Akron fans haven’t been able to enjoy a bowl game featuring their team since 2017, when Terry Bowden led the program to the postseason. Unfortunately for Zips fans, the FBS’ fourth-longest bowl drought will continue until at least 2026.
The Zips have been handed a postseason ban for the 2025 season after posting a failing Academic Progress Rate score for 2023-24. Akron football posted a 914 multi-year APR score, below the 930 threshold required to remain eligible for postseason competition. The APR measurement is built to calculate how effectively universities keep their athletes on track to stay eligible and graduate academically.
Akron was handed practice reductions during the 2024 season as an initial punishment for poor APR, but failing to reach the mark in consecutive seasons led to the postseason ban. The Zips posted just a 920 APR for the 2023-24 school year.
The NCAA suspended APR eligibility requirements for a period following the pandemic due to reasonable interruptions to universities and athletics. However, they were brought back last year. Schools are judged for their athletes’ performance over a four-year timespan.
“Some teams encounter difficulties with achieving a 930 due to various challenges on campus, but we have resources and programs in place to offer academic support,” then-chair Robert Davies said when measurements were reintroduced in 2023.
Akron was one of only three football programs to hit a multi-year APR rate low enough to miss the postseaso across all of Division I. Mississippi Valley State and UAPB in the FCS ranks will also be ineligible for postseason play. Florida A&M, Missouri State, Murray State and Utah Tech all received practice time reductions for low APR rates.
According to Reddit CFB, there have only been four FBS teams to fail short of APR eligibility standards in the past decade. LSU and New Mexico State both fell below the 930 mark during the pandemic pause. Idaho was the last program to receive a postseason ban, and they later opted to reclassify to the FCS level.
Akron has gone 8-28 in three seasons under coach Joe Moorhead and has not recorded more than four wins since 2017. The program only has three bowl appearances in program history, two of which came under Bowden.
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