CAA 2008 Football Preview up

The CAA has a 76 page 2008 Football preview up. Lot's of summer reading. The UMass section is identical to the "Quick Facts" pdf published on April 14th.

Coach Brown reviews Spring Practice

The Official UMass football page has a video link of Coach Brown reviewing the spring practice. The link only works in Internet Explorer.

Recently I upgraded to Firefox 3 Beta 5. I love it. It's really fast and seems stable.

In the video, Brown states that we had six surgeries following the 2007 season, so some players were not available. He praises new WRs Julian Talley and Victor Cruz as well as Matt Silver.

Coach Brown also said that it is still uncertain if there will be a controlled scrimmage or an extended practice Saturday based on the injury situation.

Blog publishing schedule

The UMass football Blog will not be updated tomorrow (Wednesday).

Publishing will return to normal on Thursday.

Article on injuries mentions UMass Legend Steve Schubert

This article about concussions has quotes and a story about UMass football legend Steve Schubert.

I've blogged about Schubert before.

NCAA approves increase in playoffs

The NCAA playoffs will officially go to 20 teams in 2010.

The guaranteed eight-wins-and-you're-in is an improvement. Two more at-large spots should pretty much eliminate a worthy team being left out.

Breyone Evans signs with Carolina Panthers

UMass fullback Breyone Evans has signed a free agent contract with the Carolina Panthers.

More info here.

UPDATE: The Daily Collegian has an article here .

UPDATE II: UMass' NFL draft history is here . Link is courtesy of "Ronbo" over at AGS.

UPDATE III: Matty Vautour has an article on Evan's signing here .

UPDATE IV: Signing a free agent contract can be rough time for the player involved.

Ricky Santos signs with Chiefs

Ricky Santos signed a free agent contract with the Chiefs.

No info yet on any UMass signings.

Complete list of FCS/I-AA players drafted here .

UPDATE: A commentor stated that Brad Listorti had signed with the Jets on Sunday. Nothing on Google or the Jets website about that as of 5:00 pm.

The Jets did waive Stacy Tutt...

Article on UMass Wide-outs for 2008

Jeff Thomas has an article on the UMass wide receivers for 2008.

Mentioned are:

• Jeremy Horne
• Joe Sanford
• Victor Cruz
• Julian Talley
• Ke'mon Bailey
• Aaron Fears
• Warren Wilson

I'm excited about the quality of the UMass receivers and can't wait to see them in action!

Maine adds an opponent in 2009

University of Maine Black Bears will play Florida State in 2009.

UMass Spring Game Saturday

The UMass Spring game will be 11:00 am on Saturday. Hope to see all the locals there.

The UMass team and Friends of Football will sponsoring a bone marrow registration after the game. Get your cheek [ your face cheek ;) ] swabbed and save a life.

Open Thread while I'm gone

This will be an open comment thread while I'm away (see previous post).

I'm sure I'll be proud of the UMass Football Blog on-line community when I read the comments Sunday evening.

Blog publishing schedule

The UMass Football Blog will next publish on Monday, April 28th.

Mrs. Blog and I are taking a long weekend in Maine.

The future of CAA football

As you know, Georgia State University and Old Dominion will be joining the CAA in the next couple of years.

This sports writer thinks it's all about conference realignment.

Keeping up with Marcel Shipp

This article about the Arizona Cardinals practice facility features former UMass legend Marcel Shipp.

Now that the 2008 NFL draft is almost here, the Cardinals running backs are analyzed (article mentions Steve Baylark). Baylark's Cardinal's bio is here .

Another Cardinals running-backs-and-the-Draft article here .

If you are a 2X kinda guy, there is a great deal on a Marcel Shipp NFL replica jersey here .

A couple of UMass Football dates

The UMass Friends of Football will be holding their 7th annual Golf Classic on June 23rd, 2008. If you love UMass football and want the team to do well, their is no better thing you can do to help than joining the Friends.

Coach Brown will be speaking at the April 30th noon UMass Sports Luncheon at the campus center. Call 413-545-4290 to reserve a spot.

Monday articles 04/20/08

The same agent that represented Marcel Shipp represents Ricky Santos. The article also mentions the BC Pro-Day workout by UMass players.

This article mentions Matt Lawrence as free agent pick.

The CAA covers this last weekend's Spring Games.

BCS opponent Texas Tech had its spring game Saturday.

If you will remember I've blogged about Texas and Texas Tech loosing money on their respective bowl games. I thought it was interesting that Hawaii, which took a monumental a$$ whipping by Georgia in the Sugar Bowl, made $2.2 Million profit.

April 18th UMass Football Practice

Click on the image above and blogger displays a large view.

Well, yesterday was a good day. It was my birthday. I lifted a lifetime best bench press in the morning and in the afternoon I watched UMass practice. Oh, and it was 75 degrees and a blue sky.

I've added a forty image gallery in Picassa. You can view it here . Picassa was acting a little flakey while I was doing the up-load. If it does not work for you, try again later. Google goes through periods of being difficult to work with.

I liked the practice. The players seemed focused (no clowning around when the coach's back was turned). Everybody seemed to be working hard.

Coen looked like he was moving comfortably. Tony Nelson looked fast.

I was impressed with the speed of the wide receivers. We don't have the height we had last year, but if the opposing DB misses the tackle, I don't think they're going to get a second chance.

With last year's recruits, the OL looked BIG. Very big kids. I think we have more depth this year.

Long snapping is still a work in progress. Arnold and Woodward were jumping jacks trying to field long snaps.

Coach Brown does not like people making catches against his defensive backs----even if they're our receivers in practice.

UPDATE: I've added a link to practice web album in the Blog's sidebar.

Matt Lawrence gets a mention in the Globe

Today's Globe has an article about running backs in this year's NFL draft. It says Matt Lawrence ran the 40 at BC's Pro Day in the 4.4 range.

More on future opponents

Georgia State University has held a press conference about starting football in 2010. They will be joining the CAA, so we'll be seeing them shortly.

This article discusses how they should build a winning program (it includes leaving the CAA for the Southern Conference).

If you are interested in 2008 BCS opponent Texas Tech, their spring game will be televised Saturday on the NFL Network. The NFL network is channel 154 on Dish Network and 212 on Direct TV.

Following up on yesterday's blog post about Texas Tech loosing money on its bowl game, Texas lost money on the Holiday Bowl . BCS division bowl games continue to proliferate. A Washington DC Bowl is pending as well as the "Rocky Mountain Bowl".

Sheese, pretty soon every team in BCS/I-A with a winning record will go to a bowl.

UMass Practice tomorrow

I just called the UMass football office and they said practice tomorrow (Friday) will be 5:00-7:00 pm.

I'm thinking of driving down.

Thursday Morning Odds & Ends

Not much UMass News on the wires (except for you know, the news), so lets looks around the CAA and 2008 opponents.

Holy Cross thinks their offense is going to be good.

Delaware is adding a second field turf practice field and is thinking about a new stadium .

Hofstra just added a new 2008 opponent to go to a twelve game schedule.

The CAA Spring player Blog continues .

Rhode Island has a new helmet style .

Richmond has an eleven page Spring Prospectus up (pdf).

Texas Tech, this year's BCS opponent went to the Gator Bowl last year. The Red Raiders received $2.5 million for the appearance. They ended up loosing $200k on deal.

I know yesterday was kinda depressing for fans of UMass athletics. I hope the regular female readers of the UMass football blog will forgive us for this link to the USC Song Girls-------in bikinis.

Warning, not work safe (babes in bikinis).

Two year UMass Football Captains

One of he nice things about running the UMass Football Blog is meeting former UMass players and coaches. Earlier this year I exchanged e-mails with former UMass player and Coach Jerry Gordon.

His 1981 Captain's image is in the UMass Historical section of this blog. Gordon walked on to the football team and was the last lineman chosen. He told me "I worked hard, and good things happened." Gordon ended up being one of the few two year UMass Captains.

This year, the UMass players elected Junior Brandon Collier one of 2008's captains. So he has a chance to join a select few UMass players who have been two-year captains. I went through the UMass historical roster twice and did not find a three year captain.

UMass Two-Year Captains:

• Bill Durkin '92,'93
• Jerry Gordon '81,'82
• Ed McAleny "74,"75
• Khari Samuel "97,'98
• Serge Tikum "04,"05
• Brandon Collier '08,?

Did I miss anyone?

2008 UMass Football quick facts up

The official UMass Football site has the 2008 UMass Football Quick Facts page up.

I've updated the link in the blog sidebar to reflect the new page.

UPDATE: UMass now has a four page '08 preview available here (pdf). Has 2007 stats, spring roster and more. Download it now!

David Coulson on FCS NFL Draft prospects

David Coulson's latest column for the Sports Network covers the FCS/I-AA NFL draft prospects.

He mentions UMass players Matt Lawrence and Brad Listorti.

UPDATE: Sports Illustrated has an article on "small school" sleepers in the NFL draft. No UMass players mentioned, but three CAA players are included.

CAA Spring paractice news

William & Mary finished their spring in front of a thousand fans.

2008 opponent James Madison's offense is looking better .

They're still looking for a quarterback at UNH.

And the Hens are looking for Omar Cuff's replacement .

Maine's spring prospectus is up.

If you have'nt visited it lately, Thorr seems to be having a good effect on Rhode Island's football website. Lots of Rhody football information now, including spring practice news.

Richmond's named the Spider 2008 captains.

Towson is looking to bounch back from a bad season .

Jeff Thomas on lights/spring practice

Jeff Thomas of the Springfield Republican has an article on the impact of lights and also some Spring Practice news here .

A "small school" only NFL draft

Draft Daddy's Blog is a continuing source of college football news. Even though it's oriented around the NFL draft, there is still lots of college football news to look at.

The Draft Daddy blog has a link to a site called NFL Draft Bible, which in turn has a column by Josh Buchanan. He covers the "small schools". His latest effort is a NFL draft with only players from FCS/I-AA and down.

It has a number of UMass players and a lot of other players we know.

More on expanding the playoffs

David Coulson ruminates on expanding the FCS/I-AA playoffs to 24 teams.

Six UMass games to be televised in 2008

The UMass football page has the CAA TV schedule for 2008. UMass will be televised six times!

• @ JMU 09/13/08 CN8
  
• Delaware 10/04/08 CN8
  
• Richmond 10/18/08 CN8
  
• Maine 11/08/08 CSN -NE
• @ New Hampshire 11/15/08 CSN-MA, CSN-NE
• Hofstra 11/22/08 CN8

Pretty good CAA coverage. Nineteen games with at least one game for every team. CN8 is available over the internet. Both Dish Network and Direct TV cover CSN-NE and CSN-MA.

UMass fans away from New England should have an excellent year.

Spring Roster up!

The UMass Web site has the 2008 Spring Roster up.

ADDITIONS (no bios yet):

• Warren Wilson #1
• Correy Eason #42
• Jonathan Richard #58
• Peter Chiaro #96

DELETIONS (not including seniors):

• Spencer Riddenhour #19
• Jason Grochowalski #58
• Biff Gottehrer #66
• Matt Fernandez #85
• Wilner Alexis #99

NUMBER CHANGES (NEW NUMBER LISTED):

• Victor Cruz #3
• Ke'Mon Bailey #11
• Julian Talley #15
• Jonathan Hernandez #22
• Emil Igwenagu #24
• Tony Nelson #28 (!?)
• Bob Getek #71

Johnny Evans---- LB

In Tuesday's blog post about Coach Brown's spring practice video, he mention LB Johnny Evans as being in the mix for the 2008 linebacker corps. There is not much info in his UMass Bio. I did not seem to do a blog post on him during recruiting.

Evans will be a redshirt sophomore this year. He's 6-0 220.

His Scout.com page is here . His ESPN page is here .

He drew recruiting interest from East Carolina.

Welcome to the Minutemen Johnny! Hope you have a great career.

Spring CAA news

The NY Giants look at a Maine player and three Hofstra players .

New Hampshire looks at life after Ricky.

The Richmond Spiders have injury problems. New Spiders Head Coach Mike London is trying to prove himself to his players.

And they're learning in Delaware .

UPDATE: Spring game recaps from Richmond and Northeastern .

Recruiting 2008------- Gilbert Parsons

The Danbury News-Times has a long article on UMass' incoming OT Gilbert Parson.

Of Course, we've blogged about him before.

Valdamar Brower hired at Central HS

Former UMass All-American Vladamar Brower has been hired as head coach at Central High School.

Congratulations, "T".

Woah! Actual UMass Football News!

The UMass website has an interview with Coach Brown on UMass Spring Practice. Be still my heart! Actual UMass Football News. The video clip will probably be moved to the Official UMass Football Page soon.

First news, UMass captains for 2008 have been selected.

• Sean Calicchio OT
• Liam Coen QB
  
• Sean Smalls CB
  
• Brandon Collier DT (Junior)

On offense, Brown said that Emil Igwenagu has been playing the fullback slot while Chris Zardas is recovering. He said without giving any names that we have talent at WR.

On defense, he said George Byrd has the weak side linebacker nailed down. He mentioned Johnny Evans and Sam Besong also at the "will" position. Anthony Rouzier and Andy Rensende-gomes are being looked at for the strong side. Middle linebacker is still open apparently.

UPDATE: UMass now has an article on the 2008 captains here .

UPDATE II: UMass Football will take part in the CAA Bone Marrow registration program (pdf)

UPDATE III: The UMass Daily Collegian adds an article about the 2008 Captains.

A look at the CAA South's 2008 schedule

Back on Thursday, April 3rd, I took a look at the CAA North's 2008 schedule with an eye on the various teams chances of making the playoffs.

An FCS team needs a minimum of seven DI wins to make the playoffs. Eight is a better goal because seven wins means being the last team named. Eight DI wins will usually being chosen and being sent on the road. Nine DI wins means a home game in the first and maybe another game in the second round. Ten wins or better means home games up until Chattanooga.

Let's take a look at the CAA South.

Delaware: Twelve games in 2008. The Hens retain their home money game against DII West Chester, so they still play an eleven game playoff schedule. Delaware's other OOC games include Maryland, Furman and Albany. I think the Hens have a chance to win all those games, but also could lose against the Terps and the away game at Furman. Delaware must also play UMass at McGuirk.

James Madison: Eleven games in 2008. The Dukes play Appalachian State, Duke and North Carolina Central as their OOC. JMU could win all those games or they could just as well lose two of three. The Dukes do get UMass at home. Getting eight DI wins is not going to be easy. This is a difficult schedule.

Richmond: Twelve games in 2008. The Spiders play Elon, Virginia, VMI and Georgetown as their OOC. They also have to play @UMass. The Spiders should get three DI wins against their FCS OOC schedule. They may have a chance to upset Virginia.

Towson: Twelve games in 2008. The Tigers play Navy, Coastal Carolina, Morgan State and Columbia. That is not a strong OOC, but Towson was not a good team in 2007. Still, the Tigers should win at least two of those games. They do have to play at @ UMass, @ Delaware, @ UNH and @ Richmond.

Villanova: Eleven games in 2008. The OOC includes West Virginia, Lehigh and Penn. The two FCS games are good games, but I think the Wildcats can win both. They do not play UMass.

William & Mary: Eleven games in 2008. The OOC includes North Carolina State, VMI and Norfork State. The Tribe should have no trouble with the latter two. They do not play UMass this year.

Analysis: I think Villanova has the easiest road to the playoffs. The Wildcats could be the surprise team in the CAA in 2008. Richmond is my second choice as the Spiders should get three OOC DI wins and give themselves a leg up on seven DI wins to be playoff eligible. William & Mary and Towson have favorable schedules, which should improve their win total, but not enough to make the playoffs. This article by Myron Hosea of CSN covers three of the CAA's inter league games.

Blogging it's not for wimps!

This is the 1,960th blog post since the UMass Football Blog began on June 5th, 2005.

Still working on some big news for the blog. I hope to announce it soon.


The life of a blogger is not easy.

Spring Paractice Starts today!

At last! For a football fan, March is month lost in the wilderness. Today UMass starts the 2008 season with the begining of Spring Practice.

As expected, the weather is crappy. I spend some time on NCAA website and I could not find a more recent Spring Practice rules than this page. I would expect that there have been additional changes since then.

I hope to attend at least one of the practices and obtain some images. So far, UMass has not published an article about spring practice or published a schedule.

Congrats hoops III

The UMass football blog would like to congratulate the UMass Hoops team for their gritty performance in the NIT.

The UMass team played with heart all the way through.

Changes to the playoffs

David Coulson of The Sports Network has an article on the coming changes to the FCS playoffs. In a nutshell, two more leagues will be getting auto-bids to the playoffs. Since NCAA by-laws mandate an equal number of at-large slots, the FCS playoffs will be expanding to 20 teams in 2010.

For UMass, there are some gains and losses related to enlarging the playoff field. Two extra at-large slots will help the CAA because of its size. An 8-3 CAA team will no longer be caught in a numbers crunch.

There are a couple of bad things about having a play-in week. It will push the season back another week into December----- not a trivial thing for the northern teams. And if the 2008 season followed the proposed schedule, the Championship game would be Friday December 26th, the day after Christmas. A tough time to be traveling.

Second issue of the Spring CAA Blogs are up

The CAA website has the second edition of the Spring player blogs up. Just think, next Wednesday, there'll be a UMass entry.

URI and Bryant, our two 2008 Rhode Island opponents have a spring report here.

Northeastern's spring prospectus is here .

A look at the CAA North Schedule

Yesterday, I reported that the CAA has officially released the league's composite 2008 schedule. The goal of all FCS/I-AA teams is to make the playoffs. Each team's schedule has a large bearing on that ambition.

An FCS team needs a minimum of seven DI wins to make the playoffs. Eight is a better goal because seven wins means being the last team named. Eight DI wins will usually being chosen and being sent on the road. Nine DI wins means a home game in the first and maybe another game in the second round. Ten wins or better means home games up until Chattanooga.

Hofstra: Eleven games in 2008. OOC games with UConn, Albany and Stony Brook. The Pride plays the Delaware, JMU and Richmond rotation in the CAA South. The OOC is manageable with two likely wins and the Pride has a chance at UConn. Five playoff teams in the CAA schedule means Hofstra is an unlikely choice for the playoffs in '08.

Maine: Twelve games in 2008. OOC includes Iowa, Monmouth, Stony Brook and Iona. The Black Bears play the Delaware, JMU and Richmond rotation. Maine also plays five CAA playoff teams and is unlikely to win at Iowa. Three DI wins over Monmouth, Stony Brook and Iona gives the Black Bears a chance at seven DI wins however.

UMass: Twelve games in 2008. OOC includes Texas Tech, Albany, Holy Cross and Bryant. The Minutemen also play the Delaware, JMU and Richmond rotation. UMass needs to avoid the upset at Holy Cross to get three DI wins out the the rest of the OOC. Texas Tech should have one of their stronger teams in '08, so an upset win is unlikely. UMass probably won't go undefeated in the CAA, but has the potential to get nine or ten wins.

New Hampshire: Eleven games in 2008. The Wildcats OOC includes Army, Albany and Dartmouth. I think UNH can win all three of those games. UNH plays the non-playoff section of the CAA South: Villanova, Towson and William & Mary. Chances look good for eight or better DI wins for the Wildcats.

Northeastern: Eleven games in 2008. OOC includes Ball State, Georgia Southern and UC Davis. The good Huskies play the non-playoff rotation of Villanova, Towson and William & Mary. Northeastern has a good chance of upsetting UC Davis at home, but the rest of the schedule looks too difficult to get seven wins or better.

Rhode Island: Twelve games in 2008. The Rams OOC includes Boston College, Monmouth, Fordham and Brown. The Rams play the Villanova, Towson and William & Mary rotation out of the CAA South. A coaching change often invigorates a program. Rhody should go 2-2 in the OOC and probably will get a few more upsets in the regular season. Reaching seven DI wins will still be difficult.

Summary: New Hampshire has the most favorable schedule in the CAA North. If they can find a quarterback to replace Santos, the Wildcats have a good chance at the playoffs. UMass should be strong again this year. Three OOC DI wins should give the Minutemen a leg-up on the playoffs. Maine looks like the next best shot.

UPDATE: UNH QB search is on .

UPDATE II: As pointed out by a reader, Northeastern has added a second BCS team to their 2008 schedule, Syracuse.

Wednesday Articles

So far nobody has published anything about UMass' Pro Day. This article mentions the Philadelphia Eagles were there .

Didn't take long to for Rhode Island to derail some of Thor's plans.

2007 opening opponent Albany is happy with their progress .

And the big news is that the CAA has the combined 2008 football schedule up. Printable schedule (in pdf) is here .

Congrats Hoops II

Well, yesterday was a busy day. Got home just in time to see the Minutemen hoops team run themselves into the NIT Championship game. Click here for tons of hoops articles.

Good going on the first ever open comment thread yesterday. We'll have to do that again when we have something to talk about during the season. Everybody did good except for the April Fools day post about Coen not starting.

Open thread

Well we finally made it out of March. I've got a "Honey do" day ahead of me and not much time to work on the blog until tomorrow.

In honor of the first of April, let's try something new. Today is an open comments day. Have fun among yourselves.

Remember: "

Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.

Plato"

Blog News

I'll be taking the 2007 image gallery down on May 1st. Anyone who wants to save any images from the 2007 season will have to take them by then.

The UMass historical achieves will, of course, not be affected.

I tried to set a second countdown, but Blogger was not having it. I'll try again later when I have more time.

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.

Thursday morning reading

Charles Coulson of the Sports Network talks about speed in college football.

Coach Brown's mantra at UMass has been "Play fast!". And indeed, his UMass teams have been, in my view perhaps the fastest in UMass history.

Being faster than the other team is the ultimate point. This article over on the always interesting Draft Daddy, records the 40 yard dash times of the combine invitees. Those players are the elite of college football and it would be expected their forty times to be among the best.

Note that those times are considerably different than those thrown about on fan boards...

Recruiting 2009------ Greg Herman OL

In our first recruiting post for 2009, UMass is interested in Greg Herman a 6-1 250 pd OL/DL from Warren (NJ) Watchung Hills.

His Rivals.com page is here . This article mentions him as a DL.

Herman is drawing lots of FCS/I-AA interest from Bucknell, Cornell, UNH, Delaware and Northeastern.

Two UMass recruits to play in the NY-NJ Football Classic

Two UMass recruits will be playing in the 11th annual NY-NJ All-Star Classic football game. The game will be held on Saturday, June 8th at 3:00 pm. The Press release is here . Note that the rosters listed on the page are last year's rosters.

According to the press release, UMass recruits Charles Thompson and Kumar Davis will play.

The game will be televised on Fox-NY, which is available on Dish Network channel 413 and Direct TV Channel 624.

Monday morning aticles

Dave Coulson of Sporting News has an article about coaching changes in FCS/I-AA this year.

Speaking of coaching changes, a number of former UMass coaches lost assistant coaching jobs this year.

Former UMass coach and player Bill Durkin, was replaced after new Richmond Coach Mike London brought in his own staff.

Former UMass assistant coaches John Strollo and Brian Sherrod were replaced when former UMass coach Ted Roof was fired as head coach at Duke. Roof was hired as defensive coordinator at Minnesota.

In other news, Ricky Santos had his number retired at the UNH football banquet(with some bonus coverage of UMass hockey).

Calling Coach Ford

Say coach Ford, you don't have room for another player, by any chance?

2008--------- Special Teams

've been doing a series of posts on the state of the 2008 UMass football team. This post covers UMass Special Teams for 2008 and tries to guess what the coaching staff has in store for us.

Remember I have no special inside information.

Freshman are green.
Sophomores are orange
Juniors are blue
Senior are red

I'm working out of the UMass depth chart for the Hofstra game. Teams are only allowed to dress 60 players for the playoffs, so the depth chart for the playoffs may have been different. Note that the class of the player is for fall of 2008 not their current status.

According to the last regular season depth chart:

PK -- Open
------Armando Cuko Junior

P-----Brett Arnold Senior
------ Scott Woodward RedShirt Junior

LS--- Open
------ Bob McLaughlin RedShirt Sophomore

SS----Open
------ Open

KR----Courtney Robinson Senior
-------Reshaude Godwin Redshirt Sophomore

PR----Open
-------Sean Smalls Senior

DISCUSSION:

Chris Koepplin did all kickoffs except for one in 2007. He also did all the field goals. UMass was #1 in the CAA with 44.2 net kickoff average. UMass returns Armando Cuko who struggled in his first year in 2005. He does own one of the best ever field goals in UMass history as he kicked 41 yarder out of a mud hole to beat JMU. With only one kickoff and field goal kicker on the roster, we should see some action by Coach Brown before August.

Senior punter Brett Arnold (51-1931) lost his job late in the season after having three kicks blocked. Scott Woodward started in the SIU playoff game and went 5-185. UMass was 11th in the league in net punting average in 2007. Ryan Logan can also punt and may be in the mix for 2008.

Bob McLaughlin had a rough start to his long snapping career at William & Mary, but settled down and is probably in the lead to take over the job in 2008.

For Kick Returner, Robinson went 19-495 w/1 TD. Jeremy Horne was the second leading returner with 10-195 .

J.J. Moore had the entire load for punt returner in 2007. Smalls should take over here.

UMass History -------1981

I've added ten scans from UMass game programs in 1981 to the UMass History link in the sidebar. Double click on the first 1981 image and then use the arrow keys to view that group. Click on the above image for a larger view.

The Minutemen went 6-3 that year (note that was the last year we only played nine games) and were 4-1 in the Yankee Conference and won UMass' 13th Yankee Conference Championship.

In the images displayed, we lost to Rhode Island 10-16 and beat Dartmouth 10-8.

Gary Pearson was first team All-American that year. He rushed for 1,026 yards. Captains Peter DiTommaso and Jerry Gordon are active in the UMass Friends of Football.

One sad note is that UMass center Victor Pizzotti recently passed away.

UPDATE: As pointed out by "Brad82" over on AGS, #56 OG for the Rams was Mike Dwyer. He later transferred to UMass and was moved to NG. He was first team All-Yankee Conference and First Team All-American for us in 1985. He wore #71 for UMass.

Article on Coach Brown

The Rutland Herald has an article on Coach Brown attending a coaching clinic in
Vermont.

Article mentions Ryan McCarthy, who is University of Albany's offensive coordinator.

Brown confirms some future BCS/I-A dates:

• 2008 Texas Tech
  
• 2009 Kansas State
  
• 2010 Open, but being worked on
• 2011 Boston College

Sorry I screwed that up when I first did this post.

Comming up later in the week

Later in the week, the UMass football Blog will have some more UMass history. I'll be posting some scans of UMass game programs from 1981.

There will be also something new in the works for the UMass Football Blog community....

Wednesday Odds & Ends

Nothing UMass-specific on the wires yesterday or today, so let's look at some other stuff.

UMass opens with Albany on August 30th. The Great Danes just released their 2008 schedule and it's a killer with four playoff teams: @UMass, Fordham, @UNH and @Delaware. Note that they list the UMass starting time as 6:00 pm. Lights at McGuirk!

Speaking of psycho schedules---- did you see UT Chattanooga's? The Mocs are the host team for the national Championship game ever year. I went in 2006 and thought they had a nice facility. But UT Chattanooga never makes the playoffs. You can see why after looking at their schedule.

The Mocs first three games were supposed to be Oklahoma, NAIA Belhaven and Florida State. The Blazers just backed out. What a way to mess with your players heads...

Meanwhile, over on Draft Daddy's Top 150 Small School Sleepers, Matt Lawrence has moved up a couple notches and J.J. Moore and Brad Listorti continue to be listed.

Were you paying attention?

Recently we've had discussions about the status of running backs and quarterbacks on this blog. This link should bring up both past posts and comments stream.

Did you notice in the UMass Banquet link who won the award for outstanding Scout Players for 2007?

Octavious Hawkins and Emil Iqwenaqu won the 2007 Outstanding Offensive Scout Team Awards. The Blog can't wait for the spring game to see them play. Running other teams offenses should have given both players a lot of experience. And playing against the UMass defense should have honed their physical skills.

I just re-read Iqwenaqu's bio. He averaged 13.9 yards/carry in his senior year. He has a career 10.7 yards/carry average. Can't wait to see both players in action!

More UMass Football Banquet

Below are some images from the UMass Banquet. My big camera was not available, so these were taken with my point-and-shoot, which was not really up to the job. Click on any image and Blogger displays a larger view.

The program for the Banquet.


The CAA Championship trophy. UMass won the last ever A10 trophy and the first CAA trophy.

I had not heard Chancellor Cole speak before. He seemed very supportive of UMass football and the the football staff presented him with an autographed football from the team. Coach Brown added that Chancellor Cole took the time to call him after the SIU game. The UMass Football Blog would like to thank him for taking the time to attend the banquet and speaking with us.


Athletic Director John McCutcheon gave a short, but upbeat speech . In addition to the new permanent lights, he said that there were further improvements in the football facilities being planned . He did not say what they were. Still, it's very good to hear that after forty years of neglect, some investment in the football infrastructure is in the works.



When you go 10-3, make the playoffs and win the CAA championship, you get a lot of honors. This image is of the players who made the All-CAA teams and also the national honors. The UMass athletic site article lists the players who won team honors such as the Outstanding Offensive and Defensive player award.
The players received CAA Championship rings and watches. The watches were nice, but everybody wanted to see the rings. The ring here was modeled by Rashaude Goodwin, who sat with us at our table. As usual with UMass players, he was a friendly and articulate young man. He's a transfer from Boston College.

All in all a great time. The UMass Friends of Football were there as was a very good turnout of parents and fans.

It's Official ! Lights for 2008 Season

Had a great time at the UMass Football Banquet last night. I hope to have some images from the event up by tomorrow.

Some interesting news. First, Chancellor Cole announced that UMass will have permanent lights installed this summer. The UMass athletic Dept story is here .

Jeff Thomas of the Springfield Republican has a story about the lights here .

I took the image above of temporary lights at the 2005 Albany game at McGuirk.

UMass football fans can also be encouraged by John McCutcheon's speech. Along with the lights, he said that further improvements in UMass Football facilities are planned. That's music to this Blog's ears as there has been little or no investment in the football program for forty years.

Lights and the new artificial surface are significant upgrades. McCutcheon even got the UMass field house painted and the roof fixed last year.

Oh yeah, and the UMass football team is going to be pretty good in 2008 too.

Go UMass! It's a great time to be a Minutemen fan.