Brayden Roggow walked into his first career start Saturday and, for a half, handled it. He completed 14 of 25 passes for 194 yards and pushed Akron to 227 first-half yards and a 14-10 halftime deficit against UNLV. Then the second half arrived. It brought two interceptions, no touchdowns, and pressure he could not get out from under. Jordan Gant added a third turnover when his trick-play pass was intercepted with a receiver left open. Akron lost 38-10 at home, outscored 24-0 after halftime and held to 74 total yards, and fell to 1-3.
Roggow started because nobody else could. Cibastian Broughton was dealing with an ankle injury, and Reese Poffenbarger remained sidelined by an unresolved NCAA eligibility issue. None of it was the plan. Akron came into 2026 needing to replace Ben Finley, who threw 362 of the team's 404 attempts last season for 2,475 yards and 19 touchdowns; Roggow's entire 2025 body of work was 17 passes. Poffenbarger was supposed to be the bridge, he led the FCS with an Albany-record 3,603 yards and 36 touchdowns in 2023, but he has attempted only 14 passes at the top level since, across two seasons at Miami and North Texas. Even if his paperwork clears this week, that is not a plug-and-play solution.
The Central Michigan trip
Akron plays at Central Michigan on Saturday, Oct. 3, 3:30 p.m. ET on ESPN+, and it is the MAC opener for both teams. The model gives Akron a 9% chance, which is the honest number for a 1-3 road team that scored nothing at all in the second half of its last game.
Here is the part Akron fans should hold onto. The Zips beat this same Central Michigan team 28-22 last October at home, building a 28-13 lead through three quarters before surviving a fourth-quarter push. That was with Finley. And Central Michigan arrives wobbling. Its run game was held to just 21 rushing yards on 25 carries at Miami. Neither team is arriving in good shape.
Watch the third quarter harder than the first. Akron's problem this season has been the half after halftime, and whoever takes the first snap has to still be moving the offense after the break. Roggow at least showed he can operate an offense; what he has not shown is that he can survive a defense that has adjusted. Jordan Gant, who rushed for 1,032 yards in 2025 for Akron's first 1,000-yard season since Dennis Kennedy in 2008, needs to be carrying this offense rather than throwing passes on it.
Why the record still matters
The postseason ban is gone, and six wins puts Akron in a bowl. That is the whole point of this season. But the math now runs entirely through eight MAC games, and MAC coaches picked Akron 10th of 13 in the preseason with 52 poll points and no championship-game votes. A projection the first month did nothing to contradict. The simulations project roughly 1.1 conference wins.
Akron does not need to win at Mount Pleasant to keep a realistic season alive; the games against Eastern Michigan at home and at Kent State are the ones where the model gives the Zips actual footing. But a competitive road loss with a functional second half would tell Akron fans something true about this team, and a repeat of the UNLV pattern would tell them something else.
Full details are in the interactive guide, and the forecasting approach is explained in the methodology.