Analysis of the Enemy: Akron Zips

Head coach Rob Ianello leads Akron into year two of his rebuilding plan after a disastrous 2010 campaign. The Zips lost eleven games by a 22-point average margin, including one to FCS program Gardner-Webb, only staving off a winless season by upsetting Buffalo on the road in their final game.

Upon taking the Akron job after serving under Charlie Weis at Notre Dame for five seasons, Ianelllo immediately turned to the recruiting trail and signed the fifth best class in the MAC, but the youth infusion did little to fix the deep structural issues plaguing the Akron program. Now a year older, and joined by another solid recruiting class, Ianello's first group looks to mature and change the trajectory of the Akron program, which has not climbed above .500 since 2005.

Already, Ianello has replaced the quarterback he inherited from the previous staff, junior Patrick Nicely, with Junior College transfer Clayton Moore. Beyond basic stats-- 2,395 yards and 23 touchdowns-- little is known about Moore's performance at Gulf Coast Community College, where he landed after leaving Ole Miss, the school he signed with as a walk-on in 2009. Moore probably can't perform worse than Nicely, who suffered through his first season running a pro-style offense by posting one of the worst statistical lines of any quarterback in FBS play.

Coaching turnover hit the Zips staff, as well, with defensive coordinator Curt Mallory bailing to join Brady Hoke's new regime at Michigan as secondary coach. He's been replaced by Kevin Cosgrove, a veteran coach whose résumé has needed frequent updating the past few years after being fired at Nebraska in 2007 and Minnesota in 2010. Before those failed stints, Cosgrove found great success at Wisconsin, where he coached for 14 seasons under Barry Alvarez, nine as defensive coordinator.

John Latina, Akron's offensive coordinator and tight ends coach, originally cut his teeth as a coordinator at Ole Miss from 1999-2004. Following the termination of head coach Dave Cutcliffe, Latina latched on at Notre Dame as offensive line coach, where he presided over the weak link of the Irish offense for four seasons. Weis fired Latina before the 2009 season, but Latina apparently made enough of an impression upon Ianello that he was rewarded with the Zips' offensive coordinator position a year later.

From Cutcliffe to Weis, Latina's background is pure pro-style. The Akron offense itself is a poor simulacrum of the Weis offenses, which were generally good, albeit not without crippling deficiencies in latter seasons. The putrid performance of the Zips' last season can be traced to talent shortages more than anything, though, so it's hard to grade Latina's and Ianello's offensive minds.

Bill Connelly has taken his S&P+ figure, which measures consistency and explosiveness on a play-by-play level, a step further, converting the numbers into point figures that resemble real scores, and then comparing those values against the actual game results. The chart to the right contains Akron's seasonal adjusted figures, and confirms the basic prognosis: the Zips were horrendous on both sides of the ball and have nowhere to go but up.

According to S&P+, they ranked in the bottom 10% in rushing and passing, on both standard and passing downs, and 102nd in adjusted sack rate, a measure that divides the number of sack a team surrendered by the number of sacks possible (sacks/passes + sacks), revealing a team that couldn't run, pass, or keep their quarterback upright. Little hyperbole is needed, then, to call the 2010 Akron offense a serious candidate for worst in the country.

In 2011, offensive improvement must come from the young. Akron's top two rushers graduated, leaving sophomores Broderick Alexander (6-1, 205) and Jawan Chisolm (6-0, 193), and freshmen Marvin Staten (5-10, 195) and Karell Bostick (5-9, 190), as the unproven hopes. Ianello plans to rotate the group until a player establishes himself, an eerily similar plan to Charlie Weis' use of running backs at Notre Dame.

Akron's leading returnee at receiver, Antoine Russell (5-11, 185), caught only eleven passes last season, and he's joined by Keith Sconiers (6-3, 190), Marquelo Suel (6-3, 190), and A.J. Price (6-4, 195) as potential cogs in the Akron passing machine.

The Zips' Defense

In spring interviews, Cosgrove cited depth and experience as the biggest issues Akron faces on defense, but he sounded generally pleased with the progress the players made in fifteen spring practices, noting their ability to grasp the mental concepts of his 4-3 defense.

Eight starters return from last season, a squad which gave up 35.1 points per game and ranked 116th in defensive S&P+. When Akron runs onto Ohio Stadium's turf Saturday, there will be plenty of subbing and new faces as the Zips work to improve their poor performance from a year ago, but the linebacker spots appear solidified. Junior Brian Wagner led the team in tackles (130) from his Mike position, and he's joined by Matt Little and Troy Gilmer, returning experienced players on the outside.

Teams ran on Akron much more than the national average in 2010. Returning to Bill Connelly's advanced metrics, we can see that on 64.7% of standard downs, downs where running and passing are largely equal options, Akron's opponents opted to run the ball. With such a large discrepancy between Akron and the national average, we can be pretty certain that opposing coaches found a clear weakness in the Akron defense, and then exploited it repeatedly. The Zips surrendered 164 rushing yards a game, and only kept their opponent under 100 yards three times, which unsurprisingly includes their only win against Buffalo.

Throughout his career, Cosgrove has altered his scheme to the situation, from running a base Cover 2 for most of his time at Wisconsin to experimenting with an aggressive man-coverage scheme at Nebraska. In this respect, he's probably a good fit for a non-BCS team like Akron, which competes in a conference where talent is not always guaranteed. His predecessor, Curt Mallory, ran a relatively passive defense according to Connelly's measures, which compares success rate (consistency) to points-per-play (explosion) to determine a defense's "Bend -Don't-Break" tendency.

No matter which scheme Cosgrove runs in 2011 and beyond, Akron will not improve until its defensive line becomes more talented. Averaging 272 pounds across the four base linemen, the 2011 Zips have good size for a MAC team, largely due to the arrival of two former Big Ten players, defensive tackle Oren Wilson and end John Griggs. Due to the putrid play of the line last season, it's an easy bet to expect some improvement from the Zips on Saturday, but they are still a shallow, ragtag unit that will be targeted by opposing offensive coordinators.

Score Predictions

Ben: Ohio State 41 - Akron 10

Tyler: Ohio State 38 - Akron 3

Chip: Ohio State 35 - Akron 7

Kyle: Ohio State 31 - Akron 10

Average: Ohio State 36 - Akron 8