Wednesday, April 02, 2025

UMass Football News--April 2nd, 2025

 The Minutemen Command has a couple of video interviews:

UMass OL coach Kurt Anderson. 

Thoughts from HC Joe Harasymiak. 

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Sports Illustrated image

UMass "X" feed has a check in with Malcolm Green. 

Green's UMass bio. With 44 GP and 7 starts in his career, he has a good chance to start for the Minutemen in 2025.

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Toledo schedules a home-and-home with Syracuse.

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Tuesday, April 01, 2025

UMass Football Recruiting 2026--Max Roche

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 Max Roche, a 6-4 225 pound TE from Niceville, FL has a UMass offer.

247Sports page here. 

Hudl.com has video.

MaxPreps has stats. 

Roche has offers from all three service academies as well as FIU and James Madison. He could get a high level education without the service commitment with Coach Harasymiak and UMass.

Monday, March 31, 2025

UMass Football Recruiting 2026--Benny Landi

 

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Benny Landi, a 6-2 235 pound DL from Sickerville, NJ has a UMass offer.

Hudl.com has video. 

Rivals page here. 

MaxPreps has stats.

Landi has a Power Four offer from Virginia. Southern Mississippi, Georgia State and Liberty have offered from the Group-of-Five. He also has an offer from FCS Rhode Island. Landi could see lots of playing time in the new Minuteman defense and get an excellent East coast education in Amherst.

Saturday, March 29, 2025

UMass Football News--March 29th, 2025

 The Greenfield Recorder has UMass Football notebook.

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Devin Lippman image

The UMass Daily Collegian has Jakobie Keeney-James shines on Pro Day. 

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UMass special teams coach Joe Castellito speaks about the importance of special teams. 

Special teams have been the stone-in-the-shoe for UMass fans during our tour in FBS. Kicking in particular has lost a number of close games. A number of studies have found special team plays figure in the decision of about one third of all games. Improvement in special team play (in all phases) would really help UMass move to respectability.  

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UMass OC Mike Bajakian thinks a culture shift is happening in the UMass program. 

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A video interview of Minutemen WR Ty Harding. 

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Congrats and good luck to the UMass hockey team who meet MAC foe Western Michigan in tonight's NCAA tournament.  

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Friday, March 28, 2025

UMass Football Recruiting 2027--Keishjuan Telfar

 

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Keishjuan Telfar, a 6-0 165 pound DB from Euclid, OH has a UMass offer.

247Sports page here. 

Hudl.com has video. 

Rivals 3-star recruit. 

Telfar has seventeen offers. Akron, Bowling Green, Buffalo, Kent State and Miami (Ohio) have offered from the MAC. He has multiple offers from Power Four teams including Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan State, Penn State , Pitt and more. He could see early playing time with rebuilding Minutemen.

Thursday, March 27, 2025

UMass Football Recruiting 2027--Jameer Henry

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 Jameer Henry, a 6-5 300 pound OL/DL has a UMass offer.

247Sports page here. 

First Team All-Detroit. 

Henry has fifteen offers. Eastern Michigan, Kent State, Miami (Ohio) Toledo and Western Michigan have offers from the MAC. He has a half a dozen offers from Power Four Teams including Michigan, Michigan State, Kentucky, Tennessee and more. He would have a chance to play early for Coach Harasymiak in Amherst.

Wednesday, March 26, 2025

UMass Football News--March 26th, 2025

 

More images from Spring practice here.

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The Minutemen Command has a video of UMass OC Mike Bajakian being interviewed by reporters.  

There is also a video of UMass WR Ty Harding being interviewed. Harding's UMass bio.

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The impact of NIL and other cost structures is increasing.

St. Francis, who was just in the NCAA basketball tournament announced they are dropping to Division III. 

If you missed it, Richmond football, (who won the 2006 FCS National Championship) is moving from the CAA to the Patriot League. 

AIC hockey (who has been the little engine that could lately) is dropping to Division II. 

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I was watching CNBC recently and they were interviewing a "Sports Investor" who was saying schools will be selling their football programs. Investor Marc Lasry said the schools "Will have to sell an interest in the teams" . Have to.  The cost structure of NIL and the fact donations to the athletic departments are no longer tax deductible make it inevitable.

See this article from Debevoise & Plimpton.

From the article:

 "CVC Capital has been rumored to be in discussions with the Big 12 athletic conference (which lost Texas and Oklahoma recently to the SEC), whereby CVC Capital would invest a range of $800 million to $1 billion in exchange for a 15−20% equity stake in the conference. In parallel, the Big 12 pursued a naming rights agreement to rename the conference in exchange for additional revenue that would be shared among its members. These cash infusions were said to be on the table in order to stabilize the conference’s finances before its next media rights deal in 2031.

    Sixth Street Partners was also rumored to have been in discussions with Florida State University (“FSU”) in relation to staking a new company that would acquire FSU’s intellectual property rights. The negotiations came at a time when FSU has filed a lawsuit against its conference, the ACC, to avoid the steep exit fee that it would owe the ACC for leaving the conference
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Lasry said a possible valuation of "12 times earnings" could be the purchase price. 

From the AI "Grok": For fiscal year 2024, Ohio State’s athletic department reported total operating revenue of $254,933,664, with the football program generating $111,646,810 of that amount."

Twelve times football earnings would give Ohio State about $1.2 billion for their athletic dept fund.

Even more interesting would be if instead of "private equity" buying college football, if Tech companies, who are awash in capital, got involved.

Nike already "owns" Oregon. If NVIDA buys Texas and Microsoft buys Alabama and Apple buys Ohio State, we could see those teams in the FBS final four every year...

Life is going to be tough for the non-super teams.

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