“After a bye week, the University of Akron football team will look to get back in the win column when they host the Ohio University Bobcats in the Homecoming game at InfoCision Stadium-Summa Field on Oct. 10. The Zips come into the weekend with a 1-3 record overall and an 0-1 record in the MAC Conference.”
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After a bye week, the University of Akron football team will look to get back in the win column when they host the Ohio University Bobcats in the Homecoming game at InfoCision Stadium-Summa Field on Oct. 10.

The Zips come into the weekend with a 1-3 record overall and an 0-1 record in the MAC Conference.

UA last played Sept. 26 at Central Michigan and lost 48-21.

Last week we did a lot of self-scout reevaluations and things, Zips head coach J.D. Brookhart said. We spent a lot of our time on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday doing good-on-good (one offense vs. one defense) work, trying to improve our tempo and pace of things, which I thought was productive.

The Zips will face an OU team that comes in with a 3-2 record overall and a 1-0 record in the MAC.

Last week, the Bobcats opened up MAC play with a win over the Bowling Green State University Falcons 44-37.

We began working on Ohio Sunday, technically, Brookhart said. We’ve looked at it and put our game plans together, but Sunday was really our first day of working on that piece of it.

The Bobcats sport a high-powered offense led by a senior trio at quarterback, running back and wide receiver.

Quarterback Theo Scott has completed 69 of 127 passes for 919 yards, nine touchdowns, and three interceptions. Scott has also rushed for one touchdown.

Running back Chris Garret has rushed 303 yards and two touchdowns, while wide receiver Taylor Price has 372 yards receiving and four touchdowns.

They consistently make big plays on offense, Brookhart said. They have great speed at receiver, a skat back that can break a big play and a good quarterback. Those combined is a great triple threat offense.

Price leads the wide receiving corps but is not alone.

Junior LaVon Brazill has 208 receiving yards and three touchdowns, junior Terrence McCrae has 186 receiving yards and two touchdowns, and sophomore Riley Dunlop 93 receiving yards and two touchdowns.

The Zips defense will oppose the OU offense. The defense is coming off a Central Michigan game that saw the Chippewas score 48 points.

We were disappointed greatly, Brookhart said. The offense put them in no position to have great success, but I have to credit Central Michigan’s Dan LeFevour and Antonio Brown.

They stretched the defense and it was hard to tackle LeFevour once he got going. Right now, the defense has a great attitude and they are disappointed in how they played and executed in that game, which is good. We are looking for much fewer mental errors this week.

Brookhart said he also thinks the Bobcat defense can cause problems for the Zips offense.

Defensively, they are very aggressive and run multiple sets and schemes, Brookhart said. They present a great challenge for us.

The Zip who will receive that challenge is sophomore quarterback Matt Rodgers.

Rodgers will be making is third career start Oct. 10 and has been inconsistent since being named the starter.

In his last start, Rodgers completed 12 0f 19 for just 127 yards and was sacked five times.

I think Matt Rodgers is a doing a pretty decent job given the circumstances right now, Brookhart said. He’s executing fairly well, throwing above a 60% clip and he can get better.

He’s doing everything he can to get better. He still made a couple of bad decisions here and there, but, for the most part, he’s trying to operate effectively.

The Zips running game will look to get going this week and take some pressure off of Rodgers.

The Zips still have not had a running back rush for over 100 yards on the season.

I think it is a combination of us needing to call the run more, possibly use play action more on first down, the health of our offensive line, the inconsistency of our running backs, as well as the health of the backfield, Brookhart said.

There is currently no one set problem that we can address to fix the problem.

The Zips will look to take a step in the right direction against the Bobcats. Kickoff is scheduled for 6 p.m.

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