Early UNH stuff

The Manchester Union Leader has an article here .

The Springfield Republican parses the playoffs here.

The Boston Herald has a UMass-UNH game article here .

The Odds Guy Keeper has UMass as a 13.5 point favorite (gasp!).

UPDATE:

UMass has its UNH game notes here .

New Hampshire has its UMass game notes here .

Alex Miller Dinn Bros. UMass Athlete-of-the-Week

This Blog has already posted an entry about Alex Miller's game saving tackle against Northeastern (scroll down). He has been chosen the UMass athlete-of-the-week.

This might be a good time to mention the terrific performance of the UMass offensive line this year. We are undefeated in I-AA and leading in most offensive stats in both the A10 and nationally. Our running game is hitting on all cylinders and Coen lead the nation in pass efficiency.

The O-line has only given up 8 sacks in 8 games and 190 pass attempts!

A lot of that is due to the O-line:

• #68 Matt Austin OT
  
• #60 Nick Dana OG
  
• #62 Alex Miller C
• #73 David Thompson OG
• #71 Chris Hopkins OT

What a great year they're having.

Steve Baylark runs to records!

UMass' Steve Baylark ran himself into the NCAA record books Saturday as he became only the third player in I-AA history to run for 1,000 yards in four straight seasons.

His career totals as of Saturday are: GP 42/34 carries 913 yards 4,264 ave 4.7 36 TD longest 58 yards.

He joins former Georgia Southern RB Adrian Peterson and former UNH RB Jerry Azumah in the 1,000 yard/season club .

Baylark is currently 8th in rushing in I-AA this year (and with only one yard/game separating 6th through 8th positions).

Baylark is current 3rd all time in rushing in UMass history. He needs 360 yards to pass UMass legend Rene Ingoglia for second place.

Congratulations to Steve from all UMass fans!

UPDATE: Matty Vautour of the Hampshire Gazette adds two articles; the first on Steve Baylark and the second on the Northeastern game (registration required, but worth it)

More Northeastern game material

Matt Dougherty of Sports Network has a review of week nine (including UMass-Northeastern in his Extra Point column here .

The Springfield Republican has another article here .

Despite the weather Liam Coen kept his position as the #1 rated passer in I-AA .

UMass is 3rd in I-AA total offense (and leads the A10).

Also you will remember UMass led I-AA in scoring defense last year. Guess what. We're up to #2 in I-AA in scoring defense in 2006.

UMass wins in the rain 7-0 at Northeastern

It's hard to find a game that turned on two plays like yesterday's game against northeastern did.

Brad Anderson and James Ihedigbo's stop of Northeastern's Maurice Murray on the Huskies only offensive scoring threat was huge. Murray had been running through UMass tackles all day.

And again when UMass center Alex Miller somehow made a shoestring tackle on a Huskie DB who had the whole field ahead of him on Baylark's fumble.

The Boston Globe has a story here .

The Boston Herald has a story here . And the Herald has another story on Baylark and Miller's tackle here .

The Springfield Republican has a article here .

The UMass Athletic site's writeup is here . The Northeastern Athletic Dept's report is here .

Dave Coulson of I-AA.org has his I-AA recap the the events in I-AA (including UMass-Northeastern) here .

The image above is from the UMass Athletic dept site. I could not find who took it. If the photographer would e-mail me, I will attribute it.

Whew! Great win for UMass

Baylark runs 33 times for 152 yards. Goes over 1,000 yards for four straight years.

Maine looses and UMass is alone on top of the A10 North.

Blogger is having troubles and won't let me republish to change the game count-down clock to the New Hampshire game.

Will try again later.

Bad Weather for Northeastern

The weather prediction for the game is flat out bad . Rain and driving wind with gusts to 60 mph .

Bruce Dowd reviews last week's games (including Northeastern-UNH) and looks at this weeks games (including UMass-Northeastern) in his weekly column A10 Den .

The Boston Globe has an article about the game with the focus on Huskies TE Kendrick Ballantyne .

The Springfield Republican has a game day article here .

Matty Vautour has an inspiring article about Steve Baylark here . Be sure to read Matty's UMass Sports Blog for more Baylark stuff here (regestration required, but worth it)

Well, this game will be a test. Northeastern in Boston with horrible weather is a load. Winning or loosing this game will make a big impact on UMass' post-season chances.

Let's take care of the ball and get a big win in Brookline. Go UMass!

TV of the game is available here or through the UMass website .

KAEO Shannon James and Keron Williams

Two former UMass stars are playing for the Calgary Stampeders of the CFL.

Shannon James' Stampeders bio is here .

Keron William's Stampeders bio is here .

James is staring at outside LB. Keron is inactive due to an injury.

Friday Northeastern game stuff

The Atlantic 10 has their gameday article up . Note that UMass-Northeastern is the only TV game.

Watch is live over the internet here (if you have a fat pipe).

The Boston Herald has an article here .

There will probably be more articles later. I'll add them as they come up.

Recruiting 2007 DE Jason Foster

UMass is recruiting Jason Foster a 6-5 222 DE from Mt. St. Joseph in Rutland VT.

The Rutland Herald has an article here .

Also being recruited by Boston College, UNH, Maine, URI and San Diego.

Jason UMass' defense is the best outfit in New England!

A look at the A10

The A10 football conference will be playing its eight week on saturday. With four games to go there is still plenty of drama left.

Three teams are undefeated in A10 play.

• Maine 4-0 and 5-2 overall
• UMass 4-0 and 6-1 overall
• James Madison 4-0 and 6-1 overall
  

Four teams are 2-2 in league play and still could quality for the playoffs if they win out.

• UNH 2-2 and 5-2 overall
• Delaware 2-2 and 4-3 overall
• Richmond 2-2 and 5-2 overall
• Towson 2-2 and 5-2 overall

All teams finish out playing within their respective divisions.

All remaining UMass games are big. A loss at Northeastern would mean UMass HAS to beat Maine or UNH (and Hofstra) to make the playoffs. Finishing 10-1 means a home field all the way through the playoffs. 9-2 with wins over UNH and Maine and the loss coming against Northeastern or Hofstra still means a home playoff game.

Going 8-3 (loosing two of the final four) would mean a road playoff game if UMass beats Maine and UNH looses another game. If UMass would loose to BOTH Maine and UNH we would almost certainly be out of the playoffs.

In the South, the big game is JMU @ Richmond. The Spiders must win this game or they have a very good chance of being left out of the playoffs unless JMU should come apart in their last three games.

Matt Doughtery looks ahead to Saturday's games (including the A10 games) in his weekly column Extra Point here .

Caoch Brown's Radio moved to tonight

Remember that Coach Brown's radio show has been moved to tonight at 8:00 pm.

Wednesday Stats

Under the category of "Gee Sir, how do I decline the honor of leading the charge" UMass is now rated #1 in the GPI.

Steve Baylark continues to lead the A10 and is #7 in I-AA with a 127.43 yards/game .

Liam Coen continues to be #1 in I-AA in passing efficiency .

UMass is 4th in Total Offense in I-AA .

And the UMass defense is now rated #2 in I-AA in scoring defense .

In the A10 UMass leads the league in Pass Efficiency Defense, Kickoff Returns, Net Punting, Pass Efficiency, Pass Defense and Scoring Defense .

More Northeastern articles

The image to the left is Alex Bloomfield, the Northeastern RB who caught the 2-point conversion pass to defeat New Hampshire last week. The images is by Jim Pierce off the Northeastern Athletic Dept page.

The Boston Globe has an article here about the surging Huskies .

Northeastern has a football booster group Friends of Northeastern Football . Their website has a coach's newsletter from Head Coach Rocky Hager. In the latest edition Hagar talks about the Huskies big win over New Hampshire.

Northeastern Game notes up

UMass has its game notes for Northeastern up.

So does Northeastern. Their game notes are here .

Fact from the Northeastern game notes: So far, the Huskies have played the toughest schedule in I-AA with a combined opponent winning average of .651 (43-23). They have also played seven straight top-25 teams.

The Springfield Republican has a general UMass football article here .

Matt Dougherty recaps last week's action with his Extra Point column here .

The Odds Guy Keeper has UMass as a 20+ point favorite .

Baylark A10 Offensive Player-of-the-Week

You knew Steve Baylark was going to be A10 Offensive Player-of-the-Week didn't you?

The UMass press release is here .

The A10 notice is here (pdf format) .

UMass fans will note that UMass has played seven games and won seven A10 Player-of-the-Week awards...

Image is by J. Anthony Roberts. Link to the image gallery is in the previous Blog post.

UMass-Rams game articles

The above image is by J. Anthony Roberts and it's part of an image gallery in the Springfield Republican here (in the center of the page, I can't link to the gallery directly)

The Republican has a game article here .

The Boston Herald here .

The Providence Journal here .

The Boston Globe here .

The Worcester Telegram here .

This article in the Herald is mostly about Northeastern's overtime victory over New Hampshire, but it includes a quote from Coach Brown that the win got UMass' attention .

UPDATE:

Matty Vautour has two game articles in the Monday's Gazette. The game article is here . And an article about the O-line's plans to put a dent in Baylark's pocketbook here .

Blogger down?

Been getting e-mails that Blogger is down.

Homecoming game images 10/21/06

As usual, right click on an image and Blogger displays a larger view. Lately blogger has been clipping some views in some circumstances. If one of the images is clipped, click on it to show the full view. The image is there, the bug is in Blogger's presentation.

A great homecoming day. Another huge crowd of 15,000+

UMass fumbled the opening kickoff and in Rhody's second series the UMass safety bit on the fake for a Ram gain to the UMass 2 yard line. After three offensive series it was 13-6 Rams.

The rest of the game was 41-3 UMass. Baylark a career game of 235 yards. Coen was near perfect--again.

UMass-Rhode Island 2006

Captains meet

Tony Nelson fumbled the opening kickoff

Coen had another great day

Baylark starts a monster day

O-Line kicked butt all day

A beautiful day for Homecoming 2006

Baylark gets 175 yards in the first half

Dance Troop

Dance Troop II

Time out Offense

DB's and LB's huddle

Defense reacts

Alumni Band-Homecoming 2006

2006 Band

Another great crowd of 15,000+

UMass Drum Line

Look at the concentration!

The option pitch

Galligher hit this one

Brad Listori had a nice run after a catch

Tony Nelson Runs in the 4th quarter

Final Score

UMass-Rhode Island Homecoming

The Springfield Republican has a game day article here .

The UMass Alumni Association has a list of game day activities here .

Friends of Football to Meet at Homecoming

The UMass Friends of Football will be meeting at Homecoming . This Blog is a member and a big fan of the Friends.

Since their formation by Coach Whipple, the Friends have been a driving force in UMass Football excellence.

If you enter Friends of Football in the "search this blog" button in the Blogger menu bar at the top you will find 14 blog posts about the Friends. The last one was here .

This Blog believes all UMass football fans should belong to the Friends. Please join. Please. Stop by and meet them. Be part of UMass football and help the team.

It's not just the $$$. Having a large and active membership in Friends of Football really, really helps the team in the Byzantine world of campus politics.

Friday morning odds & ends

UMass is currently rated #2 in the I-AA universe in the Gridiron Power Index.

That's fine with me. Let's stay under the radar until we hit the playoffs.

The Atlantic 10 is also rated 2nd in the GPI.

Matt Vautour has a UMass-Rhode Island game article here (registration required, but worth it).

Bruce Dowd has his week article A10 Den on the state of the A10 (including insights on UMass-Towson and UMass-Rhode Island) here .

KAEO former UMass coaches Eddy Morrissey and Dave Hoover

Former UMass Coach Dave Hoover is now head coach at Victory Valley College (JUCO). He was a member of Coach Whipple's staff in our 1998 Championship year. Hoover was recruiting coordinator and OL Coach. The Daily Bulletin has a story on him here .

The image above is a scan from the 1998 UMass press guide.

I've Blogged before about former UMass Coach Eddy Morrissey. There is a new article about his move to the University of Oregon by the Nashua Telegram here .

UMass-Rhode Island A10 TV Game

The 1:00 pm game UMass-Rhode Island game at McGuirk will be an A10 TV game .

From the A10 write-up "the series will be aired live on NESN and WSGR in Winston-Salem, NC. In addition, the contest will be aired on tape delay Saturday on Cox (4:30pm) and Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia (7:00pm). The game will be aired on tape delay Sunday on College Sports Television (2:00pm) and Comcast SportsNet DC (3:30pm)."

The A10 Gameday Article is here .

More Rhode Island game stuff

Matt Dougherty of the Sports Network has his weekly prognostication of this week's games (including UMass-Rhode Island) in Extra Point.

Rhode Island lost to Richmond 31-6 last week.

The Rams Athletic Director resigned October 12th after a long dispute with the school administration.

Richmond has an excellent defense. As you know, Rhody runs the spread option. They were missing their starting QB Derek Cassidy (ankle injury) and their backup QB John Butler also left the game with a shoulder injury. That left them running a true freshman QB. Both may be available for the UMass game.

This article from the Providence Journal talks about the UMass-Rhody game and UMass QB Liam Coen who's from North Providence. Rhode Island's coach Tim Stowers son played on the same high school team as Liam.

Note the Providence Journal has registration. I use Bugmenot.com to get passwords.

Lambert Trophy History

Special thanks to Heidi Kravchuk, Assistant Commissioner for Communications ECAC for the following History of the Lambert Trophy.

"

The Lambert Trophy was established by brothers Victor and Henry Lambert in memory of their father, August. The Lambert’s were the principals in a distinguished Madison Avenue jewelry house and were prominent college football boosters.

The University of Pittsburgh, under the direction of coach Jock Sutherland, was the first recipient of the trophy. After World War II, college football proliferated but with increasing disparity in goals and policies. In response, the Lambert Cup was created in 1957 to recognize non-Division I-A programs. The Division III award was added in 1966. The NCAA’s reclassification of a number of Eastern teams into Division I-AA allowed for the creation of the Division II award. In 1983, the Lambert family decided the Meadowlands Sports Complex would be the best organization with a sincere and involved interest in college athletics to sponsor and manage the award. Since that time, the awards have been known as the Lambert Meadowlands Award.

To be eligible for the Lambert Award, a school must be located in the East or play half of its schedule against eligible Lambert teams. The territory includes New York, New Jersey, New England and Pennsylvania while teams in the bordering states of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia and the District of Columbia qualify if half of their schedule features eligible teams. With the creation of the Big East Conference, Miami and Virginia Tech were added as eligible teams, although in 2004, these teams were not eligible as they changed their conference allegiance to the Atlantic Coast Conference. There were 156 schools eligible in the four divisions including 11 in Division I-A, 44 in Division I-AA, 27 in Division II and 74 in Division III. Four separate panels of media, one in each division, participate in a weekly poll and final poll to determine the winners. Playoffs and bowl games are included in the polling. The Lambert Trophy and Lambert Cup are rotating awards that remain in the winning school’s possession for the subsequent year. "

UMass-Rhode Island game notes up

UMass has its game notes (html) here .

Rhody has its game notes (pdf) here .

The Odds Guy Keeper has UMass as a 37 point favorite .

Recruiting 2007--- Jose Gumbs

UMass is recruiting Jose Gumbs a 5-8 160 pd RB/Athlete from Hebron in LewistonMe.

The Sun-Journal has an article here .

The image is Jose (on the right, with his brother Greg Gumbs who plays football for Bates).



Jose, UMass would be a great place for you!

UMass leads in Lambert Cup voting

UMass leads in the voting for the Lambert Cup the symbol of Eastern I-AA supremacy.

The ECAC press release is here (pdf). The ECAC home page is here .

The top five:

• UMass 50 points all 5 first place votes
• Tied JMU-New Hampshire 41 points
• Richmond 37 points
• Princeton 24 points.

UMass has won the Lambert Cup twice (1978 and 1998)

Coen wins Gold Helmet Award

UMass QB Liam Coen has won his second Gold Helmet award by the New England Sports Writers.

The UMass Athletic site has an article here.

Incidentally, there does not seem to be any webpage/site that has any material on this award.

Even Wikipedia does not have an article. The history of the award (famous recipients: Doug Flutie, etc) would be interesting.

Could some New England football fan with some time on their hands at least do a Wikipedia article?

More UMass-Towson Images

I-AA.org has a gallery of UMass-Towson images by photographer Mark W. Campbell.

Coen wins A10 player-of-the-week

UMass sophomore QB Liam Coen is having a monster year. He just won the A10 Player-of-the-week. The UMass write-up is here .

As a side note, UMass has played six games and has won six A10 Player-of-the-week awards .

The A10 notes are here (pdf format) .

Coen is #1 in the A10 and #1 Nationally in passing efficiency with an incredible 188.5 rating (10 points higher than the runner-up).

Note that UMass is 3rd nationally in total offense (ahead of the highly touted UNH offense)

Not to forget the defense, we're up to 3rd in the nation in scoring defense .

Baylark passes 4,000 Yards!

Almost un-noticed in the passing fireworks Saturday against Towson, Steve Baylark went over 4,000 yards rushing for his career.

Matty Vautour has an article in the Hampshire gazettee here (registration required, but worth the aggravation). The Springfield Republican has an article here .

Baylark is also leads the A10 in rushing with 109.5 yards/game and is 17th nationally .

Only two other I-AA backs have achieved 1000 yards in four seasons Jerry Azumah and Adrian Peterson. Baylark is on track to do that in 2006.

Coen to London courtesy of Peggy Koepplin

I said in my post below that I did not capture any of Brandon London's four TD's. Peggy Koepplin did (and apparently had better seats than I did)

UPDATE: I received an e-mail for UMass kicker Chris Koepplin saying that the photographer was his father Alan Koepplin. Nice work Alan!