I went to Coach Molnar's meet-and-greet down in Worcester last evening and had a good time. Matty V was in the house and he says Coach can work a room.
If you get a chance to go to one of his talks, do so. It was fun and will get you fired up on the future of the program. I got to talk with some blog-friends too.
The following is my report on what he said. It should be taken with a grain of salt as my hearing is not that great and Coach was doing a talk to fans, not making a legal deposition. It's not in any particular order
- Coach Molnar was pleased and happy with the team. UMass had 5:45 AM practices all spring. There were no complaints and only one tardy player the entire time. He said the Minutemen hit as much as the NCAA allows.
- I asked him one-on-one how he felt we would stack up against this year's FBS schedule. He said UMass should be competitive in the MAC----but the margin was razor thin. Coach said we can't have a big injury year or academic or deportment suspensions.
- On the 2011 recruiting he said he and his staff really only had four weeks to recruit because of the delays in getting all the coaches contracts signed. Even so, UMass signed five players with legitimate top-six league (BCS) offers. Most of the other recruits were FBS (MAC) level players.
- Coach said the MAC was a significant step up in competition. He said just compare the number of players entering the NFL from the MAC as compared to the CAA or any FCS league.
- Coach Molnar said the upperclassmen, by a twist of fate, now had a scholarship to a FBS program. Coach said many upperclassmen had interest from FBS schools when they were recruited, but not many had FBS offers. Now they have a chance to prove everybody was wrong and show they should have received that ride to Syracuse or Rutgers or where ever.
- The new UMass football facility will be 50,000 square feet. He said "state-of-the-art" is overused, but it will have all the bells and whistles including weight room, locker room, coach's spaces, meeting rooms and academic areas. He said currently, with the weight room in one building, the coaches offices in another, the equipment room in another building, the situation was not optimal. He said "If you knew what I was going through now, you'd pay me double!"
- He said a bad day as Head Coach at UMass was better than a good day as an assistant coach.
- When I talked to him one-on-one, he said he thought conference realignments would continue...
- I talked to a marketing guy and he said the Patriots were being helpful. UMass literature is going out with Revolution marketing material. UMass lost some Western Mass ticket holders but have gained some central and eastern Mass people. They hope to have a significant increase in total season tickets by September.
- Coach Molnar is hoping to have a meet-and-greet practice for the fans at Gillette. He would like to have the fans be able to meet the players in person. Since the Pats will be in training camp at the same time, the logistics of that will be formidable, but he thinks it can be done.
New MassLive beat reporter Harry Plumer looks at the challenges in UMass' 2012 schedule.
He also discusses the move to WWEI by UMass sports.
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A Eagles blog says Eagles starting fullback Stanley Havili will be pushed by Emil Igwenagu.
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Julian Talley takes part in the Giants Make-a-Wish program.
Kevin Gilbride says Victor Cruz and Julian Talley are different types of players.
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ESPN says Jeromy Miles is getting a long look by Cincinnati for starting safety.
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