minds who hand off control to a largely unproven, young OC. It absolutely did not work out the first time, so let's hope history doesn't repeat itself. 

[Let'sGoZips94]

8 minutes ago, UAZippers said:

One scary thought that has crept into my head is that,  as far as I have seen, Billy Fessler has a much larger role in the offense this year. If it continues to be a problem, it is almost spooky how well that would mirror the situation we used to have of Bowden/Milwee. Two head coaches who are widely known as great offensive minds who hand off control to a largely unproven, young OC. It absolutely did not work out the first time, so let's hope history doesn't repeat itself. 

 

I didn't see 10 second delayed handoffs up the middle on Saturday. Hope that eases some of your concerns.

[catdaddyp]

 

 

[Let'sGoZips94]

26 minutes ago, catdaddyp said:

 

 

 

By far the emptiest 3 minutes I've ever heard from JoeMo. Part of that is on the reporters for not asking any legitimate questions, and part of that's on JoeMo for not realizing fans watch this and inserting something - anything - that speaks directly to them and their obvious concerns.

 

"Tahj is a talented thrower"

 

Left with more questions than answers after that one.

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by Let'sGoZips94

[catdaddyp]

2 hours ago, Let'sGoZips94 said:

 

By far the emptiest 3 minutes I've ever heard from JoeMo. Part of that is on the reporters for not asking any legitimate questions, and part of that's on JoeMo for not realizing fans watch this and inserting something - anything - that speaks directly to them and their obvious concerns.

 

"Tahj is a talented thrower"

 

Left with more questions than answers after that one.

 

Hopefully there will be a “Zips Weekly” episode that reviews the game and gives a little more insight.

[LoyalZIP]

1 hour ago, catdaddyp said:

Hopefully there will be a “Zips Weekly” episode that reviews the game and gives a little more insight.

Airs Tuesday evening on Bally and posted to YouTube about 12:15a on Wednesday. I guess since the ABJ no longer really exists or covers Akron football they do not have a presence at the weekly presser and it is just Joe Dunn asking a couple questions. 

[Blue & Gold]

Did anyone notice whether Kiawan Murphy got any reps at DT?

[zipsrowdy88]

Does anyone know the specifics to DJ's injury? When did it occur? Etc. Still just upset about how he played.

[catdaddyp]

39 minutes ago, Blue & Gold said:

Did anyone notice whether Kiawan Murphy got any reps at DT?

He did not. Possible he wasn’t on the travel roster.

[Jkobe03]

1 hour ago, catdaddyp said:

He did not. Possible he wasn’t on the travel roster.

I was at the game, from what I could see I could not see him there in warm-ups or during the game on the sidelines.