Men's soccer

The Zips new soccer coach is Caleb Porter, an assistant with Indiana, winner of two of the last three national championships. He was one of four finalists for the job. The Akron Beacon Journal's Tom Reed broke the story four minutes ago.

Porter was also the top assistant at Indiana. Once again, the athletic department hired a winner. I'm going out on a limb here, but I think next year's team can be just as good as this year's.

Here's the GoZips.com article that includes comment from Mack Rhoades, Porter and Indiana head coach Mike Freitag.

Former Indiana coach Jerry Yeagley said Porter is one of the best leaders and recruiters he's ever known. A big win for the athletic department.

Football

Josh Chichester verbally committed to play at Ohio State University-Columbus in July. Now that the Buckeyes haven't offered the receiver a scholarship, he is visiting Akron this weekend. He visited Louisville this week, but left there without committing to be a Cardinal.

Rivals.com ranks Chichester, from West Chester, Ohio, as the country's 36th best wide receiver. Scout.com gives him four stars and says he's the nation's 14th best receiver. Wow.

I am seeing a lot of interest from receivers in Akron this year. My guess is that it's because the Zips lost Jason Montgomery and Domenik Hixon to graduation.

• Also, the 100th best running back in the country, Aaris Reed from Maryland, has high interest in Akron. He was slated to visit campus today. If he commits, he will be the Zips only three-star recruit, as Scout.com calculates it. Strangely, Rivals.com, which usually is more liberal in giving out three-star rankings, rates Reed with two stars.
• Update: Reed has verballed with the Zips, according to Rivals.com. He chose Akron over Illinois, North Carolina, Marshall, Michigan State and Vanderbilt.
• Rivals.com also is listing an athlete from Florida as having committed. Avery Holley is a two-star player who runs a 4.4 40 and is 6-feet tall.
• This recruiting class could go from above average to Big 10 quality really quick.

Miscellaneous

I will interview Mack Rhoades in a couple weeks. I have several things to ask him. Do any of you have specific questions you would like answered? If so, post them in the comments section.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 27th, 2006 at 2:23 pm and is filed under Football, Men's Soccer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.