Three touchdowns in the span of 4 minutes early in the first quarter made Akron's opening game comfortable. They easily beat the Howard Bison 41-0 while quarterback Kyle Pohl had a great start to the season.

Kyle Pohl started early with a 57-yard touchdown pass to L.T. Smith to give Akron a 7-0 lead. A Howard fumble inside their own 20 yard line was recovered by the Zips' C.J. Mizell. Two plays later, Pohl found Imani Davis from 9 yards out to make it 14-0. On Akron's third drive, Pohl threw a 43-yard touchdown pass to Mykel Traylor-Bennett. The first three drives for Akron took a total of 5 plays and resulted in a 21-0 lead.

The offense continued to do well, but did not have any points to show for it on their fourth drive. On 4th and 1 from the Howard 3, the Zips went for it, but Pohl's pass was incomplete. The next possession resulted in a 25 yard missed field goal by Tom O'Leary.

Akron got on the board again in the 3rd quarter when Jawon Chisholm ran for a 6-yard touchdown. Pohl found Traylor-Bennett from 28 yards out for their second hookup of the night. The Zips ended the scoring with Tommy Woodson hitting Austin Wolf for a 40-yard touchdown pass.

Pohl finished the game going 22 of 35 with 304 yards and 4 touchdowns. He also ran for 48 yards on 7 carries, which led the team. Traylor-Bennett had 4 catches for 89 yards and 2 touchdowns. L.T. Smith had 5 catches for 74 yards and 1 touchdown while Austin Wolf caught 3 passes for 70 yards and 1 touchdown.

Terry Bowden will not be happy about the kicking game, as O'Leary missed a field goal and had an extra point blocked. The defense did well giving up only 216 yards of offense and only allowing 3 of 18 third down conversions.

Howard's Greg McGhee finished the game going 12 of 26 with only 68 yards passing. He also had 29 yards rushing. Terrance Tusan led the team, and game, in rushing with 60 yards.

Howard travels to Rutgers next week, a game they will surely have a similar fate in as they did on Thursday night. Meanwhile, Akron has a tough trip of their own to Happy Valley and Penn State.