Around FCS

David Coulson of The Sports Network has a new article about Jayson Foster of Georgia Southern.

Foster won the 2007 Walter Payton Award. GSU article about him winning the award here .

BTW, the NFL has a Walter Payton Award also .

Albany starts Spring Practice

We open August 30th (hopefully under the new lights), against Albany.

They have their Spring Prospectus and practice schedule up.

Wish UMass would do a Spring Preview.

UPDATE: Montana, for example, has a 28 page spring prospectus (pdf).

UPDATE II: Someone in the comments mentioned this year's BCS/I-A opponent Texas Tech. This link has their spring 2008 depth chart. Before you click, jot down a guess on how many offensive linemen the Red Raiders have that are > 350 pds. How close were you?

Article about Neal Brown

Another article about former UMass player and assistant coach Neal Brown. At only 27, Brown is among the youngest Offensive Coordinators in BCS/I-A football.

I've blogged before about Brown. Blogger will display the posts below this one.

Friday Odds & Ends

The second game of the 2008 season will be Holy Cross. They finally published their recruiting list for this year. One interesting recruit is Matt Bellomo, who was the Massachusetts Player-of-the-Year. Another article about him here .

In other news, UMass football is again taking part in the bone marrow registration drive started by Andy Talley.

Nothing on the wires about UMass' Pro-day. If I get anything, you'll be the first to hear...

Signs of Spring!

Well, my backyard is still snow covered here in the Great Granite State. The Madness of March is on basketball. However, for football fans, there are signs of Spring.

The CAA has started its second season of spring practice player Blogs. The player blogs (Delaware, Maine, Richmond, Rhode Island and Northeastern) so far are here . Another article on the CAA spring schedule is here. UMass spring practice starts April 5th!

Meanwhile, JMU had their Pro Day.

I could not figure out why Racheed Rancher was not on NFL draft lists. He's now on the Consensus Draft list.

Former UMass legend Dick MacPherson is again on the College Hall-of-Fame ballot.

FCS/I-AA football and Hoops

Sporting News' David Coulson has an article about FCS/I-AA teams in the NCAA tourney.

In the other bracket of the NIT, UMass' A10 league-mate Dayton plays football in the Pioneer league. The Pioneer League teams have prospered in hoops .

The Flyers are no slouches in football either. They were 11-1 in 2007 and won the "Mid-Major National Championship". In 2007, they beat Patriot League champion Fordham and also topped our 2008 opponent Albany.

The Flyers football page is here .

A quick check of the UMass Press Guide shows the Minutemen have never played Dayton in football.

Great Game Hoops!

I think this is the first ever blog post on a UMass team other than football, but I can't ignore a great game like I just witnessed.

I had basketball season tickets for years when I lived in the valley and still do about five weekend games a year.

But the Syracuse game felt like the days of "Refuse to Lose!"

The story should be up shortly on the UMass Basketball page.

Great game guys!

Football 2008---- The Spread Offense

Let's get back to football. The Spread Offense is going viral in college football. Appalachian State beat Michigan with it. Oregon killed Michigan with it.

Oklahoma is adopting it. Former FCS/I-AA coach Paul Wulff is bringing it to Washington State.

Our BCS opponent Texas Tech wrote the book on the spread offense.

The Spread Offense has its own website (including methods of defensing it).

And the Citadel wants to try to defensing it against Appalachian State.

UPDATE: Just to give you more to worry about, Texas Tech is loaded this year .

UPDATE FRIDAY 28TH: Michigan and Wisconsin are adding the spread option.

McGuirk and the UMass Sunwheel

In the Easter blog post I talked about the astronomical connections with the date of Easter. The comments to the post started me thinking about the fact that the UMass Football stadium is perhaps the only stadium with a working stone astronomical calender on the grounds.

The calender is the famous UMass Sun wheel . Designed and constructed by UMass astronomy professor Judith Young , the Sun Wheel is the site of numerous presentations by Prof Young . It is a little smaller than Stonehedge as pictured to the right, but still great fun.

The Springfield Republican just ran two articles about the UMass/McGuirk Sun Wheel here and here .

Next time you visit, show it to your kids---- they'll love climbing on the rocks if nothing else :)

Happy Easter!

The UMass Football Blog wishes the UMass Football on-line community a Happy Easter.

As you know from my "About Me" section in the blog, I'm also an amateur astronomer. Easter is an astronomical holiday since it tracks the Passover date based on a lunar calender.

Easter is always the first Sunday, after the first full moon, after the Vernal Equnox.

Easter won't fall this early again (on March 23rd) until 2160 and won't fall on an earlier date (Mach 22nd) untill 2285. Wonder if we will make the playoffs that year...

Find the Easter date for any date.

New England Pro Days

Remember in Wednesday's Blog post, Ricky Santos did not get invited to the the Boston Pro Day?

Well, UNH had it's own Pro Day.

So did the Maine Black Bears.

From Lindy's Magazine to God's ear!

The above image is from the ACC Recruiting section of 2007 Lindy's College Football Magazine. Click on the image and read the last line of the BC capsule.

The Sun-Chronical has a blurb about Eason here .

Hope he finds a home with UMass. Brown's attacking style defense is perfect for Eason as a DE. Watching him tee off and rush the passer would be a treat for Minutemen fans. Not a bad way to make it into the Pros either.

Bryan Haynes at Fort Hays State University

Former UMass WR Brian Haynes is attending Fort Hays State University.

He's running track and running back kickoffs for the Tigers .

Another article mentioning him here .

Matt Lawrence did well at Pro-Day

Alen Seigel of the Berkshire Eagle-Tribune has some good words for UMass' TB Matt Lawrence at BC's Pro-Day.

Seven UMass players at BC's Pro Day

Seven UMass seniors were scheduled to take part in yesterday's Boston College's Pro Day. They were:

OL Matt Austin (UMass)
LB Jason Hatchell (UMass)
K Chris Koepplin (UMass)
RB Matt Lawrence (UMass)
TE Brad Listorti (UMass)
WR J.J. Moore (UMass)
LB Charles Walker (UMass)

A complete list of local players who attended is here .

The image above is not the BC proday. I grabbed it off the web to illustrate the blog post. Still don't put much faith in those hand timed 40 sprints...

Hope they all did great!

UPDATE I: NFL teams in attendance.

UPDATE II: All those scouts. All that football expertise. The players really get a fair, quality evaluation about their ability to play Pro Football----- right? Read these. Matt Ryan is great . Matt Ryan sucks .

Third UMass Recruit to play in the NY-NJ Football Classic

I've blogged before about two UMass recruits playing in the NY-NJ Football Classic (formerly the NY-NJ Governors Bowl). Note that the team rosters on the game website have not been updated and are from the previous year.

Now the New York roster has been released and UMass recruit Sean O'Connor is on the roster. He's a 6-6 275 pd OL from Iona Prep in Valhalla, NY. There's an article about his signing with UMass here .

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.

UMass Connections ---- Travis Tripucka Lacrosse

UMass freshman Lacrosse player Travis Tripucka is the nephew of former UMass QB Mark Tripucka.

Mark Tripucka was with the Football team from 1970-1974. My collection of UMass game programs starts in 1976, so I don't have any images of him.

Mark Tripucka's time as QB overlapped the career of Peil Pennington, who was one of the most prolific passers in UMass History. Tripucka was the starter in in 1974. He went 60-145 817 yards and 6 TDs. Mark lettered in 1971, 1972 and 1974.

Saturday Morning Odds & Ends

David Coulson of the Sporting News writes about the hard way of doing things up in the BCS Division.

If you really like college football, then you should look into this job offer .

MaxPreps has an article about the destinations of Massachusetts players in the 2008 signing class. Note the error listing Josh Previte as a UMass recruit. He's going to Rhode Island.

Recruiting 2009-------- LB Ed Roberts

UMass is interested in 5-11-220 pd LB Ed Roberts of sicklerville NJ. His Rivals page is here.

The image to the right of Roberts (in the air) is by Akina Suma of the Inquirer.

Drawing lots of CAA interest with Maine, Towson and Delaware also in the picture.