Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Twenty-five days before the start of football --08/11/09

UPDATE: Memo to UMass coaches. Three more Syracuse players are available. Former starting fullback Dan Collier, DE's Zary Stewart and Romale Tucker.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bump. I'm giving away a very nice "UMass Football Blog" hat free to the person that sends me an e-mail with the closest guess to the score of the UMass-Kansas State game. It's purely for fun and there are no commercial implications. Response so far has been light, so make a decent guess and have a good chance of winning the hat. My e-mail address is available in the "About me' section of the Blog.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Congratulations to Valdimir Ducasse and Jeromy Miles who have been named the 2009 UMass Football captains.

Ducasse is a UMass success story. He's a Haitian immigrant who arrived at UMass and was pretty raw in his football skills. Now he's in line to be the first UMass NFL Draft pick in some time.

Jeromy Miles led all CAA defensive back in tackles in 2008. He was first in tackles in the UMass defense with 108. A strong senior season could get Miles a NFL slot also.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


A UMass Athletic Dept image.

From the UMass website"UMass will have its strongest team ever as a school-record 10 players bench pressed 400-plus pounds in Monday's testing" I do a little powerlifting myself and I have to admit, I've yet to put up 400 pounds.

A four hundred pounds raw lift (without a bench press shirt) is really good no matter what your body weight. Congrats to all UMass players for their hard work off season.

Photo gallery from the first day of practice here.

Jeff Thomas has story on training camp covering the QB situation and more here.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chuck Burton has a new column about the start of the FCS season. One note: Appalachian State passed on accepting former Michigan QB Justin Feagan.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Washington Times talks about Don Brown's blitz-happy days at UMass.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Brandon London gets a mention in this article. Since London is a Dolphin, in a spirit of solidarity, I asked Mrs Blog if I could get the Miami Dolphins cheerleader's Swimsuit Calendar. She was not enthusiastic.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------