Zips look to tame the Tigers
September 16, 2015
The Akron Zips football take looks to finally break into the win column for the first time in the 2015 season as they play host to the Savannah State Tigers at InfoCision Stadium this Saturday.
The Zips (0-2), who lost to Pitt, 24-7 last week, hope to mount more of an offensive attack than it has had the past two weeks. Akron will have to do that without the services of senior Kyle Pohl.
Pohl, who is dealing with a head injury he took last week’s game, has been ruled out for at least this week’s game. That means sophomore Tra’von Chapman will get his third start for the Zips, but Coach Terry Bowden commented that they will probably still use two quarterbacks in the game.
That means an opportunity for Thomas Woodson to get in some playing time. Woodson, a sophomore from Monroeville, Pennsylvania, started two games last year for the Zips while Pohl was injured.
Regardless of who is the quarterback, they need to engineer more offense for an Akron team that has a grand total of 336 yards and has only produced 10 points in two games.
As a team the Zips have rushed the ball 68 times for 185 yards for a meager 2.7 yards per carry. Leading rusher, Connor Hundley, had a third of his 68 yards for the season come on his 32-yard touchdown run in the Pitt game.
The combination of quarterbacks for Akron have 13 completions in 48 attempts, a dreadful 27 percent completion rate. A pass from Pohl to sophomore Jerome Lane of 42 yards accounts for more than one quarter of the 151 total passing yards accumulated by the Zips.
Savannah State (0-1) comes to Akron on the heels of a 65-13 loss to Colorado State on September 5 to extend their losing streak to 22 games. Their last victory came on September 14, 2013, a 27-20 against Fort Valley State.
The Tiger defense gave up 598 total yards in the loss to Colorado State but that does not mean this team will be a pushover. Savannah State returns 56 letter winners, including 14 starters, to their multiple offense and multiple defense.
On defense for Akron, Jatavis Brown has started the season off well individually with 3 and a half sacks in the two games to go along with 23 total tackles, second on the team. Dylan Evans leads Akron with 24 total tackles so far this season.
The defense must also find a way to create some turnovers against the Tigers, who fumbled five times in the game (but only lost one) against Colorado State and also threw an interception. The Zips have two takeaways on the young season.
This is the first match-up between the two teams. Kick-off is slated for noon on Saturday at InfoCision Stadium.