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| Hampshire Gazette image |
I took part in Tuesday's UMass Grid Iron Zoom meeting. There were about 110 participants including many UMass football alums. Attending were Kerry Taylor, Matt Lawrence, Bob Foote and other UMass fans and supporters.
There will be at least one more Grid Iron Zoom meeting this Spring and would feature the assistant coaches.
Brown said he'd like to have some of the football alums have regular Zoom meetings with current players to provide some mentorship and life experience
This is some of the notes I took. Be advised Coach Brown sometimes speaks in parables and jumps around in his subject matter. Also my hearing is not very good so this is what I think he said. Do not consider this gospel.
On Spring:
- The Spring game will be April 30th.
- Spring practices will be open.
On the facilities:
- Brown said recruits were surprised how nice the Minutemen weight room and performance center was.
- He felt the playing field's artificial surface was getting thin and needed to be replaced.
- Brown wanted to add some kitchen facilities to the performance center so the players could go directly to class after workouts or practice.
On the schedule:
- Brown said except for the Power Five teams, UMass should be competitive with the rest of the schedule.
- He said the Minutemen should not take a back seat to Army or other Group-of-Five teams.
On offense:
- Brown said the Minutemen needed to able to run the ball. He said you can't win if you can't run.
- He felt Coach Miller and the offensive line will enable UMass to run.
- Brown said UMass will copy Michigan's run scheme.
On Defense:
- Brown said UMass will play man defense in the secondary.
- He said the front seven's duty was to "go get the quarterback".
- Brown said UMass will blitz from any position including the DB's
- He said he'd call the defensive sets from the field.
On coaching:
- Brown said he really liked his staff and felt they would be successful in Amherst.
- He said he'd coach the cornerbacks.
On recruiting:
- Brown said UMass will expand it's recruiting area.
- Coach Ryan Partridge was California HS coach of the year in 2018 and UMass would recruit California.
- Brown said he believed a number of Michigan HS coaches thought well of him and UMass would recruit Michigan.
- The Minutemen would return to recruiting Florida.
- Coach Miller and Dudzinski would recruit the DMV area.
- Brown would recruit Eastern Mass and parts of CT.
- Coach Perkins would recruit Florida with help from Coach Brower.
On this week's recruiting visits:
- UMass is bringing in 12 recruits.
- Six are true freshmen.
- Six are transfer portal guys from Michigan State, Rice, Michigan, Rutgers, Louisville and a California JUCO All-American.
On joining a conference:
- Brown kinda talked around this topic. He said "we have to be ready.", which I took to mean not many conferences are enthused about taking a team that has won two games in three years.
Brown is an inspiring guy to listen to. He seems really excited to be back and I think we'll finally turn the corner for FBS.