Report on Spring Game

The official UMass report is here . The Springfield Republican has a short article here . Matt Vautour will probably have an article later in the day. I'll post an update.

Update 1:44pm. Matty Vautour at the Hampshire Gazette (subscription required, but worth it) has his take here in an article about the scrimmage. One interesting bit of information is that UMass will be wearing Maroon Jerseys and White pants for home games and White Jerseys with Maroon pants for away games (same color combination as the National Championship year). I grew to like the all white road uni's but never warmed up to the all Maroon home outfits.

My take:

First, there has been some comment on the various message boards about the completion ratio of the passing game. In this scrimmage/exhibition, the main objective was to not get anyone injured. The UMass defense has a lot more than it showed.

Coach Brown said he only has seven Offensive Linemen and he definitely did not want any injuries from that group. Seven more OL recruits will join the UMass team in August.

The DNP list (unofficial and probably not complete):

• Patrick Powell--double knee surgery. Brown says he will be ready for August
• Matt Silver and John Hatchell
• Chris Koepplin---on crutches with his left knee wrapped

The best think UMass fans can take from the day was the play of the UMass wide receivers. J.J. Moore (broken foot) and Brandon London (broken bone in hand) seem totally recovered. Both them and Rasheed Rancher made acrobatic catches---causing the Minutemen fans in attendance to cheer. Those three wideouts are going to cause problems for a lot of teams this year.

Matt Lawrence seems totally recovered and Steve Baylark seemed a step faster than last year. UMass should be able to run a "thunder and lighting" ground attack in '06

On Defense, highly rated Sean Smalls was working as db in the first team defense. He was played out-of-position last year because of injuries to the WR corps.

UMass looks really deep at LB. Brown should have multiple packages to torment opposing offensives.

I nominate UMass Captain James Ihedigbo as the guy I'd most like to have on my side in a bar fight. He has a set of NFL muscles...