Akron Football: Nowhere to go but up for the Zips in 2020

Question marks piling up on defense

Unlike his offensive counterpart, defensive coordinator Matt Feeney has far more question marks as to the talent available on his side of the ball. The Zips, like so many other teams, would have benefitted greatly from spring practices to sort out that side of the ball. Even with the loss of some key cogs, though, Akron still has hopes of attaining marginal improvement on that side of the ball in 2020.

Last year, Akron’s defense averaged about middle of the pack among MAC units. The Zips conceded just under 414 yards per game, though they did give up more than 36 points per outing to rank 11th among MAC schools. A solid corps of linebackers was able to stop teams at the second level, but they had to do too much work as the defensive line struggled to generate negative plays.

Teams were not especially explosive against the Zips in 2019, but they were able to take advantage of a seven-minute advantage in time of possession to wear down Akron’s defense and generate far more points than the Zips could muster when they had the ball.

Focusing on the linebackers

The biggest loss from the 2019 defense is undoubtedly the linebacker tandem of John Lako and Josh Ward. The duo rank tied for second in Akron defensive history with 50 games played for the Zips, and between them the defense loses a lot of experience.

Lako led the team last season and finished third nationally in total tackles, averaging 11.5 takedowns per game. Ward, coming off the edge at outside linebacker in Feeney’s scheme, finished with a quarter of Akron’s 10 total sacks as a team in 2019.

That puts a ton of pressure on Bubba Arslanian to pick up the slack and lead the linebackers in 2020. Arslanian finished in the top 10 nationally in total tackles last season, averaging more than 10 per game alongside Lako, and he will be the key cog in the position group. Look for guys like DeMarkus Glover and Brandon Bischof to step up their game as well.