Saturday, July 04, 2015

Saturday--July 4th, 2015


Happy 4th of July everyone. This year is really flying by! Hope there will be some positive fireworks with UMass football this year.

CBS Sports ranks UMass #1 in patriotic mascots! As it should be.

NFL.com rates the most patriotic uniforms, not surprisingly Army and Navy dominate there.

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Matty Vautour has a story about UAB transfer Kelton Brackett. Minutemen fans hope he has a redeeming senior season. Having his team and teammates pulled out from under him could not have been easy.

The UMass defense has not had the recruiting number that have been afforded the offense so far during our FBS journey. For the first time, the defense receives two potential starters, Kelton and JUCO Jordan Hamilton. The UMass defense has gotten incrementally better each year and could make a significant stride this year with seven seniors in the two-deep.

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Phil Steele considers more stats this time with percentage of plays by whether a team was losing, tied or winning. The Minutemen were fairly well represented by plays when tied, given the number of close games they were in.

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The Star-Press previews the 2015 Ball State team and grudgingly gives UMass some praise.

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A Syracuse blog wonders what an all-Northeast team conference would look like (which would include UMass).

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The Irish Illustrated looks at the linebacking units of Notre Dame's 2015 opponents.Gives some props to Jovan Santos-Knox.

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An Australian academy prepares local players for a US scholarship. UMass will have its own man from "down under" in freshman TE Travis Reynolds.

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