Akron Football: Can Zips show progress in critical 2021 season?

Can Akron Football show enough improvement in head coach Tom Arth’s third season?

Akron Football has long struggled to be a relevant program, even in the MAC conference. There was a surprising division title in 2017 under former head coach Terry Bowden, but there has just not been enough success for this program at any point in their history.

Tom Arth was hired away from UT-Chattanooga two seasons ago after a very successful run, but he has yet to replicate his success with the Akron football program.

The MAC only played a six game schedule in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and like most programs around the country, it is hard to know what to takeaway from a season like 2020.

The one positive thing that did happen for the Zips in 2020 was that they got their first win under Arth and it came against their rival Bowling Green (who somehow managed to be even worse than Akron). The Zips will be looking to make it two in a row against Bowling Green this season, in what should be one of their more winnable games of 2021.

Arth has been a good program builder and is a well respected coach on both levels and that is evident by the rumors that Arth was close to joining the LA Chargers coaching staff this past offseason.

Arth helped turn around his alma mater, John Carroll University and then had good success as the head coach at UT Chattanooga before taking the job at Akron.

Arth needs to show some progress this year and there are some winnable games and the possibility exists for the Zips to get to the three or four win mark, which would be a good step in the right direction. For that to happen, there is going to have to be improvement on both sides of the ball.