Ranking the Top 131 College Football Programs of the Last 40 Years: 121. Akron
If rankings were alphabetical, they'd be top 2
Akron, your time has come. You survived longer than I was expecting—when I first started following college football in 2009, you became one of the bottomfeeders in the sport. 24 of Akron’s 36 seasons have been 4-8 or better, which is actually respectable for a G5 school. The Zips played in one of my favorite stadiums ever, the Rubber Bowl, from 1940-2008, a quaint little arena that had one of the best names in college football. FivePoints Vids has a pretty good short documentary on it.
Best Seasons and Highlights
+------+-------+------+--------------+--------+
| rank | team | year | resume score | record |
+------+-------+------+--------------+--------+
| 35 | Akron | 1992 | 2.182 | 7-3-1 |
| 53 | Akron | 1999 | -7.473 | 7-4 |
| 58 | Akron | 2000 | -7.504 | 6-5 |
| 52 | Akron | 1989 | -8.271 | 6-4-1 |
| 69 | Akron | 2015 | -9.542 | 8-5 |
| 65 | Akron | 2003 | -11.97 | 7-5 |
| 72 | Akron | 2004 | -17.986 | 6-5 |
| 88 | Akron | 2017 | -19.281 | 7-7 |
| 81 | Akron | 2005 | -20.783 | 7-6 |
| 71 | Akron | 1988 | -22.091 | 5-6 |
| 89 | Akron | 2008 | -25.54 | 5-7 |
| 83 | Akron | 2006 | -25.673 | 5-7 |
| 91 | Akron | 2013 | -25.771 | 5-7 |
| 80 | Akron | 1993 | -27.927 | 5-6 |
| 95 | Akron | 2014 | -28.726 | 5-7 |
| 95 | Akron | 2016 | -29.361 | 5-7 |
| 80 | Akron | 1991 | -29.727 | 5-6 |
| 84 | Akron | 2002 | -30.335 | 4-8 |
| 91 | Akron | 2001 | -30.786 | 4-7 |
| 86 | Akron | 1990 | -31.246 | 3-7-1 |
| 85 | Akron | 1998 | -32.069 | 4-7 |
| 97 | Akron | 2007 | -33.461 | 4-8 |
| 87 | Akron | 1987 | -34.134 | 4-7 |
| 91 | Akron | 1996 | -35.132 | 4-7 |
| 113 | Akron | 2020 | -35.439 | 1-5 |
| 105 | Akron | 2018 | -36.871 | 4-8 |
| 108 | Akron | 2009 | -44.192 | 3-9 |
| 102 | Akron | 1997 | -50.419 | 2-9 |
| 101 | Akron | 1995 | -52.016 | 2-9 |
| 126 | Akron | 2022 | -52.398 | 2-10 |
| 119 | Akron | 2012 | -60.024 | 1-11 |
| 127 | Akron | 2021 | -63.676 | 2-10 |
| 118 | Akron | 2010 | -64.464 | 1-11 |
| 106 | Akron | 1994 | -68.342 | 1-10 |
| 120 | Akron | 2011 | -73.136 | 1-11 |
| 129 | Akron | 2019 | -82.226 | 0-12 |
+------+-------+------+--------------+--------+
Overall Score: -4268.28514 (121st)148-263-3 record
1 conference title
1-2 bowl record
1 consensus All-American
10 NFL players drafted
Akron’s 2005 MAC championship season doesn’t crack the top 5 best Akron teams. It was a great year, they’ve just had better teams on the field, and got some bounces their way to win that year. Akron is only the second team (UTEP being the other one) so far that has achieved at least 100 wins, 1 conference title, 1 bowl, 1 consensus All-American, and double digit NFL players drafted.
Top 5 Seasons
5. 2015 (8-5 overall, 5-3 MAC)
Bobby Bowden’s son, Terry, entered his 4th season as head coach of the team with his previous most recent FBS job being Auburn from 1993-98. Bowden had shown improvement his first three years, going from 1-11 to 5-7 to 5-7, and was a dark horse to make a bowl in 2015. They expectedly started the season 1-2, dropping games to #19 Oklahoma and Pitt while beating FCS Savannah State. They’d head to Lafayette to play UL Lafayette who was coming off back to back 9-4 seasons and were 6.5 point favorites, but Akron would shock them 35-14 to set the tone for the rest of the year. Led by MAC DPOTY Jatavis Brown, they ranked 23rd in the nation with 21.5 allowed PPG. After starting 3-5 they’d win their last 4, giving up just 15.5 PPG in that stretch. Three other defenders aside from Brown would make the All-MAC team, and Akron earned their 2nd bowl appearance since 1976. They’d beat Utah State 23-21 to finish 8-5 and ranked #69 (nice) overall in my algorithm.
4. 1989 (6-4-1 overall)
Like 2015, Akron entered with a 4th year head coach, this time with former Notre Dame coach Gerry Faust. Akron president William Muse hired Faust in 1985, wanting the program to have “instant credibility” when it moved up from Division 1-AA to 1-A in 1987. Now in their 3rd season in the FBS, momentum was building under Faust coming off 4-7 and 5-6 seasons. Akron hadn’t yet joined the MAC, so they were Independent at a time when being an Independent was all the rage (#1 Miami (FL), #2 Notre Dame, and #3 Florida State were all independent). They’d play teams around the country and even went 0-1-1 against 1-AA teams, falling 21-17 to FCS #20 Eastern Illinois and tie 31-31 with FCS #17 Murray State. Not much to write home about this year win-wise, but a 6-4-1 season was impressive for Akron. Future NFL kicker Daron Alcorn only went 5/16 on FGs in his freshman season, truly an impressive statistic.
3. 2000 (6-5 overall, 5-3 MAC)
The 2000 Akron team was a pretty notable team for multiple reasons; what the team did on the field, what the players did on the field, and what the players did in their careers. Akron had a streaky year, starting 0-2, improving to 4-2, falling to 4-5, then finishing 6-5. They finished in a 4-way tie for the MAC East title at 5-3 in-conference, but Marshall got the tiebreaker from a close 31-28 win over Akron late in the year. DB Dwight Smith was the star of the team, with a whopping 10(!) interceptions, 2 going back for TDs, along with a fumble return for TD. He is Akron’s only ever consensus All-American. RB Brandon Payne led with 1261 yards and 16 TD from scrimmage, and WR Lavel Bailey led with 876 yards and 8 TD. WR2 Jake Schifino would finish with 778 and be drafted in the 5th round in the 2002 NFL draft. Smith would be drafted in the 3rd round by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after the season, and became the only player in Super Bowl history to have 2 pick sixes in a game, coming in Super Bowl XXXVII against Rich Gannon and the Oakland Raiders. Finally, freshman WR Matthew A. Cherry would go on to become the school’s all time leading receiver and would also win an Academy Award in 2019 as the director of a short film, Hair Love, which has 97 million views on YouTube.
2. 1999 (7-4 overall, 5-3 MAC)
The precusor team to 2000 was only slightly better, with a 7-4 overall record and ranked 53rd in my rankings. Players were good, but not as good yet. For example, RB Brandon Payne only had 959 yards from scrimmage. Dwight Smith only had 2 interceptions. Only Lavel Bailey, who caught 42 passes for 941 yards and 9 TD, stood out compared to the next year. Bailey was the star of this team, accounting for almost 50% of the team’s receiving yards and averaging 22.4 yards per catch. He also averaged a touchdown on every 5th catch. The Zips spoiled Navy’s homecoming on October 23rd, starting down 23-0 before coming back to win 35-29 and improving to 6-2 on the year. Akron would only win 1 of their last 3, and finish 7-4 while missing a bowl. Still, their second best season since returning to Division 1-A.
1. 1992 (7-3-1 overall, 5-3 MAC)
And like pretty much every program we’ve gone over so far, there’s a standout year. The difference between Akron’s 1st and 2nd best seasons according to my algorithm is larger than the difference between their 2nd and 6th best. They started by dispatching Eastern Michigan 27-9 in the season opener, then beating Toledo (who finished 8-3 on the year) 23-20. They’d keep alternating wins/losses, then finished strong in the final 4 weeks. Entering week 8 at 4-3, they’d go 3-0-1 in their last four to finish 7-3-1 on the season and 3rd in the MAC. DBs Chris Owens and Victor Green led a defense that gave up just 16.9 PPG, and had 7 and 6 interceptions, respectively. QB Marcel Green’s stats were a microcosm of the absolute state of quarterbacking in 1992, throwing for 1383 yards 5 TD 10 INT. He did add 754 yards and 7 TD on the ground, though. Akron would struggle the rest of Gerry Faust’s tenure, hamstrung by the school’s small budget, and wouldn’t have another winning season until 1999.
5th Quarter
Brace yourselves, the Ohio teams are coming. It feels like there’s 100 of these small Ohio schools, and we’ve already seen Kent State and Akron.
Ranking the Top 131 College Football Programs of the Last 40 Years - Main Hub
