Recruiting 2007---- Walter Fallas

UMass is recruiting Walter Fallas a 6-3 240 pd LB from Everett, MA with a 4.8 forty. The Boston Herald has a story here .

He was a member of the Herald's Dandy Dozen .

Walter, hope you choose UMass --- the best defensive team in the East!

Hatchell Brothers play big for UMass

Celeste Whittaker has an article in Cherry Hill Courier-Post about the Hatchell brothers. The article includes two nice images of the Hatchells.

Senior DE John Hatchell 6-2 270 has been a two year starter for the Minutemen on the defensive line. Last year he had 14UT 22 At 36TT 1-7 sacks 5.5-23 TFL

His brother Jason Hatchell 6-0 224 has started the last two years at LB. He had a breakout year in 2005 43UT 65AT 111TT 1-7 sacks and 1 PBU.

The above image is by David Moler. The Springfield Republican has a image gallery of the UMass-Stony Brook game here .

Thursday Odd & Ends

The image to the left is by David Molan from the Springfield Republican. Nick Friedell of the Orlando sentinel has a nice article about Steve Baylark here.

Matt Dougherty has his weekly state-of-IAA "Extra Point" here .

One nice thing about a bye week is that we can sit back and watch A10 rivals beat up on each other.

The A10 has gameday details for the three A10 matchups here .
Of particular note is the game between future UMass opponents Hofstra and William & Mary (next home game Oct 7th). The Odds Guy Keeper has that game as about even .

That game is on A10 TV. In the words of the press release the game will be "aired live on Comcast SportsNet in Philadelphia, Comcast SportsNet D.C., Fox SportsNet New York, and WSGR in Winston-Salem, NC. In addition, the contest will be aired on tape delay Saturday on Cox 3 in Rhode Island (3:30pm) and College Sports Television (5:00pm)"

CSTV is available on Dish Network channel 152 for anyone wanting to do some scouting.

UPDATE: Bruce Dowd has his weekly A10 newsletter A10 Den up .

UMass History --- The 1960 team

The 1960 UMass Football team was honored during halftime. The 1960 team was the first UMass team (of 17 UMass league champion teams) to win the Yankee Championship.

According to the game program, present at the game were: Chuck Studley (Head Coach), Tom Delnickas (Captain) John Burgess (Captain), John Bamberry, Roger Benvenuti, Ed Bumpus, Vin Caputo, Armand Caraviello, Jack Conway, Jerry Cullen, Bob Foote, Ed Forbush, Dave Harrington, John Harnett, Al Hedlund, Dick Hoss, Ken Kezer, Tom Kirby, Joe Long, Sam Lussier, Paul Majeski, John McCormick, John Morgan, Wayne Morgan, John Murphy, Art Perdigao, George Pleau, Mike Salem, Carmen Scarpa and Doug Wood (hopefully, I didn't garble any names)

Bob Foote T and John McCormick QB were All-Yankee Conference First Team.

Ken Kezer led the team in rushing 88-408 5.2 yards/carry 5TD

John McCormick was 42-86-682, .488 ave, 4/5 TD/INT 119.2 Eff

The 1960 team went 7-2

• Maine W 21-13
• AIC W 7-6
• Harvard W 27-12
• UConn L 0-31
• Rhode Island W 34-16
• Northeastern W 7-0
• Boston U L 7-20
• New Hampshire W 35-15
• Springfield College W 35-8

Nice to see the 1960 team being honored!

Special teams strong in 2006

The Springfield Republican has an article about UMass kicker Chris Koepplin. His 48 yarder against Stony Brook was the third longest in UMass history.

1. 52 Sandro Vitiello (BC 1978)
2. 52 Dennis Gagnon (UNH 1971)
3. 48 Chris Koepplin (Stony Brook 2006)

Special teams have been strong for UMass this year. UMass leads the nation in kick returns . Courtney Robinson had 2 returns for 44 yards against Stony Brook. Overall, UMass has had 11 returns 334 yards 30.4 ave.

J.J. Moore does most of the punt returns. He had 2-68 against Stony Brook. Overall we have 12 punt returns for 121 yards 10.1 ave.

Stony Brook Wrap up

UMass has it's Stony Brook game info here .

Stony Brook has its wrap-up here .

The Springfield Republican has a nice two-page article . The Boston Globe has an article here .

Matt Dougherty has his weekly state-of-I-AA Extra Point here .

UPDATE: Matty Vautour has two articles in today's Hampshire Gazette (registration required, but worth it). A game article here . And a article on the Coen-to-Rasheed Rancher connection .

UMass-Stony Brook Images

As usual, Blogger displays a larger view of the image if you right click on it.

The game was 42-0 with about three minutes left in the second quarter. It could have been 84-7 if UMass had wanted.

Good game for the UMass special teams. UMass only threw 8 passes in the first half and two in the second.

Good win for UMass and an excellent time to go into the bye week.

UMass Defense plots

UMass Cheerleaders

Baylark looks ahead

Don't even think about it!

Still running!

Baylark scores one of his three TDs

Chris Koepplin was perfect for the day

Koepplin was perfect on extra points and hit two LONG field goals in the second half

Coen had another great day

James Ihedigbo pressures Josh Dudash

Don't run against the UMass Defense

Fullback E.J. Barthel

The 1960 UMass Football squad was honored at half-time

The 1960 UMass team was the first team in UMass history to win the Yankee Conference Championship!

Tony Nelson Runs

Scott Woodward quarterbacked the second half

Joe Sanford hands off to Justin Montgomery

Final Score

Game Day!

Well, soon it will be time to start making our way down from New Hampshire to McGuirk Stadium.

Weather looks like a repeat of the first home game------cloudy with showers.

Stony Brook has its game notes up here . The Springfield Republican has a game day story here .

Matt Vautour of the Hampshire Gazette has a story about the UMass stable of running backs (registration required)

The Springfield Republican has a story about the UMass brothers Jason Hatchell and John Hatchell here .

Coen win New England Gold Helmet Award

UMass' Liam Coen has won the New England Gold Helmet award for the top performance in I-AA.

The UMass announcement is here. The Boston Herald has an article here.

So far this season Coen is 49-76 3 INT 7TD 64.5% (tops in the A10) 654 yards 218.0 yds/game 150.6 passing efficiency.

In the A10 Coen is

• 1st in completion average
• 3rd in pass efficiency
• 3rd in passing average per game and 3rd in total offense 213.3 yrds per game.

These are pretty good stats considering the tough teams UMass has played. Look for Coen and UMass to add to their stats in the next couple of home games. The A10 stat page is here .

Thursday Morning Odds & Ends

There are several articles covering UMass' Saturday meeting with stony Brook.

Matt Dougherty has his weekly state-of-I-AA article Extra Point-Week Four .

Bruce Dowd's A10 Den article is up .

I wanted to make sure you did not miss the quote from Andy Talley after his troops lost to UMass last week.

"I've been in this league for a long time, and that's as good a team as I've seen," said Talley, who is in his 22d season at Villanova. ``I really feel they're a Final Four team. They can win the whole thing."

That quote is included in this article from the Boston Globe.

Finally, remember to listen to Coach Brown's radio show via the internet feed tonight at 7:00 pm.

A look as Stony Brook

UMass has some HTML game notes up here. Full pdf notes are here .

Stony Brook, as you know has committed to upgrading their program to a full 63 scholarships and leaving the NEC Conference to go independent.

The Seawolves may want to reconsider leaving the Northeast Conference as fellow members Albany and CCSU have been tearing up I-AA lately. Albany beat A10 power Delaware before 22,000 stunned Hens fans at the Tub last week. CCSU beat I-AA power Georgia Southern and earned its first ever top 25 ranking last week.

Stony Brook has a killer schedule this year. They play three A10 teams. Albany, #1 UNH and #9 UMass.
The results so far:

1. L 17-8 Hofstra
2. L 7-0 Georgetown
3. L 62-7 New Hampshire

The results are not unexpected with the Seawolves only up to 27 scholarships. The Seawolves defense has been stout, holding Hofstra scoreless in the first half. Georgetown only managed one score. The UNH offense, the best in I-AA, ran over them last week.

It is the Seawolf offense that is not yet competitive at this level. The offense line features four new starters. The Seawolves have only managed 231 yards/game and have only scored 15 points in three games. Their QB Josh Dudash is 28-49-0 261 yards 1 TD with a poor 108.62 efficiency rating. The season Seawolf stats are here .

Matt Dougherty of the Sports Network has UMass by 38-6.

The odds guy Keeper has UMass by 41.

UMass three-for-three in A10 player-of-the-week awards

UMass has played three games. UMass players have won three A10 Player-of-the-week awards.

• Liam Coen won Offensive Player-of-the-week last week
  
• James Ihedigbo won Defensive Player-of-the-week for the Navy game
• Christian Koegel won Special Teams Player-of-the-week for the Colgate game.
  

Coen wins A10 Offensive Player-of-the-Week

sophomore QB Liam Coen 6-2 205 won the A10 Offensive Player-of-the-Week Award. The UMass article is here .

Ron Chimelis of the Springfield Republican has an article about Coen in today's paper.

The UMass Daily Collegian has an article about the return of Brandon London in the Villanova game.

In the Villanova game Coen went 28-21-0 350 yards 2TD. For the year, he has a 150.57 efficiency rating and has completed 64.5% of his passes. The yearly UMass stats are here.

Brad Listori helps the UMass short passing game

Rutgers transfer Brad Listori TE 6-4 245 has made an impact on the UMass offense.

Against Villanova he had four catches for 49 yards and a TD

Overall this year he has 7 catches for a 11.3 yards/catch and is tied for third in overall number of receptions.

For a number of years UMass has lacked a short passing game. We either threw it downfield or to a running back. Having a pass catching TE is going to make a difference in the UMass offence.

Whew! Glad to get out of Villanova!

When I looked at the 2006 schedule back last spring I knew the Villanova game had bad Ju-Ju written all over it. Vince DiGregorio of the Springfield Republican has an article here.

First of all, the trio of games UMass opened its season were all tough games.

• Navy is undefeated and only three wins from being bowl eligible.
• Colgate is still my pick to be Patriot league champion.
• And Villanova is in a class of its own for bad karma.

The UMass-Villanova all-time record is (after Saturday) tied 11-11. Of those 22 games only five have been won by the visiting team. Andy Talley has never won in Amherst. Prior to the current UMass three game win streak, the Minutemen had lost 9 out of ten at Villanova Stadium.

Then there is the "I-A hangover". I-AA teams make a heroic effort against a I-A team and then play flat against their regular competition. Take a look at Montana State. They beat Colorado in one of the greatest wins ever by a I-AA team. Then lost their next two game against a DII team and a 0-45 rout at home. Willian & Mary played a tough game against Maryland, then lost a A10 game to Maine.

The win against the Wildcats should put UMass into the by week at 3-1. That a whole lot better than starting off the A10 slate with a loss.

UPDATE: Matty Vautour of the Hampshire Gazette in his UMass Sports Blog also discusses UMass' schedule so far. Right now, it looks like the November 4th game against UNH is going to be one of the best in the nation...

Sunday morning reading

I'll be back with some thoughts on UMass' win over Villanova later today.

For your Sunday morning reading:

From the UMass side

• The Springfield Republican is here .
• The Hampshire Gazette is here (registration required, but worth it)
• The Boston Globe is here .
• The UMass Athletic Dept is here
  
• The Boston Herald is here .

From the Villanova side

• The Villanova Athletic Dept is here .
• The Delaware Times is here .
  

Remember live internet feed from UMass and CN8

Remember you can get the game over the internet. UMass will be forwarding the video feed from CN8. Click on the "Watch Live" link here (UMass site).Don't know if the feed from the UMass site will have the UMass audio feed of Bob Behler and Matt Goldstein.

The UMass audio will be better. Behler and Goldstein won their second consecutive "Best Play-by-Play" honors from the Associated Press award in 2005.

Game Day Articles

Matty Vautour has an article in the Hampshire Gazette . Registration required but worth it.

The Springfield Republican has an article here.

The Villanova Rivals site has a game day article by Bob Phillips here .

The Daily Progress has an article about Brandon London and today's game with Villanova.

A Maryland paper has an article on UMass Senior cornerback Tracey Belton relating to the Navy game.

More UMass-Villanova stuff

Not a lot on the wires right now.

The Springfield Republican has a game article here.

This is a cool feature. It's an interactive Villanova depth chart (should be useful while watching the internet video feed from CN8 via the UMass site). If you use Firefox as your browser, then you can have depth chart on one tab and the video feed on another and switch back and forth as needed...

Don't forget Coach Brown's Radio show tonight

Don't forget to tune in to Coach Brown's radio show tonight at 7:00pm

Listen via the internet here .

We need a win at Villanova!

Last year we played an emotional game against Army and lost by a close score.

The next game was against Hofstra and we were flat as the man in this kid's drawing. That loss knocked us out of the playoffs.

This year, we again played a great effort against Navy and came up short. Will UMass have another subpar performance against Villanova?

If we loose to Villanova, we will start the season 1-2. We still have to play UNH and other tough A10 teams. UMass could be again "the best team not to make the playoffs". We need this one.

Andy Talley just challenged his players to get mean.

Matt Dougherty has us winning in his weekly I-AA review.

The odds guy Keeper has UMass by 14.

Hopefully, the UMass seniors will have UMass ready to play. If not, the 2006 season could be again be in trouble.

UPDATE: Bruce Dowd has his weekly A10 column A10 Den up. Note that he spends a lot of time talking about emotion. Lots of UMass stuff.

UMass-Villanova Game notes up

Both sides have their game notes up.

• Villanova notes html
• Villanova note pdf (19 pages)
• UMass notes html
• UMass notes pdf

NOTE: Since we will be in a three year cycle of playing Villanova, I've added a link to the 'Nova Rivals site in the "Other I-AA Schools sidebar list"

UMass band at Navy & Flyover

The UMass Marching Band wowed the Navy Fans. See this thread from the Navy Message Board. I took the shuttle back to the Park-and-Ride lot. While I was getting organized, two Navy fans came over to say that they loved the UMass band.

Also the Navy flyover was a FLYOVER. The two S-3's looked to be about 150 feet up. Below is an image from the Navy Rival's site picture gallery by Ed Kujat.

KAEO Former UMass FB Peter Cariello

The Journal-News has a nice article about former Minuteman fullback Peter Cariello.

The UMass Collegian has an article about the play that ended his career .

The image is a scan from the 2000 UMass Press Guide.

Villanova Next!

OK, everybody (including me) take a deep breath. Navy is in the past. Next up is old foe Villanova.

Neither team has any game notes up yet, so here's some stuff to consider.

• Rivals Villanova football message board
• Rivals Villanova football News
  
• Villanova Season Stats (note that it includes the game against I-A Central Florida)
  
• Game recap for the loss to Lehigh
  
• Game recap for the loss to Central Florida
  

Scan of the Navy Game program

A high-rez scan of the Navy-UMass game program.

Right-Click for a larger view!

Wow! What an effort by the UMass Defense!

Don't let the 1 point loss obscure maybe the best ever defensive effort on the part of UMass.

The Navy option ran up 700 yards of offense against Colorado State in the poinsettia Bowl. They ran for over 400 yards against Colorado State last week.

Check out the defensive stats for the UMass-Navy game!

• Navy had only 14 first downs
• 268 total rushing yards
• 44 yards lost rushing
• Only 87 yards in the second half

Navy was fumbling because a UMass player was in the middle of the Navy backfield all day. Note the two batted pitches when a UMass defensive player went flying by the pitchman.

The totals could have been even better. In the first half the defense was in position, but the burly Navy backs were running out of UMass tackles. In the second half, we wrapped up and Navy had only 87 total yards.

Note that our star LB Brad Anderson was suspended for the game. If he had been available , we would have made life even more miserable for Navy.

In a blazing hot Navy-Marine Corps stadium the UMass defense played one of the best (if not the best) ever defensive efforts in UMass history.

Image above by Larry French.

UPDATE: Matt Vaoutour has an article on the Navy game here (registration required, but worth it)

Monster effort by James Ihedigbo

UMass' James Ihedigbo is the Atlantic 10 Co-Defensive Player of the week.

Ihedigbo made 8 tackles, 2 forced fumbles, recovered a fumble and added a sack.

This is an image I took of him during warm ups at the Navy game.

UPDATE: I forgot the the Hampshire Gazette is moving to a morning edition. When I checked, Matt Vautour has an article on Ihedigbo (registration required, but worth it) and his game at Navy.

UPDATE II: The UMass website has a story about Ihedigbo being the UMass/Dinn Bros Athlete-of-the-Week.

Oh man. It was that close!

Right click for larger view.

UMass fans can be proud of the effort. Don't believe any Navy coment that they played badly. UMass took it to them for most of the game.

There was a large and vocal UMass contingent. The band was great as usual.

We made three mistakes. That called back TD on the kickoff. We tried to pick up a Navy fumble instead of falling on it. And if Rasheed had made that catch at the end of the first half. Just one of those plays and we win...

Navy!

Pre-game at the alumni tent

UMass Band pre-game concert

Navy Marine stadium

Navy Marine stadium

UMass arrives

The march-in