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The UMass Daily Collegian has a story on the 2009 UMass Schedule and the staff hirings here.
The UMass Athletic Dept website has an article on the 2009 schedule here.
Matty Vautour has an article on the schedule and staff changes here.
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Rejoining the UMass staff will be Steve Tirrell, who was with Coach Brown from 2004-2006. For the last two seasons he has been assistant Head Coach at Nichols.
Tirrell was formerly DC for Brown and has also been an assistant coach for Coach Whipple (1996-1997).
This seems like a good hire. Tirrell is familiar with UMass football and many of the current staff.
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Joining the UMass staff for the first time will be Dyran Peke. For the past four seasons he has been the corn
erbacks coach and special teams coordinator for Delaware.Last year Coach Brown was the DB coach and Sean Spencer was the special teams coordinator.
Peke has recruiting connections in Virginia and Florida. He has been DB backs coach at Cornell and Delaware. Seems like a good hire.
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I did a little checking about the Albany game being moved to McGuirk. Last year the Great Danes home attendance averaged 3,165. They drew 5,111 for what was probably their biggest home game against Hofstra.
The 2008 UMass-Albany night game at McGuirk drew 15,111. UMass undoubtedly thought that revenue from the sixth home game would exceed any sweetening of the guarantee paid to Albany------ and the Great Danes felt they would do better taking the offer.
BTW, my images of the UMass 28-14 victory are still available here .
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It's official: Tennessee Tech will be Kansas State's second FCS/I-AA game in 2009.
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