Tuesday News ---- 03/03/09

Well. it's five degrees in Jaffrey this morning and the snow is knee deep. Somewhere Tom Brady is honeymooning with super model Gisele Bundchen. A Google image search on her is here.

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Eagle in Atlanta had this link to a scout.com interview with BC quarterback recruit Michael Marscovetra. Recruiting came down to Boson College ------ or Bryant.

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It's going to cost Kansas State students $245 for a season pass to Wildcat football games this year.

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UMass has its coaches roster updated to reflect the recent changes. Bios for Steve Tirrell and Dyran Peaks are included.

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Wednesday Wonders 01/07/09

The Arena Football league may have folded, but the the Manchester Wolves are having tryouts on Jan 31st.

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Boston College Head coach Jeff Jagodzinski interviewed with the Jets. Blogger "Eagle in Atlanta" is all over it.

Be sure to check out his "prospective replacements" post. Key quote :Mark Whipple; Philadelphia Eagles, Offensive Assistant -- he didn't kiss Gene's ring enough last time."

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UMass Punter Brett Arnold made First-Team All-American by The Sports Network. Two other UMass players made the team: Jeromy Miles and Courtney Robinson.

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New CAA Team Old Dominion has just signed their 8th JUCO player.

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Friday facts 01/02/2009

Courtney Robinson made the CSN "Fabulous Fifty" first team. Brett Arnold and Victor Cruz were on the positional Honorable Mention list.

JMU's Mickey Matthews was named the Liberty Mutual "FCS Coach-of-the-Year".

The Boston College lost to Vanderbilt in VU Music City Bowl. The game featured some weird statistics. BC lost despite holding the Commodores to a grand total of eight first downs. Vandy also had zero penalties and zero turnovers.

Texas Tech plays in the Cotton Bowl today at 1:00 PM (CST 2:00 Eastern time) Set your VCR.

If you spend any time on football message boards, you'll meet the psycho fan. You know, the guy who's team has to win every game by 50 points or he goes ballistic. Southern Pigskin has a generic fan rant that's hilarious.

Monday News 12/29/08

Brandon London played a part in the Miami dolphins 24-17 win over the Jets.

After winning the FCS/I-AA tittle, London's dad Mike London is considered a hot property.

UConn's offensive coordinator Rob Ambrose has been named head coach at Towson. The CAA website has an extensive article on Ambrose here .

UMass' 2008 BCS opponent Texas Tech plays in the Cotton Bowl Friday. TV schedule for all the bowl games is here.

More Texas Tech stuff

I know I said that there would be some Blog news today, but I've got a family commitment, so I'm going to push that back until tomorrow when I'm not rushed.

Couple of articles about UMass' BCS/I-AA game Texas Tech.

I found this link about Texas Tech's QB Graham Harell over on Draft Daddy's Blog (a great source for college football enthusiasts).

This Article reviews Big Twelve offenses. The good news: the Red Raiders are not as good as Oklahoma. The bad news: they're better than Texas, Kansas and Nebraska. Gulp!

And lastly, I found this image on the web while searching for the Texas Tech logo. Maybe there are other sports than football...

Wednesday Morning Odds & Ends 07/02/08

Does UMass play a FCS/I-AA version of Buddy Ryan's 46 defense?

Wanna really know what "zone blitz" is, and how to block it and why the Patriots lost the Super Bowl? Check this article from Smart Football.

Delaware adds a transfer from UConn.

Anyone old enough to remember UMass hanger-on "Eric-the-Rat" ---Blue Wall Jazz musician, Universal Life Church minister and naked guy? Apparently he has a slightly younger brother. Sure looks there is a family resemblance.

And our so-called "Sports marketing" division misses another big opportunity.

Another article about Bob Behler leaving UMass. This time by Matt Vautour.

As others see us

This year's FBS/I-A opponent Texas Tech has an excellent fan blog called "Double T Nation".

In today's post he has a link to a video recap of the Texas Tech-Northwestern State game from last year. The Red Raiders won 75-7.

Key quote from clueless local reporter "The Northwestern State Demons are not from the Big Twelve. They're not even Division I"

Article on potential FCS-BCS upsets in 2008

Check out Adam Nettina's ongoing column on potential FCS-over-BCS upsets in 2008.

Adam is a quality writer on college football. He also produces a lot of original material.

He is currently doing some work for In The Bleachers.

A10 and football

As you have probably heard, the A10 has a new commissioner. Bob McGovern has the story over at the UMass All-Sports Blog "Between Mullins and McGuirk"

Our basketball friends are pretty obsessive and I wonder how they would react to this rumor that Temple (along with former I-AA team Western Kentucky and currently independent) is leaving the A10 for an all-sports membership in the MAC.

Temple has shown some life in the MAC and it would make sense for them to make the move. They were only in the A10 because the Big East's basketball teams froze them out.

Would Coach Brown be interested?

Jerimy Finch the #1 rated Safety by Rivals is leaving Florida and Marcus Ball, a projected starter at LB at Florida State, is also leaving his school. Story here.

Texas Tech's Spring game

Notes from 2008's BCS/I-A opponent Texas Tech's Spring Game here .

Friday Odds & Ends 05/02/08

Charles Burton has an article on College Sporting News called "Three Paths to the NFL".

Speaking of FCS/I-AA in the NFL, it's loaded with talent (mentions Marcel Shipp).

Speaking of 2008, UNH is raring to go.

It's official. There are now 34 Bowl games for 120 BCS/I-A teams. That will be 68 teams out of 120 playing (56%).

FYI, that means that the eight team Big East will have seven bowl slots! One good spin off of all this for FCS/I-AA teams could be that BCS teams will schedule more games with our level in order to be bowl eligible. That in turn, may mean higher payoffs or more choices for the FCS/I-AA team.

The weather forecast for tomorrow's UMass Spring game is cloudy with showers.

How unstable is the Big East?

There is an interesting article on the instability of the Big East here . This article was brought to my attention over at the the Wizofodds.com Blog.

I've always thought that the mix of state schools and Catholic private colleges lacks stability. Note that several of the basketball scenarios have Catholic schools from the A10 joining a future All-Catholic league.

No mention of UMass in any of this.

Calling Coach Ford

Say coach Ford, you don't have room for another player, by any chance?

Saturday Morning Odds & Ends

Coach Brown likes to use what ever recruiting stream that is available. One source is BCS transfers. A BCS players often decides to transfer after Spring Ball when he realizes that after three years with his team, he is buried in the depth chart and will likely get little playing time in his final two years. Here's a list of spring game dates for BCS leagues. In the past, we have taken transfers from northeast teams such as Syracuse, BC and UConn.

This article from Sports Illustrated states that a playoff for the BCS teams is not in the cards.

It's been a hard winter here in New Hampshire. While I was looking at the Sports Illustrated site, I hit their Swimsuit site. WARNING NOT WORK SAFE (Babes in bikinis)

BTW, Appalachian State has a fan site here . Atypically for blogs, they don't link to other FCS sites.

UNCC may join FCS/I-AA football

UMass plays in the A10 for Basketball and some other sports. League member North Carolina Charlotte may be adding football to their stable of sports. This article discusses the 49ers aspirations. Note that they want to move to BCS quickly.

One the constantly mentioned negatives of a potential UMass move to BCS is that there would be no BCS league available.

See this quote from the article: "Said Gene Corrigan, a former NCAA president and commissioner of the ACC who is now a consultant: "Leagues in (FBS) are always looking for schools to join. It won't be a problem for (Charlotte)."

The mother of all sideline warnings

I attended all the UMass games this year except for three: Boston College, Hofstra and SIU. It's hard to remember a game I attended without the refs throwing a sideline warning flag. Maybe two or three.

Guess that rule does not apply to BCS/I-A teams. Watch this video "The mother of all sideline infractions" Even if the guy doesn't touch the ball, look at how many of the Texas staff are on the field...

Wish I were a professional sports writer

Like Randy Hill of Fox Sports. He's got a nice column about BCS teams here .

Relevent quote:

3. Boston College: The roll call of the vanquished features Notre Dame (1-6), Bowling Green, Division II UMass, N.C. State (1-5) and Army. The combined record of the Eagles' foes, however, is a relatively solid 21-24. Yeah, that's how bad things are around the country.

He does not seem to have an e-mail address, which is perhaps just as well.

Der Tag!

Finally the day has arrived. Go UMass!

The Jeff Thomas has a couple of articles here and here .

Under the for what it's worth category, Rhode Island thinks they're loaded .

Our Syracuse transfers receive more reinforcement that they did the right thing. Syracuse was hammered in it's opening game.

More Syracuse woe here .