2005 Footbal Season outlook is out

The UMass Preseason Outlook is out. See it here . It's not very different from my blogs of 07/24 and 07/25.

Technical note on this blog. The longest thread in the support area is how to make blogger point to a previous post. Most bloggers cannot get that feature to work. I’m one of them. I’ve changed the archiving to a weekly period, which is probably more inline with football anyway. But to get to an earlier blog, the only thing I can do at this time is to link to a specific week and then the reader will have to scroll to find what he or she is looking for.

But I digress…

On the Outlook the big subplot is who’s going to be quarterback... The press release leaves the question open. Tim Day was the starter last year. He had good stats, throwing for the 5^th best totals in UMass history. However, the Offense went through a dry period during the middle of the season where we only scored 21 points over three games (Delaware, B.C. and James Madison). Day was effectively a red-shirt freshman. He started two games in 2003 when starter Jeff Krohn suffered a concussion. UMass lost both games.

The Fanzone Blog still believes he’ll start over redshirt freshman Liam Coen. Day had mono in the spring and played only sparingly in the Spring Game . Coen, on the other hand looked really sharp throwing 13-18 for 185 yards. Taylor Humphrey had a stellar prep career at Miramonte High School in CA (check his high school stats in the UMass bio). However, he injured a shoulder in the spring and was ineffective in the Spring Game.

This Blog opines that Day will start under the lights against Richmond. However, if the Offense hits a dry spell like last year, I think Coen will be given his chance quickly.

Unless Humphrey catches fire when practice opens on 08/07/05, I think he’ll have to wait a year to be in the mix.

The only other new tidbit in the Outlook is that RJ. Cobbs (former A10 Rookie-of-the-Year), Steve Costello and UConn transfer Matt Lawrence will be handling the PR and KR duties. UMass lost B.C. transfer Nathanael Hasselbeck, who is not with the team this year. So UMass will have all new punt and kickoff return men.