Saturday, July 01, 2017

UMass football News--Saturday July 1st, 2017

Penn State's Daily collegian expresses surprise Adam Breneman did not make Sports Illustrated's Top 100 college players list.

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Marken Michel scored a TD in his first CFL game. Michel's Stamps bio.

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UMass DC Ed Pinkham hosts UMass' safeties. Stats from 2016:

Patrick Amara, #25 S 6-2 208 RSJR (transfer from Pitt)
Cycoby Burch #36 S 5-11 182 RSFR
Zeke Edmonds #2 S 6-0 207 RSJR 10-7 GP-GS 19-25 UT-AT 44 TT 1 TFL 5 PD
Bakhari Goodson #14 S 5-10 167 SO 10-0 GP-GS 8-6 AT-UT 14 TT 1 PD
Martin Mangram #29 S 5-11 182 SO 12-0 GP-GS 5-5 AT_UT 10 TT
Jesse Monteiro #27 S 5-9 179 RSSR 12-8 GP-GS 45-28 AT-UT 73 TT 5.5 TFL 4PD
Micah Morel #15 S 5-11 195 RSSO 8-0 GP-GS 1 UT 1 TT

Most of the preview magazines have Pitt Transfer Patrick Amara penciled in as the starter at Strong Safety. He played in 22 games for the Panthers and had 32 TT's. He was rated as the #20 ranked recruit in PA in his senior season in high school.

Former walk-on Jesse Monteiro started the last three games of 2016 at FS. He was the second leading tackler on the team.

Martin Mangram was a highly-touted three star recruit from the 2016 recruiting class.

Cycoby Burch was red-shirted, but had a stand-out effort in the Spring game. He was also a three-star recruit.

UMass returns five safeties with game experience.  It appears we add two excellent players with Amara and Burch. The Minutemen were #120 in pass defense efficiency in 2016. We played pretty well against the SEC opponents, but got smoked by Troy and Louisiana Tech. We gave up some long completions in winnable games against Tulane and Hawaii. I think Ed Pinkham was a strong hire and the UMass will play better in 2017.

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