Wednesday--January 26th, 2017--Nine January Enrollees join Spring Ball

Part 1

UMass has announced the Minutemen will have nine enrollees in for Spring Semester and Spring ball.

UMass announcement here.

Matty Vautour has a post here.

Mike Traini of "Fight Massachusetts" has a longer post on the newcomers here.

Joining UMass will be three defensive grayshirts:

Patrick Volcy 6-3 190 pound Safety from Naples FL. I've blogged about Volcy before. He was a 247Sports two-star player. He's also friends with Claudin Cherelus, who just verbaled to UMass on Tuesday.

Alex Piechocki 6-6 260 pound DE from Attica, NY. Piechocki was not rated coming out of HS. I've blogged about Piechocki before.

DaVonn Hall 6-3 315 DL. Hall was not rated coming out of HS. I've blogged about Hall before.

We've been talking about how the defense struggled in 2016. These three additions fill needs on the DL and defensive secondary. Defensive linemen are the rarest recruits. Piechocki had Power Five DE size. Hopefully, he make some of those schools regret they didn't recruit him. Hall will have two years of eligibility and should be in the defensive line rotation. Volcy also has FBS size in a Safety. With Spring Ball and Fall practice he may not redshirt.

UMass also add three early enrollees:

Mike Ruane 6-1 220 pound LB from Rumson, NJ. I've blogged about Ruane multiple times before. Ruane is the second-highest rated UMass recruit (so far). He seems like a high-energy positive guy who could be a future captain for the Minutemen.

Jaylen Larry 6-4 290 OL from Milford Academy. I've blogged about Larry before. He was a ESPN three-star player coming out of HS with two other FBS offers. Offensive linemen do not often start as freshman, but Larry is older and he could contribute this year.

Mike Curtis a 6-3 205 QB from Trinity Valley Community College. I blogged about Curtis in December. With Ross Comis out of Spring ball and likely only limited availability for Fall Camp, Curtis could be in the mix for the #2 slot this fall.

All in all this is a nice group. All FBS-level players.

I'll look at the three preferred walk-ons in tomorrow's blog post.