University of Akron football coach Joe Moorhead sees bright future for program

The process begins anew - albeit differently - for University of Akron football coach Joe Moorhead and his staff with more tailwind than last season.

Coming into a new situation as a new coach presents its own set of challenges, but changing a culture to bring a team together is something different.

Yet for the 2022 edition of the Zips football team, it’s fair to give Moorhead and his staff credit for doing that. Intangibles often don’t show up in a won-loss record, which is a bottom-line metric.

They are more of eye test kinds of things and in that respect, the Zips, at least toward the end of the season, began to pass.

A dominating 44-12 win over the Northern Illinois Huskies on Nov. 26 displayed what could be seen in prior games.

The Zips, missing on a play here, shooting themselves in the collective foot there, small detail oriented things that add up to losses, eliminated all of those mistakes. They showed Moorhead, who had voiced frustration on more than one occasion in postgame interviews, what he knew. When the Zips put all facets of the game together they held the potential to be better than competitive.

A close loss to the Buffalo Bulls to end the season only cemented that observation. The key: building on it.

Joe Moorhead has had 96 meetings already

Moorhead and his coaching staff spent Sunday and Monday in exit interviews with 96 players going over various things.

“I sat down and we reviewed their academics, their exit meeting with their coaches and what the plan was heading into spring ball. And we all kind of agreed that the offseason theme heading into ‘23 is going to be finish. We got that point and we understand lose small, now we got to find a way to close those games out.”

And how that happens will depend greatly on the team’s composition, as they are losing productive players.

Akron Zips lose bookend defensive ends

While the defense remained a consistent work in progress, the Zips received effort from the likes of defensive ends Victor Jones, Zach Morton and Curtis Harper – all transfers – helped a UA defense at least improve marginally over last season. Only Harper returns next year.

However, familiar problems remained. The team was fifth worst in the conference in third-down conversions allowed and ranked last in sacks. They did, however, significantly cut rushing yards allowed from 246 per game in the 2021 season to 162.4 this season.

“We'll have some guys coming back and they played a bunch of snaps,” Moorhead said. "(We will) wind up bringing in two high school guys and then two to three portals [players] or to help reinforce it. Because not only is the experience low with that position but just the general numbers are low and there's a lot of balancing the roster that we need to continue to fix based on what we inherited.”

Akron Zips offense will take hits

That process will continue with the offense.

There are two areas where Moorhead may want to cast his eye with respect to improvement – running back and offensive line. The Zips ranked last in rushing on the season with 89.2 yards per game and they allowed 56 sacks – one reason starting quarterback DJ Irons sat out the last two games of the season with an injury.

Where UA excelled was at wide receiver, arguably the best group of receivers in the conference, led by two All-MAC selections in Alex Adams (first team) and Shocky Jacques-Louis (third team), and Daniel George. The trio combined for 204 receptions. Jacques-Louis has no eligibility left. The other two return.

“With Alex coming back, DG coming back. Anthony Williams, Jasaiah Gathings, Bobby Golden, Tony Grimes, Caleb Anderson and two high school commits and I think we have one or two more spots left for portals,” Moorhead said, “so hopefully a position of strength remains a position of strength.”

Leadership will be a key for Akron Zips in 2023

Those wide receivers provide impact, but if Moorhead is to get the program over the hump, leadership is just as important. In that regard, two key players will be returning.

Irons will be back under center, Moorhead said. Irons (third-team All-MAC) completed 66% of his passes for 2,605 yards along with 10 touchdowns and was the team’s leading rusher with 592 yards on 133 carries, making him a legitimate dual-threat quarterback.

“I think he understands that the value of playing for us in this system with [quarterback] coach [Billy] Fessler and what we can help to do for his career is the same that he could do to help us build this thing up,” Moorhead said, “so I think there's a mutual respect and appreciation for both sides of it.”

Also returning, courtesy of extra eligibility granted because of injury and the COVID-19 pandemic, is linebacker Bubba Arslanian. He was a first-team All-MAC selection in perhaps his best season as a Zip, leading the team and ranking third in the conference with 129 tackles.

Reach George M. Thomas at gthomas@thebeaconjournal.com

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Akron Zips football team's focus turns to finishing games in 2023