Know Your Opponent: Scouting the Akron Zips
The 2022 college football season is underway, and Michigan State finished Week 1 with a convincing win against Western Michigan. Now the Spartans play another MAC opponent, Akron, who won their game last week against FCS opponent St. Francis by the skin of their teeth – 30-23 in overtime.
The Spartans look to jump to 2-0 on the season and stay undefeated at home. Let's take a closer look at their Week 2 opponent:
Coaching Staff
Akron hired Joe Moorhead to be their head coach this offseason. He’s a big-time name, who had success as a coordinator, but has struggled as a head coach.
Moorhead was run out of town at Mississippi State after only two seasons as a head coach, with a bit of clash of cultures. Closer to home at Akron, he may have a better chance at success, with a longer leash to find success.
Moorhead will also serve as the offensive play-caller for the Zips. Akron’s defensive coordinator is Tim Tibesar, who has experience in the Big Ten and NFL. He has coached at Purdue, Northwestern, Wisconsin and the Chicago Bears.
Even with the Zips coaching staff having a great deal of experience, it won’t be enough to overcome Akron’s deficiencies this season. This team rebuild will take years. The Zips haven’t made a bowl game since 2017, and have won just four games since 2019 (including this year’s win), going winless in 2019.
Offense
The highlight of the offense is junior quarterback DJ Irons. At 6-foot-6, he has the height to survey the field. While he would prefer to stand in the pocket, the offensive line is the biggest fix in the rebuild. In the season opener against St. Francis, Irons was sacked six times.
When he did have time last week, he found senior wide receiver Shocky Jacques-Louis. On 11 targets, Jacques-Louis had seven catches for 99 yards and a score. Akron had a 57 percent completion percentage last game, with all but one receiver catching the ball on over 50 percent of their targets.
While Moorhead traditionally runs more of an air raid, the Zips don’t quite have the personnel yet to run that system. Sophomore running back Cam Wiley had 21 carries for 85 yards and two touchdowns against St. Francis.
Defense
Last season, Akron had one of the worst defenses in the country, and they continue to struggle so far in 2022. St. Francis outgained the Zips 453-384 in total offense in Week 1. SFU threw an interception in overtime that led to their defeat.
Senior defensive end Victor Jones was Akron’s leading tackler in Week 1 with six tackles. It is concerning for any team when you don’t have a linebacker with five tackles or more. They didn’t apply much pressure either, with only two sacks the whole game.
For Spartan fans, it should be noted that former MSU linebacker Jeslord Boateng now plays for Akron and is a junior. He wears No. 9 and will likely see some time this Saturday.
Overall
Akron is one of the largest rebuilds in all of college football. Being the worst team in arguably the worst Group of Five conference says something. It will take years to fix this program, so the thought of an upset in a game like this isn’t coming anytime soon. However, Ohio is a great state for football, so finding local talent shouldn’t be difficult for the Zips moving forward.
I said earlier this year that this is the closest to a “gimme” win that Michigan State will have all season. After Akron’s performance last week, I still stand by that. Even with injuries for MSU, this should be as easy as it gets.
While it is good to get some of the young players and backups in games like these, it isn’t always fun watching a blowout, but that’s likely what we’ll get on Saturday. I hope Akron can find their way to becoming a respectable program again sooner rather than later.
