Stadium and practice images

The UMass website has more images from 2005 preseason. See them here. The images are unattributed, but probably are by Assistant Athletic Director for Media Affairs Jason Yellin.

My comment is on the new paint job for McGuirk. Although this is a modest expenditure, it shows that entropy is not being allowed to take over. I remember a conversation with UMass Head Coach Jimmie Reid (1986-1991). He told me it was a constant struggle to keep UMass from dumping stuff that it no longer used, but did not want to throw away, at the stadium. In recent years the north side of the stadium has been paved and now the seemingly yearly small projects.

It shows! McGuirk is looking pretty good.

Now if they could only do some work on UMass' sad looking field house!

KAEO Richard Lapham

The Boston Globe reports that "Richard Lapham, a 6-8, 282-pound offensive lineman from Amherst, N.H., who was courted by Georgia Tech, Notre Dame, Stanford, along with Harvard, UMass, and UNH" has verbaled to Boston College this weekend.

Richmond may move Tutt to WR

Last year was a facinating year for UMass football. Despite the heavy turnover in players (UMass only had 14 scholarship players on Defense in the spring of 2004), and a new coaching staff, UMass finished with a winning record. That record could have been better by two games.

One of thse two losses was this year's opening opponent Richmond (who won only two A10 games in 2004), The Spiders beat us on the play of Stacy Tutt. He earned A10 Player of the Week for his performance against UMass. He threw for two touchdowns and ran 41 yards for another. He was 12-31-1-132 and 2 TDs passing, and rushed 18 times for 117 yards and 1 touchdown.

His Hail Mary touchdown pass with 0:00 left in the first half was play that beat UMass.

Now there is news that Richmond is considering moving Tutt to WR.

Richmond finished at 3-8 and they are hoping to get more talent on the field by possibly playing RFr. Will Healy or true Fr. Levi Brown at QB.

This will poise a challenge for the UMass Defense. Tutt scrambled. He is most effective when running around making plays. Both Healy and Brown are more pocket players.

Every A10 game is important and the changes going on in Richmond should make the game under the lights at UR Stadium on 09/01/25 even more interesting.

News Story on the first day of practice

The UMass Website has a story on the first day of preseason camp for the UMass football team.

There is also a image gallery by Assistant Director of Media Relations Jason Yellin. The image to the right is by him.

Administrivia

This blog uses Blogger to present the UMass Football Fanzone.

It's FREE. Thanks Google!

However, it does have some quirks. The longest thread in the support section is how to make blogger point a specific previous entry. Most people can't get that feature to work. I'm one of them. To get around that problem, I've set the posts to be archived by week, which is probably more in tune with football anyway.

If this is your first visit, be advised that images in the archived section may not show right away. I use FireFox and IE6 (however if FireFox does not stop wiping my bookmarks, I may switch to Opera). If you visit an archived post and see just a caption and a small rectangle, then click on the rectangle and the image will load. At least it does with FireFox and IE6...

One loaded your browser should cache the image. Note that in most cases, you can click on the image for a larger view.

Also, I've repeatedly set Blogger to notify me when someone posts a comment. That does not seem to work either. So I may miss your comment. If you really want me to know something, e-mail me. In addition, there does not seem to be a way to edit a comment once it's posted.

The Blogger formant is somewhat restricting and I may move the Fanzone to an independent server to give me more control over the presentation.

Visitors should note the "next blog" button at the top. Clicking on that button will take you on a long strange trip through the hive mind of blogging humanity. There are porn blogs, chamber of commerce sites, Icelandic poetry reviews and lots of "my-life-sucks" blogs. There is even one written in Arabic by the "Avenger". Don't know what he's ranting about, but he uses lots of exclamation points...

UMass Football opens practice today!

UMass football will open the 2005 season today with its first practice. Practices are governed by NCAA practice rules. Read the full 271 page NCAA football rules book here

Hopefully UMass will avoid any serious injuries during the 29 days of practice allowed by the NCAA.

UMass opens under the lights at Richmond on Thursday, September 1, 2005. The probability of this blogger being at the game has waxed and waned during the last couple of weeks. Right now things are looking up.

This issue is related to "SPU"s. As shown in the Blogger Profile section, I'm also into Amateur Astronomy.

This is a quote from the Glossary section of "A Practical Guide to Lightcurve Photometry and Analysis' by Brain D. Warner

"SPOUSAL PERMISSION UNITS (SPU'S) Credits issued by one spouse to another so that the recipient may do something in the future, e.g. purchase a telescope, without incurring the wrath of the spouse issuing the credits. There is no actuary table that defines the number of SPUs required to cover the cost of any given act. Their value is often volatile and subject to seasonal if not daily fluctuations. Note that SPUs do not accrue interest and, indeed may loose value over time. Therefore, it is usually wise to redeem the SPUs as soon as possible after they are issued."

SPUs also apply to permission to go to away football games more than 200 miles from home!

UMass Helmet History

The UMass Helmets above are a scan from the 2005 UMass Press Guide. The source of helmets is The Helmet Project. Click on the image to enlarge.

The sequence is missing the 1972 helmet (probably because the Helmet Project does not have a image of that helmet.)

The lesser known Helmet History Site does have an image. That's the one below.



I know for a fact that the players hated the 1972 version.

If I were "building" the perfect UMass helmet, I would go with the "type" 1988 helmet with the current type 2003 black and maroon center stripes.

I would rank the helmet history this way in order of preference.

1. Type 1988
2. Types 1993 and type 2003
3. Type 1970
4. Type 1989
5. Type 1962 and type 1986 (don't like the "Penn State" look)
6. Type 1963

What's your favorite?

UMass ties for first in Preseason Standings

The A10 held its annual preseason Media Day yesterday. See the official article here

UMass tied for first with UNH in the North division by Coaches and Media.

Note that I list UMass below UNH for two reasons: UNH had more first place votes and to avoid the

A10 first place hex. First place votes in parenthesis

1. UNH (14)
2. UMass (12)
3. Hofstra (4)
4. Maine
5. Northeastern
6. Rhode Island

In the South Division

1. JMU (16)
2. Delaware (6)
3. William & Mary (6)
4. Villanova (6)
5. Richmond
6. Townson.

The image is UMass Coach Brown and Shannon James being interviewed at the Media day.

Friends of UMass Football Golf Day

On Monday, the UMass Friends of Football held their annual Golf Day and meeting. It's their major fund raiser and social event. Over 125 UMass Friends of Football had a great day of golf and friendship.

Athletic Director John McCutcheon attended. UMass Basketball coach Travis Ford and UMass Hockey Coach "Toot" Cahoon also put in an appearance.

Former UMass Football head coaches Dick MacPherson, Bob Pickett and Mike Hodges attended.

The image on the right is by me (It's too dark, sorry).

Signs are by "Signman", who should have his own website, but does n0t as far as I know.

By "Signman" 

By "Signman" 

By "Signman" 

By "Signman" 

By "Signman" 

By "Signman" 

Oh, I'm blogging my life away

Lookin' for a better Daaayy.

An interesting read is this account of the blog universe. According to Technorati, there are over 14.2 million blogs. The problem is that only about 13% are updated at least once a week.

Outside of the UMass Fanzone, the only I-AA bogs that I'm aware of are:

• The 13 Yard Line
• The Lehigh Football Nation
• TSPN Daily ( with links to the interesting non-blogs: SWAC Page , MEAC Fan Page and Onnidan Black Colleges Online)
  

Not that there might not be more. A Google search on "UMass Football Blog" produces no hits. You have to search on UMass Football Fanzone to get any references to this blog. I'm working on registering with more search engines, but it's slow.

If anyone is aware of any more active I-AA blogs let me know.

UMass Press Guide Part II

Got an copy of the 2005 Press Guide at the UMass Friends of Football dinner last night. I've have one on order with my season tickets, but it has not arrived yet. I thought I'd publish a higher rez set of images in case anyone wants to use them as a screen saver.

Click on the image to enlarge.

Information about ordering a copy is in my previous Blog.

The guide is written and edited by Jason Yellin, Assist. Athletic Director of Media Relations.

Back Cover of 2005 UMass Press Guide 

Front Cover of 2005 UMass Press Guide 

The 2005 UMass Football Media Guide out

The UMass 2005 Media Guide is out. Follow this link for a preview and order form.

The Fanzone gets one every year and it’s great for UMass Football browsing (especially during the football deprived seasons of spring and summer).

The 2004 edition was 200 pages of UMass information. It is well worth the $15 publication cost.

The UMass Football Media Guide is well produced. The guide has won awards in the past for its production even against the mammoth guides issued by I-A teams. Check out this amusing story how the NCAA has put an end to escalating I-A media guides (Missouri’s last year was 614 pages and weighed 2.2 pds)