Click here to subscribe today or Login.
All of the signs point to mounting pressure. J.D. Brookhart insists that it isn’t so.
Entering his sixth season as Akron’s coach, there’s nonetheless plenty of evidence that Brookhart and the Zips are looking to make a name for themselves in 2009.
Brookhart himself has just one bowl game and a 27-33 record to show for his first five seasons at Akron since leaving his post as Pitt’s offensive coordinator.
On the plus side, he has collected the program’s only league title (2005) and has also scored road wins over North Carolina State (2006) and Syracuse (2008) for his resume.
But 2009 isn’t a typical season for this Mid-American Conference program.
Akron is moving into a sparkling new facility – 30,000-seat InfoCision Stadium – which officially opens next Saturday after the Zips get back from their opening-week trip to Penn State. And Brookhart now has a new boss in Tom Wistrcill, who takes over as athletic director later this month.
In his season-opening press conference on Monday, Brookhart tried to keep an even keel about the situation.
“Your goal is to win every game, every week,” Brookhart said. “From that aspect, I don’t think there’s any additional pressure. Every week you feel the same urgency regardless of whether you’re first year, second year, new stadium, old stadium, no stadium. That’s why you’re in this profession – you love to compete. So I think it’s the same old story. We set out to win this week.”
Publicly, Brookhart will likely keep that stance all season long. He knows, however, that this season is clearly not like every other for the Zips.
That’s why he made two significant changes on his coaching staff this offseason, bringing in Walt Harris, his former head coach at Pitt, and Shane Montgomery, who was head coach at MAC rival Miami (Ohio).
Harris is listed as an assistant head coach, passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Montgomery’s title is offensive coordinator.
Between the three of them, they hope to put together an attack that can win the MAC East and have the Zips contending for another championship.
Helping matters is an experienced group that features seven seniors projected to start on offense.
That includes quarterback Chris Jacquemain, who enters his third season at the helm.
“He’s got a good arm and he gets the ball out quick,” Penn State linebacker Sean Lee said. “He seems like a good leader for them. He’s pretty precise, and he’s been big for them.”
Jacquemain has plenty of familiar targets to throw to, including his top three receivers from last year – seniors Andre Jones, Deryn Bowser and Jeremy Bruce.
Another senior, Alex Allen, returns from a painful hip injury to start at tailback. His backup is former Lakeland star Joe Tuzze, who helped lead the Chiefs to three straight District 2 Class 2A titles earlier this decade.
“I feel very good about this football team,” Brookhart said. “I think that the chemistry piece is good, the character is very good and we’ve got some experience. So I feel good about the team. We got through camp and it was fairly competitive. It’s always tough to tell, but I know it wasn’t a one-sided affair with either offense or defense shutting the other one down. It was a very competitive camp.”