Thursday News-- 04/30/09

Liam Coen reflects on the NFL draft.

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The UMass Daily Collegian has some coverage of Courtney Robinson's signing with the Philadelphia Eagles.

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2009 OOC opponent Stony Brook will hold its Spring Game Saturday.

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Maine finalizes their 2009 schedule.

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Dave Coulson says the 2009 NFL draft was full of FCS surprises.

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Texas Tech's Graham Harrell, who threw for 5,111 yards last season was not drafted. Harrell has been invited to the Browns mini-camp, but has not been offered a free agent contract so far.

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Coach Morris speaks on the Spring Game

The UMass website has a transcription of the Coach Morris' remarks at Wednesday's Sports Luncheon.

Morris states the Spring Game will have some full-contact scrimmage plays as well as some drills.

Not much new information about the quarterback situation. I interpret his remarks to mean that Scott Woodward and Kyle Havens are somewhat ahead of Scott Wallace, Octavious Hawkins and Spencer Whipple.

Hope to seen a lot of you at the game. The weather for Saturday is supposed to be in the high 60's with morning showers.

2008 Images come down tomorrow

Last year I took almost 900 MB of images of UMass football events. To free up space for the coming season, I'm taking them down tomorrow.

I have not backed up most of this stuff to CDROM, so entropy will claim the 2008 season when I delete the images from my Picasa account.

If anyone wants to review any the images they should visit the Blog sidebar now.

Wednesday News 04/29/09

UMass and Michigan will likely play in 2010------- just not as the opener for the newly renovated Big House.

An Iowa sportswriter comments on the UMass-UM game. BTW, Iowa State plays North Dakota State this year and Iowa plays Northern Iowa.

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UMass loses a recruit to New Hampshire.

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Yesterday I blogged on Courtney Robinson signing with the Philadelphia Eagles. ESPN really likes their NFL Draft.

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CSN has an up-dated list of FCS NFL draft and free agent signings here.

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The new release of NCAA Football 10 has the ability to build teams, including FCS/I-AA schools.

Note Texas Tech receiver Michael Crabtree on the box.






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In news from other college sports, the University of Oregon has disbanded its "Ultimate Frisbee" team for the season.

Key quote from the team Captain: "“Speeding, drinking, nudity — they’re not bad things,” he told the executive committee. “They’re things a big portion of the community doesn’t think are wrong.”

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Tuesday news ---- 04/28/09

Former UMass CB Courtney Robinson signed a free agent contract with the Eagles yesterday.

The UMass announcement here.

The Eagles announcement here .

Matty Vautour says Robinson had several offers to choose from.

Philadelphia Daily News here.

Delaware OnLine here.

Good luck Courtney!

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More short articles on the likely UMass-Michigan game here and here and here.

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The Bleacher Report---- reports that Coach Brown has the Terps defense cookin'.

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James Madison can't decide on a quarterback.

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Dreamin' of the Big House

Click on the image for a much better view. Image from images. prideofdetroit.com

Woah! I go away for four days and news comes down that UMass will be playing Michigan in 2010.

Matty Vautour has a short entry here. The Boston Herald has an article here.

UPDATE: Matty has a more extensive article here.

Info about Michigan's stadium here.

This will be very good for UMass football and the athletic dept. With UMass' sports budget being heavily impacted by the cutbacks in state support a nearly seven figure guarantee would be an excellent shot in the arm for the whole dept.

Not to mention all us UMass football fans. I AM GOING. Period.

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Liam Coen get mentions from the Boston Herald and Providence Journal about his NFL hopes.

CSN has the complete FCS/I-AA NFL Draft report here.

No news yet on any UMass FA signings.


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Raw Data:

• Report from Hofstra's Spring Game.
• Report from James Madison's Spring Game (the Dukes come to McGuirk on November 14th)
• Report from Rhode Island's Spring Game

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Blog News---- 04/23/09

Mrs. Blog and I will be up in Maine for a long weekend. I will not have an internet connection.

The UMass Football Blog will resume publishing Sunday night or Monday morning.

Thursday News ---- 04/23/09

Remember, reception for Coach Morris tonight at the UMass Club in Boston.

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Memo to UMass coaches: Kansas State has gone to a 4-2-5 defense.

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Recruiting 2009 ---- Tyler Major DT

UMass has added Tyler Major a 6-2 325 pd DT from New London, CT to its 2009 class of recruits.

Story here.

Major was first-team All-CT on defense, All-ECC and All-Area. He was also an Honor Roll Student.

Rhode Island, Stony Brook and Central CCSU were also interested.

Wednesday News -- 04/22/09

Chuck Burton has a column on FCS prospects for this year's NFL Draft. Several UMass players are mentioned.

Remember Tony Mandarich who was the #2 player in the 1989 Draft? He was on the cover of Sports Illustrated as the most incredible physical specimen in the draft. He was 6-6 305. ESPN has a story on him here.

In Chuck Burton's column above, the top FCS/I-AA OL is Furman's Joel Bell at 6-7 315. What a difference in 20 years makes.
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The UMass Dance team took the second place trophy at the 2009 Collegiate Cheer & Dance championships.

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UMass' 2009 FBS opponent Kansas State's recruiting class was ranked by Scout.com as 112th out of 120 ranked FBS/I-A teams. You'll have to hit the "Next" button several times to get to K-State, I can't directly point to last page of the list.

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Tuesday News --- 04/21/09

This article about the Maine Black Bears early practices is a nice read. I remember back when Jimmy Reid was head coach at UMass, the Minutemen had some 5:30 am practice sessions.

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Former Richmond DE Lawrence Sidbury is ranked the #7 DE in the coming NFL draft according to this story.

Another Sidbury article here .

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SeaCoast online has a lot of material about UNH's spring practice.

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UMass was in the running for Penn State QB transfer Pat Devlin.

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William & Mary's spring game recap courtesy of the CAA website.

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A report from 2009 OOC opponent Albany's spring game here .

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While we were at practice last Saturday, the USC Song Girls were taking part in their annual swim charity event. Warning, not work safe. Babes in bikinis.

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Remember, reception for Coach Morris Thursday

The UMass Friends of Football will be hosting a reception for Coach Morris at the UMass Club in Boston on Thursday. Details here.

I've been to several of these functions and they're great fun. If you can, stop by and join the Friends and the UMass coaching staff for an evening of UMass football.

E-mail friends@umassfootball.org to reserve a spot.

Images from UMass practice on 04/18/09

Click on any image and Blogger displays a larger view.

Almost forty more images are in a Picasa Web Album here.

On Saturday, I traveled down to Amherst to take in the scheduled practice. It was raining in NH and I almost turned back.

UMass held a two hour practice at McGuirk. Everybody seemed into the practice as there was no slack time or goofing off. During the scrimmage plays there were some hits that made sound of gear popping echo around the stadium.

Most of the practice was drills. There were only a small number of scrimmage plays.

I can't shed much light on the quarterback situation. Everyone seemed to get a equal number o reps. Octavious Hawkins dropped two perfect passes into the far corner of the end zone for TDs and earned some high fives from the offense. But two passes do not a quarterback make.

I talked to Brian Ostaszewski's dad and he said Brian had been moved inside to RG. He's also on the first team OL.

I counted nine yellow shirts. Except for one guy in a arm sling, no one was on crutches, so that's good thing.

Victor Cruz made a nice catch behind the first team defense and waltzed into the end zone.

One defense, the tackling seemed better. I saw only one instance were a receiver ran through a arm tackle.

Thanks to the Athletic Dept and UMass football for letting me take pictures.

Twelve days to the Spring Game.

Recruiting 2010 --- Ryan Izzo

A John Tlumacki/Boston Globe image.

UMass is interested in Ryan Izzo a 5-8 161 pd athlete from from Walpole, MA

His Rival.com page is here (includes highlight video).

Izzo averaged 8.8 yards/carry and scored 38 TD's in '08.

This article mentions Izzo (pre-2008 season).

This Boston Globe article also mentions him.

Izzo is also receiving looks from UConn, BYU, Boston College, Rutgers and UNH.

Recruiting 2010 --- Jon Pieterse QB

UMass is interested in Jon Pieterse a 6-2 184 pd Pro-Style QB from Cathedral HS in Springfield MA.

His Rivals.com page is here .

Also interested are Syracuse, Duke, Hofstra, Holy Cross and Penn.

Thursday News ---- 04/16/09

UMass' 2009 OOC opponent Stony Brook has released a travel heavy schedule. The Seawolves only have four home games and their schedule includes three league trips south and a visit to North Dakota.

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The NCAA says a fan can't use Facebook to try to encourage a recruit to attend their school.

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The CAA has the latest issue of it's Spring Practice Blog up. It includes a segment by Armando Cuko.

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Speaking of the CAA, this article talks about how the league will cope with football scheduling when Old Dominion joins in 2011. Note that the AD's are saying that the CAA intends to keep together and there were no plans to break up. Interesting stuff!

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A Rivals.com editor complains of FBS/FCS mismatches in 2009 . Two of the games feature CAA teams.

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Wednesday News ----- 04/15/09

A UMass Athletic Dept image.

The UMass Football team did some outreach recently to the Sheffield Elementary School in Turners Falls. Story here. The story as a nice photo gallery attached. Nice work by Coach Morris and the players.

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Josh Buchanan has yet another version of his "Top 100 Small School NFL Prospects". It has a number of UMass seniors on it.

The informative Blog "Draft Daddy" has a link to this article about 40 yard dash times.

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Another article on the 2008 FCS Championship Richmond Spiders spring ball.

BTW, Richmond has installed a live webcam covering the construction of their new stadium.

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Tuesday News ---- 04/14/09

David Coulson has a long "Around FCS" column in which he picks the top 25 FCS NFL Draft prospects.

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At Kansas State, the Wildcats want to return to glory.

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The Maine Black Bears have their Spring prospectus up (pdf).

Rhode Island's former All-CAA RB Joe Casey has recovered from the broken leg he sustained last season.

Down in Virginia, all eyes are on James Madison.

New Hampshire looks to improve on defense.

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Monday News ----- 04/13/09

I'm going to try to get down to Amherst to take in a UMass practice this week. Maybe this coming Saturday, the 18th.

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Five starters on last year's Philadelphia Eagles team were from FCS football.

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This article about the Richmond Spiders recruiting in Georgia shows an increase in interest in that area by CAA schools.

UMass signed Mike Lee, 6-0 172 pd DB from Mcdonough, GA this year. We were involved in recruiting at least one other GA player.

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Rivals.com says that John Calipari's big contract with Kentucky may have a spill-over effect on College Football coach's salaries.

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The Worcester Telegram has a story about "Sign Man" helping former UMass basketball player Lorenzo Sutton. The story also says that Sign Man will no longer be displaying his signs at UMass basketball and football games. We'll miss you Sign Man!

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The US Navy---- whacking pirates since 1794.

Nice work from an old Tin Can sailor.

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Saturday News ---- 04/11/09

The New Hampshire football blog has a post about some Spring changes for the Wildcats.

Five players have left Syracuse this spring.

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Someone left the url for the UMass Cheerleaders and dance team competing in the 2009 NCAA Nationals. The link is here. I could not get the search bar to work, but there are four UMass clips in the 241-270 section of the number bar.

A UMass athletic dept image.

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Saw this over on the Any Given Saturday message board: The FCS/I-AA football records since 1945.

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UMass Friends of Football Golf Classic

Save the Date

8th Annual

Friends

of

UMASS FOOTBALL GOLF CLASSIC

June 22^nd, 2009

Wachusett Country Club

West Boylston, MA

Please visit www.umassfootball.org

Brochure to follow in May

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The UMass Friends of Football will hold their premier fund raising event on 06/22/09. The evening meal is usually available separately for those that cannot make the golf classic.

All the current UMass coaches will attend. In the past former UMass coaches such as Bob Pickett, Dick MacPherson (who can really tell football stories) and Mike Hodges have attended.

Don't miss it!

Friday News ---- 04/10/09

The Hamilton Tiger-Cats have signed former New Hampshire WR David Ball to a free agent contract.

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Maine's Jovan Belcher gets a look from the Baltimore Ravens.

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Spring Practice report from the Kansas State Wildcats.

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Thursday News --- 04/09/09

The UMass athletic site has an interview with Coach Morris about Spring Practice. It has a lot of interesting information.

Position changes:

• Octavious Hawkins back to QB
• Emil Igwenagu to TE
• Victor Cruz will return both kicks and punts.
• Eric Dickson to LB
  

Implied starters:

• Vladimir Ducasse LT, Josh Samuda LG Bob Getek RT
• Matt Silver TE
• Victor Cruz, Jeremy Horne WR
  
• Jeromy Miles FS, Shane Viveiros SS
• Kurt Filler LB
• Brandon Collier, Kyle Harrington, Michael Hanson
  

Open Positions:

• Quarterback
• Punter

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Soon-to-be CAA team Old Dominion has sold 12,500 season tickets.

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The latest edition of the CAA Spring Football Blog is here .

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The Notre Dame Blog "Blue-Gray Sky" has on the rise of College Football Blogging.

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Wednesday News --- 04/08/09

The Hartford Courant has an article by Katelyn Haggerty on playing for the UMass Marching Band. One of the stories she tells is about the band's performance at Navy. I parked in one of the satellite parking lots. As I was getting organized to leave after the game, two groups of Navy fans came over to say "Your band was great!".

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Josh Buchanan's "Small School NFL Mock Draft":

• Round six
• Round seven

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More on the repercussions for Delaware and Delaware State if the state of Delaware legalizes sports betting.

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Nice Spring Football Guide by the William & Mary Athletic Dept (pdf).

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Spring news from Hofstra. The Pride went 4-8 last year.

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New Hampshire loses another coach to Boston College.

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The Kansas State Wildcats have new energy.

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Tuesday News ----- 04/07/09

First off: the 2008 image links in the "UMass Images 2008" section of the sidebar are coming down on May 1st. Anyone who wants to grab an image or review a particular event should do so now.

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Remember I did a blog post about the UNCC 49's charging $4,000 for the right to purchase season tickets? It's not going well.

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Raw data:

• Richmond's Spring game
• Northeastern's Spring game

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Villanova's Pro Day.

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Lots of news articles about UMass' next opponent Kansas State.

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UMass Historical Scans-- 1984

Click on the image above and Blogger displays a larger view. In the Picasa Web album link, each image has a small magnifying glass icon in the upper right corner. Picasa will display a large view that can be scrolled by dragging. It's useful for reading the rosters and other print material.

The album link is here. The total scans are now up to 98 images covering 1971, 1973 and 1976 to 1984. There are 14 scans from 1984.

In 1984 Coach Bob Stull was in the first year of his two-year stint with UMass. UMass Captains were Tom McEvilly and Navy transfer Peter Tracy.

UMass finished 3-8 with wins over Ball State (the last I-A win, I think), Northeastern and UNH. We lost to Lehigh, Holy Cross, Rhode Island, Richmond, Maine, BU, UConn and Delaware.

1984 was the year UMass renamed Alumni Stadium as Warren McGuirk Alumni Stadium. In the 1984 scans there is a text image describing the career of Warren McGuirk (in case you've ever wondered why the stadium was named after him).

The game against UConn on 11/3/84 was the 100th game at McGuirk.

The 1984 team had the tandem brothers of Jim Simeone (1,595 yards 147/313 .470 5/8 TD/INT 89.9 eff) at QB and Bob Simeone (52- 794 yards 5 TDs) at WR. George Barnwell (931 yards and 3TDs) and Frank Fay were the RBs. On defense Holyoke's Dave Cavanaugh was at OLB/DE. Mike Dwyer was to be a first team All-America in '85. Todd Comeau (who has checked in here a number of times) was another OLB. Vito Perrone led the defense with 82 UT 45 AT 127 TT.

Two of the scans are from the UMass-Holy Cross game. The Crusaders were about to start their great run in the 80's. Their roster has Gil (the thrill) Fenerty and Gordy Lockbaum.

That was 25 years ago!

Saturday New --- 04/04/09

Woah!, A genuine 2009 UMass football article by Jeff Thomas on the opening of UMass Spring practice.

He reports that Warren Wilson and Ke'Mon Bailey have been moved to CB. With the apparent academic loss of Reshaude Goodwin, UMass is thin at that position. Corey Davis probably has a good shot at one corner and freshman Darren Thellen and Kumar Davis will be in the mix.

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Lots of players are failing drug tests at the recent Pro Days including Boston College's potential first round draft pick B.J. Raji.

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The Joe Yukia New Hampshire chapter of the NFL foundation will honor 17 New Hampshire scholar-athletes including UMass recruit Christian Birt.

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Dave Coulson in his "Around FCS" column thinks that the Villanova football team as well as the Wildcat hoops team may make some noise in 2009.

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The Begining of Spring Practice -- 04/03/09

Well, Spring Practice is finally here; it's the real start of 2009 UMass football. The weather is slated to be gloomy and raw, but at least it's a new year.

Not-so-good is the news that UMass has had its athletic budget cut by $600,000. The Minutemen lose Men's and Women's skiing and each sport has to cut their own budget by about 7 to 10%.

Now would be an excellent time for all UMass Sports fans to step up and make some sort of contribution to the Athletic Dept. I continue to recommend Friends of Football to UMass football fans. Every penny of the Friends membership goes to UMass football and also provides a constituency for the football program. But contributing any amount anywhere will help keep UMass teams competitive.

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Yesterday I blogged about 2009 opponent Stony Brook. They have quite a OOC as they have added a game at North Dakota on October 10th.

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JMU made money during the 2008 playoffs. That was after paying the NCAA a combined $300,000 for home bids. The figures do not seem to include concessions, which could sweeten the pot further.

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Speaking of financial woes, the Lehigh Football Nation Blog points out things are bad all over theNortheast.

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To end this blog post on a cheerier note: Boston Patriots Cheerleader tryouts.

A Boston Globe staff image.

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Thursday News --- 04/02/09

Chuck Burton has a column in his series "The CSN Way" about the football history of FCS/I-AA teams in this year's March Madness basketball tourney. It's a nicely researched article.

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Yesterday's edition of the CAA Spring Football Blog includes posts by players from Richmond, Villanova, Towson, Hofstra,Northeastern and Rhode Island.

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2009 opponent Stony Brook begins Spring Practice tomorrow .

The Seas Wolves 2009 Spring roster (pdf).

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2009 opponent Albany also starts Spring Practice this Friday. This article covers Great Dane QB Vinny Esposito (a great name for a QB).

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Twenty-Eight hours until UMass Spring Football starts.

Wednesday News ---- April 1st, 2009

Josh Buchanan has yet another version of his "Top 100 Small School Prospects".

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Former UMass player and coach Mike Dawson gets some ink (electrons?) in a post by Eagle in Atlanta about his role as special teams coach for Boston College.

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Raw data:

• Rhode Island's Spring roster
  
• The Rams open Spring Football
• The Richmond Spiders Spring Prospectus (pdf)
• James Madison started Spring Practice yesterday

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Only two days until Spring Football!