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Zips prepare for season opener at Penn State

Do you remember the 1960’s television show MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE?

At the start of every show when Peter Graves would go to some location and relieve the audiotape, that would self destruct in five seconds after it was played, along with the photos of who the IMF team would be going up against.

Well, fast forward to August, 2009 in the office of Akron Zips head Coach J.D. Brookhart getting a DVD on his desk and putting into his personal computer.

The voice on the DVD saying ‘Good Morning coach Brookhart… Your mission if you decide to accept it is to face the Penn State Nittany Lions on Saturday afternoon at Beaver Stadium” then showing pictures of the stadium along with head coach Joe Paterno and quarterback Darryl Clark.

The Zips (5-7, 3-5 MAC in 2008) made the trip to ‘ Happy Valley’ three other occasions. Penn State won each contest, but Akron had become more competitive since their 70-24 mauling by the Lions in 1999.

Their last visit came in 2006 when, in the rain, they came back from a 17-0 deficit in the second quarter to 17-9 midway through the third quarter. Then Penn State scored 17 unanswered points to pull away with a 34-16 victory.

As they prepare for the 2009 season opener, they have had their entire training camp inside their new home, InfoCision Stadium.

“I think we had a productive training camp” Brookhart said. “We shortened some things up due to the fact that we haven’t gone into the past two seasons at full strength”

The Zips offensively will be led by senior quarterback Chris Jacquemain. The native of Mentor, Ohio was the full-time starter last season and completed 57.9 percent of his passes (231-for-399) for 2748 yards with 20 touchdowns. He has thrown at least one scoring toss in 12 of his last 13 games dating back to the end of the 2007 season.

He also threw 14 including three games where he threw three of more ( Ball State, Akron, and Temple).

Coming into 2009, Jacquemain ranks among the top six in all-time Akron records for passing yards (4,371-fourth), career passing touchdowns (31-fourth), pass completions (385-fourth), pass attempts (674), and in total offense (4,371).

One key to the success of Jacquemain in 2009 could be the addition of two new coaches to the Zips Staff. Former Miami head coach Shane Montgomery is the new offensive coordinator while former Pittsburgh and Stanford head man Walt Harris is the new quarterbacks coach and coordinates the passing game.

“The experience between those two is pretty overwhelming” Brookhart remarked. “They (Montgomery and Harris) are two very good professionals, and what they bring is a wealth of experience and it’s a huge value to our offense”

When asked about the team coming into the season opener on Saturday, Brookhart said ‘I feel very good about this football team. I think the chemistry piece is good. The character is very good and we’ve got some experience so I feel good about the team”

Their opponents Saturday afternoon have high aspirations seemingly every year.

Last season the Nittany Lions went 11-2 overall, and 7-1 in the Big Ten tied with Ohio State, but their 13-6 win over the Buckeyes in Columbus last November gave them the tiebreaker and a visit to the Rose Bowl against Southern California.

Penn State brings back five starters on offense, including quarterback Darryl Clark and running back Evan Royster and four on defense.

When asked about the Lions, Brookhart remarked “I look at three things; the quarterback/running back combination (Clark & Royster) which is pretty impressive...When you look at the whole front seven defensively that is a solid group.”

Next week, the Zips play their first ever game at InfoCision Stadium against the Morgan State Bears. But first things first they have this Saturday to contend with.

And no the DVD did not self destruct in five seconds after Coach Brookhart took it out of his PC.

NOTES: The game is the fourth lifetime in the series (Penn State leads 3-0)…Game will be televised on the Big Ten Network…Akron is 1-18 lifetime against the Big Ten (lone victory came in 1894 when then Buchtel College and coached by John W. Heisman defeated Ohio State 12-6…The Zips have opened on the road in five of the last six seasons (the only other time was 2007 when they were the home team against Army at Cleveland Browns Stadium)…Zips RB Alex Allen and Nittany Lions QB Darryl Clark were teammates at Youngstown’s Ursuline High School…Akron is 57-48-5 in season openers (18-25-1 on the road)…Zips have 17 players from the State of Pennsylvania on their current roster…Akron will have three captains for the 2009 season (C Elliott Bates-Offense, LB Mike Thomas-Defense, ROVER Amin Kabir-Special teams)…Penn State is 101-19-2 in season openers (have won 16 of their last 18)…Nittany Lions are 49-5-1 lifetime against the MAC...12-1 against MAC schools in Ohio…their last loss to a MAC school was 2000 by Toledo…Head Coach Joe Paterno is 39-1 lifetime against the MAC…Seven players on current Penn State roster comes from the State of Ohio…The game marks the beginning of Beaver Stadium’s 50 th season and Paterno’s 60 th at Penn State (16 as assistant coach – 44 as head coach)