Thursday--June 30, 2011

The Worcester Telegram has a writeup on Coach Morris' visit to Worcester for the "Together We are One" tour. It has some quotes by Coach Morris on future FBS opponents. Mentioned are Oklahoma, LSU, Boston College and UConn.

If we schedule LSU, I've gotta go. Mrs. Blog will have to start saving.

LSU Athletic Dept Image

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Former UMass HC Don Brown gets a mention in this "Best Assistant Coaches in Football" article.

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The UMass website has a preview of the Old Dominion Game. This year's visit to Ballard Stadium might be the only time we play the Monarchs.

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Brandon London and the Montreal Alouettes will be on the NFL Network at 7:00 PM tonight. Set your DVD. The NFL Network is channel 154 on Dish Network.

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James Ihedigibo was a guest on the Boomer and Craig Morning show. Podcast here.

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As an amateur astronomer, I'm happy that the UMass astronomy dept has finished their new radio telescope. The scope's webpage here.

Click on image for a larger view. M82 information here. I've visited M82 number of times with my 15-cm refractor.

Recruiting 2012--Jackson Matteo

Matteo #72/image by Mike Pettigano

Rivals.com reports UMass has offered to Jackson Matteo, a 6-5 276 pd OL from Ashburn, VA.

Matteo's Rivals page here.

Highlight video here.

Matteo has offers from MAC schools Ball State, Temple and Ohio. He also has offers from FBS Marshall and FCS schools Bryant and Old Dominion.

Wednesday--June 29, 2011

The UMass website has the "Top Three" plays of 2010. It includes Ryan Carter's 97 yard TD return against Maine.

The "Together We are One" video was posted to YouTube yesterday.

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The team is my favorite moniker, the Stetson Hatters, are gearing up to join FCS football in 2013.

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Sporting News has a high regard for new CAA team Old Dominion.

Tuesday--June 28, 2011

Coach Morris will be in Worcester this Wednesday to continue the "Together We are One" tour.

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UMass is #21 in the FCS preseason polls consolidated rankings. The Minutemen are all over the place, with a high of #12 in Athlon and not receiving a single vote on the AGS poll.

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The CAA website has a feature article on William & Mary's Jonathon Grimes.

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PPL Park wants to host more off-campus Villanova football games.

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Remember last week I posted a link on the growing disparity of FBS and FCS finances? Check out the revenue spread between West Virginia and James Madison when the two meet at Fed-Ex Field in Landover, MD.

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The BC Blog "BC Interruption" looks at recent Eagles-Minutemen history.

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Recruiting 2012--Rhakeem Stallings

Rivals image

Rivals.com reports UMass has offered to Rhakeem Stallings, a 6-0 210 pd OLB from Chesapeake, VA.

Stallings' Rivals page here.

YouTube highlight video here.

Mentioned as a rising senior here.

This article features Stallings.

Besides UMass, Stallings holds offers from Western Michigan, Ball State, Florida Atlantic and FCS Old Dominion.

Monday--June 27, 2011

The UMass website has some video from the "Together We are One" tour at the UMass club in Boston. Coach Morris says in the video,  recruiting for 2012 has gone well.

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Brandon London has made the Montreal Alouettes roster and should see significant playing time in Thursday's opening game.

An alouette is a French word for lark, BTW.

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"Eagle in Atlanta" has more signs that Boston College's ticket sales are in trouble. I believe UMass' move to FBS will help football in New England, if Boston College and UConn will play us in a continuing series.

Syracuse's attendance at the Carrier Dome has not been robust either. The Orange averaged 40,064 at home and ranked #64 in FBS attendance.

Boston College averaged 38,369 at the Heights for a #65 ranking.

UConn averaged 38,242 at Rentschler Field.

There should be a "Northeast Trophy" for the area.

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Richmond looks at ten years in A10 basketball and thinks that changes in the Big East will come in ten years or less, which is what we've been saying here for years.

If things break right, UMass could end up in the Big East in football and also be part of a new basketball league.

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The UMass website has the revised Coaches roster up.

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Recruiting 2012-Edens Sineace

NFTC image

Rivals.com reports UMass has offered to Edens Sineace, a 6-5 300 pd OT from Wellington, FL.

Sineace's Rivals page here.

Made Miami NFTC All-Camp.

This article mentions him.

Also mentioned here.

Besides UMass, Sineace has offers from Marshall, Middle Tennessee State and Florida International.

Saturday---June 25, 2011

The CAA Blogger has a long post on news from around the league. Included is the naming of Tyler Holmes to the College Football Performance Awards Pre-Season Linebacker Award.

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You remember the major sticking point for Villanova's entry into the Big East is their plans to use 18,000 seat soccer stadium PPL Park as their home stadium? Well, the concept will get a tryout this year as the Wildcats will host Delaware at that venue on November 19th.

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Temple lands a three-star QB with New England roots.

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I saw the link to this human interest story on AGS message board: A 5-11 205 pd Georgetown DB benched 440 in a powerlifting contest-----and still lost to his dad.

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Attention UMass Marching Band! We've got to get some of these.

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Recruiting 2012--Jakarri Thomas

Rivals image

Rivals.com reports UMass has offered to Jakarri Thomas, a 6-2 190 pd OLB from Tallahassee, FL.

Thomas' Rivals page here.

This article says he'll visit UMass.

Ran a 11.5 100 meters.

Thomas holds offers from Arkansas, Duke, Illinois, Kentucky, Memphis, Pitt, Stamford, UCF and Western Kentucky.

Fruday---June 24, 2011

UMass has a new Director of Football operations. Jordan Jerry was previously LB coach for Colorado School of Mines. He's a New Hampshire native and holds two degrees from Georgetown.

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The 2011 season opener at Holy Cross will be televised on CBS Sports.

MassLive has a stub article (but a nice image) here.

The game is courtesy of the Patriot League's TV package.

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TSN's Craig Haley has "Ten games that will shape the FCS Season".

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University of Albany is getting a new stadium.

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Thursday--June 23, 2011

Both Jeff Thomas and Matty V have stories about the three Spring 2011FBS transfers, Kellen Pagel, Ryan Campbell and Chris Burns being ruled eligible for the 2011 season.

Thomas also says I missed the starting date for Fall practice by one day. He gives August 4th as the beginning of camp.

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Jeff Thomas also reports on three 2012 recruits UMass has offered. I'll be covering them all in detail later on.

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The Stamford Times reports Vladimir Ducasse is ready to fight in his second season with the Jets.

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Special thanks to a good UMass fan for alerting me to FillFittonField.com. They have 8:00 as the start of the UMass-Holy Cross game on Sept 1st.

Holy Cross will also be honoring three new members to their Hall-of-Fame at the game.

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I saw this link over on "Eagle in Atlanta" blog: College football in a Pro market.

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The Wall Street Journal reports only 17 of the "Major" schools have not had a serious violation of NCAA rules since 1953. Five of the seventeen are MAC schools.

From the Article:"It helps if the conference sets a good example. The Mid-American Conference, which produced the most schools (five) of any conference on the list, has its own infractions committee that reviews every violation, no matter how minor, by its member schools. The committee meets in person twice a year, with a representative from each MAC school presenting the institution's infractions for the previous half year. Several conferences, including the Big 12 and Big East, don't do this."

Wednesday--June 22, 2011

Scan from the 1994 UMass Press Guide

Click on the image and Blogger displays a larger view.

MassLive reports Mike Hodges is retiring. The Blog and Mrs Blog join all UMass fans wishing Mike a great retirement. He has been a great advocate for UMass football and the University.

Mike kept UMass football going when Jimmie Reid resigned because of cutbacks in 1991. He never complained, or even mentioned, that fact when those same lack of resources caused some lean years during his tenure as HC.

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Former UMass assistant coach Malik Hall returns to UMass as defensive line coach. I've blogged a number of times about Hall.

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Matty V. has an article on UMass' efforts to line up some OOC games for Gillette. Right now, Colorado and Indiana are the teams in the mix. UMass AD John McCutcheon is also in talks with SEC, Big Ten and Big Twelve schools.

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The BC Blog "BC Interruption" calls for a little mascot-on-mascot violence.

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Recruiting 2012--Andrew Everett

Under Armour image

Rivals.com reports UMass has offered to Andrew Everett, a 6-4 195 pd WR/DE from Suwanee, GA.

Everett's Rivals page here.

YouTube highlight video here.

Everett's special teams play gets a mention here.

Under Armour combine page here.

Besides UMass, Everett holds offers from Southern Mississippi and FCS schools Gardner-Webb and Georgia Southern.

Tuesday--June 21, 2011

More on the CAA's proposal to allow five years of eligibility for FCS football players.

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More on the widening gap between FCS and FBS revenues.

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TSN's Craig Haley has a Q & A session with Texas Southern's Kevin Ramsey. Texas Southern was clobbered with NCAA sanctions this spring.

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This year's MAC Football TV schedule.

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Recruiting 2012---Sequan Gooding

Andy Hilton/ Recruit 757 image

Rivals.com reports UMass is recruiting Sequan Gooding, a 6-2 190 pd WR from Chesapeake, VA.

Gooding's Rivals page here.

YouTube highlight video here.

This article mentions Gooding.

Gooding holds an offer from Western Michigan. Drawing interest from Ball State, Delaware, JMU, Liberty, Marshall, Maryland, Old Dominion, Temple and Virginia Tech.

Monday--June 20, 2011

The Boston Globe talks about Boston College's move to the ACC. Of interest to UMass fans is an apparent annual series with the Eagles now that we are FBS.

From the article":

With the University of Massachusetts moving to the FBS level, DeFilippo has offered it two-for-one deals over a six-year period, meaning the Eagles would host UMass four times and play twice on the road (which would be at Gillette Stadium).

“We’ve offered UMass what we’ve given every MAC school — a two-for-one deal. I think it’s fair,’’ he said.

UMass-BC is not Florida State-Miami or even South Carolina-Clemson, but it would be a start, especially since DeFilippo steadfastly refuses to put Connecticut back into the loop.

In basketball, BC will play UMass, Providence, Holy Cross, and Harvard on a regular basis in nonconference competition."

 This probably dovetails pretty nicely with UMass' plans as six years in FBS is about the time frame UMass will probably be trying to wrangle a new on-campus facility. If the Minutemen are successful, we could shoot for a regular home-and-home series

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A Bleacher Report article that looks at potential FCS-FBS upsets in 2011 (UMass -BC is not one of them).

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The MAC currently has 85 alumni in the NFL.

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Saturday--June 18, 2011

The UMass website has the next issue of their 2011 season preview with details of the game with Boston College.

I saw the following  link over on BC Blog "Eagle in Atlanta". When we play the Eagles this year, they won't have Matt Ryan like they did in 2007.

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Keepers College Football ratings has his Spring FCS Football Stats page up. It's a must for statistics nuts.

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Jeff Thomas of MassLive.com has a short article on college football income and expenses that adds a link to the 108-page NCAA report I commented on yesterday.

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Former UMass student Taurus Londono has an article for Yahoo Sports that discusses the complicated relationship between Massachusetts and Connecticut and their various sports teams including UMass and UConn.

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Delaware OnLine has a story about the CAA's intention to push for five years of eligibility for football. Apparently that means just what it says, football players would be able to actually play for five years.

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Two MAC athletic directors were named Under Armour regional Athletic Directors-of-the-year. Temple was named for the Northeast and Western Michigan for the Central.

Temple's continuing upgrade of their athletic facilities is impressive.

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Friday--June 17, 2011

The CAA administrators have ruled on UMass' record in the CAA this year:

"In CAA Football, it was decided that the University of Massachusetts, which is in the process of transitioning to the FBS level, will not be eligible for the CAA Championship in 2011, but its players will still be eligible to receive pre-season, weekly and post-season awards. The Minutemen’s official conference record will be recorded as 0-0 and it will not occupy a spot in the CAA Football standings. However, the game results will be reflected in their opponents’ conference record. CAA Football will have 11 members this season with the addition of Old Dominion University. Georgia State University will join CAA Football in 2012".

They will also sponsor NCAA legislation allowing five seasons of eligibility for football. Not sure what they mean by that. Be able to use four years of playing in any five year time period without a medical redshirt?

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Former UMass assistant coach Bob Shoop is now the defensive coordinator at Vanderbilt. Shoop's Vandy bio here.

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Nice work by UMass Football Blog readers who took over the "BC Interruption" hate index poll last week. It produced this response by that blog:

"Last Week's Relegation: UMass -- So the Minutemen's stint on the BC Interruption Hate Index was quite short-lived. Unfortunately, a pro-UMass crowd got hold of the Hate Index last week and with a late voting surge, ran away with last week's relegation poll. No matter. I suppose it's just as well that we don't waste any more words on the Minutemen, seeing as they pale in comparison to BC in football, hockey, basketball, sailing, baseball and pretty much every other collegiate sport out there. "

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The Maryland blog "Terrapin Station" has a profile of Coach Dudzinski.

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Bleacher Report has one of those lets-rearrange-all-the-conferences stories and places UMass in a hypothetical "Northeast Conference" .

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UMass athletics has a page in which you can vote for the "Play-of-the-Year". Two UMass football plays: Antoine Tharpe's big hit against JUM and Ryan Carter's 97 yard return against Maine.

Vote early and often!

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Brandon London caught six passes for 67 yards and a TD in an Alouttes' preseason game.

Sun-Sentinel image

 Image from London's modeling career during his time with the Dolphins.


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Recruiting 2012--Corey Taylor

Andy Hilton/Recruit 757 image

Rivals.com reports UMass is recruiting Corey Taylor, a 5-11, 175 pd DB from Virginia Beach, VA.

Taylor's Rivals page here.

This article features him.

Taylor holds offers from Ball State, Elon and Western Michigan.

He is also drawing interest from Army, Navy, Appalachian State and Marshall.

Thursday---June 16, 2011

Jeff Thomas of MassLive notices, as we have seen here, UMass is offering to FBS-level recruits.

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The CAA blogger has a summer feature on Delaware's Andrew Pierce.

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Keron Williams and Anton McKenzie are on the roster of the B.C. Lions.

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Craig Haley of TSN has a story about FCS promotions in his "In the FCS Huddle" column.

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No FCS team in the nation reported a positive cash flow according to the NCAA.

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Andy Talley's bone marrow registration drives have made an impact on the number of donors.

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Charlotte 49ers move to FCS football may have some ramifications for the Atlantic 10.

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Former UMass assistant coach Ted Roof is making $500,000/yr as defensive coordinator for Auburn.