2023 Preview: Akron

In Joe Moorhead’s first year, he came in with an entirely new staff and only won 2 games, one of which was against St Francis. Even in that game, the odds were not in their favor and they only had a 15% post game win expectancy. The good news, if there is any, is that Akron played in 7 one-score games. The bad news: they only won 1 of them. Changing that in 2023 will be the focus of the staff in Moorhead’s second year. They still managed to go 7-5 against the spread, but they weren't favored in a single game, with the smallest spread being the Eastern Michigan game at home +6.5.

As you can see in the expected success rate chart, the offense and defense started to find it’s traction as the season went on and they got into conference play. QB DJ Irons also dealt with injuries throughout the season, so a fully healthy year may have possibly moved some of those 1 score losses into 1 score wins.

Offensively, Akron actually did some things decently. When you compare them to their conference and recruiting band which is near the bottom in the NCAA, they outperformed on a success rate and EPA/play basis. A large part of that was due to having good trench play and a pretty decent passing attack. The passing offense was really good on passing downs which tends to mean that they were able to keep drives alive, which is somewhat accurate when you look at how they ranked in Yards to Gain, but passing success and EPA/pass were also better than their peers. The run game likely needs to run more consistently and for explosive plays next year. They ranked high in rushing success, but underperformed most other metrics in the run game. No Akron RB even qualified for the WPC+ ranking which is a sign in itself. On the contrary, Alex Adams was the highest ranked WR in the conference based on WPC+ coming in at 114 (14% better than NCAA average) and Shocky Jacques-Louis was Top 10 in the conference in WPC+.

But the offense was hardly the culprit for Akron’s underperformance. The D was pretty poor, especially through the air. It was my 125th ranked D in the country and they ranked 9 out of 12 in the conference. The run D did some nice things down to down, but it wasn’t nearly enough for them to slow teams down through the air where they really struggled. The LB group ranked 125th by my metrics and the secondary ranked 106th. Both of those will need to improve if Akron wants to take the next step in 2023.

Offense

DJ Irons is back which is first and foremost, the most important thing here. He had a 66% completion percentage last year and added another 30 yards or so per game on the ground. He’s a playmaker and now in his senior season, should be poised to be a weapon for Akron, with health. If he can’t go, Jeff Undercufffler is back as a backup, which isn’t all that inspiring, but he got 200+ snaps last year so he is atleast serviceable. Add in that 73% of the targets are back, including Alex Adams and there is real opportunity for a breakout here in the passing game.

But this offense will only go so far if the run game doesn’t take a positive step forward and former 5 star running back Lorenzo Lingard transfering in may be the medicine it needs. Lingard will add to a RB room that only returns 48% of it's carreis from last year, so if healthy, he could finally be the bellcow. The last remaining puzzle piece for this offense is the offensive line.

It was a bit of a mishmash of a unit in 2022, but losing Sr Anthony Whigan as one of the two starters that departs, and quite frankly, that may be a positive. He was one of the worst graded OL on the team based on PFF. On the flipside, Nate Williams could be a budding star who played almost all of his snaps at right tackle and grades out very well. They’ll need to replace Whigan at guard, but otherwise, 3 of the 5 OL return. All together, the projected starting lineup will have 53 combined starts.

It's hard to see this offense not take a tangible step forward from being ranked 128th and 10 out of 12 in the conference, especially with Moorhead’s pedigree.

Defense

As mentioned, the defense posed the most challenges in 2022 and they really need to see some positive momentum in 2023 for this team to take the next jump. The LB and secondary were of the most concern, primarily the passing defense.

The good news is sophomore CB Tyson Durant and Freshman Darrian Lewis led the team in passes defended and were thrust into action when star DB Charles Amankwaa decided to only play 4 games and has now transferred to Rutgers. The Akron D will rely on those two guys continuing to improve and will certainly need the emergence of a few others at the DB position. Nate Thompson is a great tackler near the LOS at the strong safety position and KJ Martin also returns and was 4th on the team in tackles. Add in Rishad Hence hopefully taking the next step with Jaden Woods and you can star to see how this secondary has some experience.

Bubba Arslanian could be a force. He led the team with 129 tackles and was 2nd with 10.5 tackles for loss, and he returns. They will now rely on Andrew Behm who only played 219 snaps last year and will certainly need some underclassman to step up. One could be Corey Thomas Jr is the most talented player per recruiting metrics on this unit.

And the running defense that was better than you’d expect last year will have to content with losing 3 of the top 4 leaders in TFL and 2 of the top 3 in sacks. They hit the portal pretty hard to try and fill some gaps here and brought in Terray Jones from Tennessee St who has started over 30 games and Lama Lavea from New Mexico State. There is some pretty big concern on the defensive line. they only have 4 guys with starting experience.

Summary

I feel pretty confident the offense takes a step forward and if all else is equal, the defense can’t get that much worse. If they hold their ground or frankly just become a bit tougher to throw the ball all over, that should lead to opponents spending more time on the field which should up the opportunity for Akron to get stops (the contrary is opponents just hit long TDs). The out of conference schedule gives them two somewhat winnable games with Temple and Morgan State, and then as we know, anything can happen in conference play in the MAC. I expect Moorhead to have this program take a step forward. I’m not sure if that’s a bowl game, but I do think they may get close. I would peg them as a team to back and a team that trends towards Overs.