Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Tuesday News ----- 05/12/09

Not much UMass or FCS football news on the wires today.

Over on one of the Kansas State boards, they have a link to this YouTube video tribute to the once-and-again Wildcats coach Bill Snyder. Nicely done. Snyder was the miracle man at K-State. Without him they averaged .243 winning average (137-445-18). With him the Wildcats went to eleven straight bowl games.

I went to the 2003 UMass-Kansas State game back in 2003. The crowd of 46,102 was the third largest to ever watch a UMass football game.

UMass led 7-3 after the first quarter on 63 yard TD pass to from Jeff Krohn to Jason Peebler.

The Wildcats primarily ran their star RB Darren Sproles. He ended up 28-152-3 TD's. We actually did a pretty good job on him. If I remember right, he got loose for a 30+ yard game once and another for about 18 yards. The other 26 carries averaged about three yards each.

Image from the K-State athletic dept site.

Outside of the long gain to Peebler, we only had ten first downs. After every K-State first down the stadium announcer would say "That's another Wildcat"--- and the crowd would roar "First Down!" By the fourth quarter, the UMass fans were doing the same thing for UMass first downs. We were a small but fiesty bunch.

I had a good time at the game and I'll always remember dodging pronghorn antelope on Interstate 70 on the drive back to Kansas City.