As expected, the Badgers had a lot more speed and talent than the Minutemen. On the other hand, UMass' opener was a lot better than 3 total first downs against UConn and the 42 points Michigan scored in the first half.
Positives from the game:
Stacey Bedell. He fumbled in his first series, but after that he went 19-70 with 0 carries for loss. He ran with his head up and made yardage after contact.
The offensive line. The stunting 3-4 Wisconsin defense was a tough test for the new starters, but they looked like a coherent unit, something that rarely happened in 2012. The offensive line's performance looked like a good place to build off of.
Trey-Dudley Giles. He went 6-144 24 AVE on kick returns. Giles looked fast and had good field awareness.
Devon Brown. Led the defense with 9 TT and had an INT.
Experience. Coach Molnar started substituting in the third quarter and the UMass second teamers got about 20 minutes of valuable playing time.
The defensive backfield. The Minutemen defenders had to do a lot of run support. The coverage was pretty good. When the UMass corners got beat, they got beat physically. There was not a lot of blown coverage They were just covering All-America receivers...
Negative:
Penalties. The good start by the O-line would have been even better if it were not for a number of false starts.
Mike Wegzyn. He again threw into traffic multiple times. We can't tell if he threw to the wrong spot or the receivers ran the wrong route, but Wegzyn's throws hit the turf a number of times with no UMass player near the area. His overall throwing did not look sharp. In Mike's defense, Wisconsin could have had something to do with it.
Colter Johnson. Inexplicably, our All-MAC punter shanked a couple of punts.
The D-line. The huge Badger O-line was going to be a challenge , but the Wisconsin pulling guard collapsed the UMass defensive line all game.
Anyway, game is over and UMass will not see another team as good as the Badgers in 2013.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dan Malone has sights and sounds of camp Randall.
He also has UMass run over by Wisconsin.
Matty V. has Wisconsin overwhelms UMass in the second half.
UMass write up on the game. Post game UMass quotes.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MAC scoreboard. The big news was Northern Illinois' victory over Iowa.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FCS gave FBS teams fits this weekend.
North Dakota beat Kansas state.
Liberty took Kent state to the limit.
Villanova was tied with Boston College at the half.
William & Mary was tied with West Virginia in the fourth quarter.
Eastern Washington knocked off #25 Oregon State.
I've already blogged about Towson beating UConn.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maine beat Norfolk State 32-6.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vanderbilt had already lost to Ole Miss.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Giants cut Julian Talley.
Josh Samuda made the the Dolphins final 53.
 |
| AP/ Andrew Webber image |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------