Wednesday --February 19th, 2014

One of this things that will be interesting this season will to see if Coach Whipple's offensive philosophy has changed with his NFL expienence.

In his last stint with the Minutemen, Whipple liked to go vertical. I think in 2002 or 2003, UMass had double-digit under a minute scoring drives. That meant Whipple liked having dominate "X" wide receivers. Think Adrian Zullo, Jimmy Moore and Jason Peebler.

Whipple liked having BIG offensive lines. Back in the late 1990's 300 pounders were not as common as they are now, but the Minutemen OL was one of the biggest in the FCS. Ryan Johnson 6-5 320 from this year's recruits would seem to be a Whipple-sized offensive lineman.

Whipple liked using a TE. Think Kerry Taylor. UMass recruited two highly rated TE's this year (Sifrin and Denton). Both are JUCO's.

Whipple liked to pound the ball. Think Marcel Shipp and Steve Baylark. Running back is probably the deepest offensive position we have. Many recruiting services had J.T Blyden has the top RB recruit in the MAC this year.

He also like to throw the ball out of the backfield to the Fullback. Think Rich Demers, who was fourth on the team in receiving in 2003 going 30-222 5 TD's. Demers also scored another 5 TD's rushing. Note that in 2013, the Minutemen only had 14 TD's for the whole team.

Whipple's offense was headed by a QB who was accurate and could throw the ball down the field. Since Blake Frohnapfel 6-6 225 will not be available for the Spring Game, the QB I'm most interested in seeing throw the ball would Todd Stafford 6-7 250.

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A couple of interesting articles from "College football Study Hall" one is about offensive rankings. Note that UMass was ranked 125th out of 125 teams in 2013.

Another is defensive rankings--- and the Minutemen were last on that one too.

SB Nation has "How to build a college football team: Ideal rosters for six common schemes". Read the portions on "Pro-set offense" and "3-4 defense" since it would seem we will switching to those this year.

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Speaking of quarterbacks, Liam Coen is excited to be back at UMass. Unlike FCS teams, most FBS teams recruit a QB every year. Coen and Whipple make UMass a really strong quarterback coaching team. Hopefully, some four-star QB recruit will see that and commit to UMass in the future.

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Looks like Josh Samuda was lucky to get out of Miami.

Samuda said he was not "Player A".

You remember Josh signed with the Vikings.

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