Holy Cross articles 08/07/08

The Boston Globe has an article here .

The Boston Herald here .

The Worcester Telegram here .

The Springfield Republican has two articles here and here .

UMass has added a game quotes section to its website Holy Cross report.

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Meanwhile New Hampshire beat Army for its fourth straight victory over a FBS/I-A opponent. Army is in serious trouble. They went to an option offense this year and only made 169 yards and averaged 3.1 yards/carry against a I-AA opponent.

The excellent blog "The New Hampshire Football Report" has links to all the UNH-Army articles you might want to read.

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The CAA league football news site has report about JMU crushing North Carolina Central and the other CAA games this week.

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Boston College lost.

Texas Tech had a tough game with Nevada.

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UPDATE: I'll be back this evening with a game report and a Picasa web album. Since I got to spend yesterday "goofing off", as Mrs. Blog puts it, I owe her multiple Honey-Do projects today.

Armando the Magnificent!

It would have been good from 52.

Armando Cuko has seven career field goals and two of them have been game winners. He withstood three attempts to ice him. Great play!

Your humble blogger is pretty tired so I''ll be back tomorrow with a web album, story links and my impressions, but I'll give you a one line summary. The offense looked great, the defense and the special teams tackling still need some major work.

Still, we're 2-0 against two teams that will likely win their leagues.

UMass athletic web site story here . Holy Cross webstite here .

Open comment thread while I'm in Worcester

Speed, strength, and the inability to register pain immediately.

~Reggie Williams, when asked his greatest strengths as a football player

Game Day --- Holy Cross

Well, the rain arrived right on schedule about 4:00 am. Looks like it's going to be a very wet game on the natural turf of Fitton Field.

The Boston Globe has a game day article here .

The Boston Herald has another here .

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Bruce Dowd of CSN has a long article about the CAA that covers last week's game and a preview of this week's action.

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Jeff Thomas has a Holy Cross game article here .

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I'll be leaving for the game about 11:00 am. Let's hope the result is different from the Rhode Island game of last year. The image above is through my windshield as I drove back from that game.

UPDATE: Matty Vautour has a game day article here .

The-day-before-the-game articles

The image is by me from last year's game. Click on the image and Blogger displays a larger view.

The Worcester Telegram has two game articles from the Holy Cross side here and here .

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Charles Burton has this week's reviews and FCS picks in his weekly "The CSN Way" Column.

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The Sports Network has a long article on this week's games here .

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Matty Vautour has a Holy Cross game article here.

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Josh buchanan has his weekly "Small School Report". Article includes a mention of Ben Coblyn.

The Wizard of Odds reports that the NCAA is still freaking out about live blogging at football games.

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Keepers has UMass as nearly a six point underdog to Holy Cross.

UPDATE: In yesterday's blog I had a story about Rhode Island FB Joe Casey who compounded his leg in last week's game. Updates on him here and here .

Thursday Morning News 09/04/08

Jeff Larnard of the the Daily Collegian has an article about the Holy Cross game here and Ryan Fleming of the Collegian has another here .

Eli Rosenswaike finishes a Collegian trifecta here .

There is an article about the Crusaders TB Terrance Gass 5-8 192 here .

Remember Coach Brown's show tonight at 7:00 pm and available over the internet from the UMass Audio and Video page.

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This week's FCS/I-AA games on TV are listed here . The 1:00 pm UNH @ Army game on ESPN Classic and 3:45 pm pm Richmond @ Virginia on ESPNU (both available on Dish Network and Direct TV) would be good VCR material for UMass fans.

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Rhode Island lost Senior FB Joe Casey (who was a first team preseason All-American) for the season with a compound leg fracture.

The new clock rules for 2008 were intended to speed up games. That has worked; it also has reduced the number of plays in an average I-A game by almost nine per game.

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In yesterday's blog post we mentioned how well UMass LB Antony Rouzier played in opening game against Albany. Right on cue, Matty Vautour has an article about him here .

Tony Nelson won the weekly New England Gold Helmet Award from the New England College Football writers for his efforts against Albany.

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It's still supposed to rain for Saturday's game against Holy Cross .

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UPDATE: Expected starting QB for Hofstra, Bryan Savage has a disc problem and will be lost for the season. This article was brought to my attention by Alan Koepplin, who still keeps an eye on UMass Football. Thanks Alan!

UMass News 09/03/08

Josh Jennings was CAA Co-Defensive player of the week for his 13 tackles and one INT against Albany.

As mentioned by one of our readers, I thought Anthony Rouzier played well on defense with 6 tackles. It was good to see him out there playing the game. Hopefully, this year will be an injury-free year for him.

The CAA has league news and this week's game capsules for all of the CAA teams here .

David Coulson has his "Around the CAA" column up.

New Hampshire opens its season against Army this week. It should be a good indication on the status of the Wildcats post-Santos era. Army continues to decline and UNH with Santos would have won with the score about 42-28. This game should give a good indication of UNH's strength this year.

Hofstra, Northeastern, Delaware and Villanova all have an off week on Saturday.

James Madison had a senior CB quit the team yesterday.

Bob McGovern's UMass all-sports blog "Between Mullins and McGuirk" has a new look .

Keeper's has his first game FCS rankings out . UMass drops to #12 .

UPDATE: In our Sunday blog post we noted the fine crowd of 15, 112 attended the UMass-Albany game. We report without comment the Boston College-Kent State game at Cleveland Brown's stadium on the same day drew 10,788.

Holy Cross Preview

UMass' second game of the 2008 season is against Holy Cross

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The UMass game notes are not up yet, I'll add 'em when they arrive.

UPDATE: UMass game notes (.html), game notes (.pdf)

Holy Cross game notes are here . The Holy Cross fan site is called CrossSports.com . The Crusaders football message board is here .

Patriot League football web site here .

Besides the usual media outlets, Charter TV 3 will televise the game to central Mass on cable.

Trivia: UMass played the first ever football game at Holy Cross and the first ever game at Fitton Field.

Trivia II: UMass does not have a home game at McGuirk in the entire month of September. Anyone know if that ever happened before?

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Holy Cross finished last year 7-4 and just missed winning the Patriot league championship.

The last time Holy Cross was in the playoffs was 1983 when they lost to Western Carolina 21-28.

Their most notable win was a 31-28 victory over Ivy League champ Harvard.

Chuck Burton has an extensive Holy Cross report over on his blog Lehigh Football Nation.

Some articles about this year's Crusader team here and here .

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The strength of the Holy Cross team is their QB Dominic Randolph. He a 6-3 223 pd Senior. In 2007 he went 297-482 61.2 % completion average, 3604 yards 30 TDs and 8 INT.

Last year against UMass Randolph set a Holy Cross record with 32 completions out of 62 attempts for 296 yards and 2 TDs.

Randolph is also a Payton Award candidate .

The Crusaders return their two top rushers Terrance Glass and Mike Kielt who combined for 930 yards and 12 TDs. They both averaged over 5.0 yards a carry.

Holy Cross also returns four of their starting five offensive linemen.

Their 3rd and 4th receivers are back and Brett McDermott and Jon Brock had a combined 110 catches for 1,263 yards and 6 TDs.

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The Holy Cross defense returns six starters and their two top tacklers linebackers Marcus Rodriguez and Ryan Stewart.

They will have three new starters in the defensive secondary.

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Game outlook:

Uh Oh! The forecast is for rain at Holy Cross as the remains of Hurricane Hanna cross New England.

I hope that this does not turn into another Rhode Island game.

This game has upset written all over it. UMass needs to make a quantum jump in defensive tackling and the offense must get in sync to beat the high scoring Crusaders.

Holy Cross should have its best team in 20 years and they should contend for the Patriot League title. A win over top-five ranked UMass would be their best win in a long, long time.

Labor Day News 09/01/08

The Boston Herald has an article that says UMass will take the win.

Matty Vautour has a game article here and a story about Tony Nelson here .

Vautour notes in his article that all five UMass players trying to make the pros (Ihedigbo, Shipp, Baylark, Cain and London were cut). London was picked up by the Dolphins.

The Miami Dolphins site mentions London in this article. The Newark Star-Ledger has an article here .

Despite our slow start on Saturday, were are tied for the lead in scoring offense and almost tied for rushing offense in the CAA stats. Also check out Towson's totals against Navy. They got out rushed 558 yards to 30. And you thought we had a bad day.

The magic was not there for the Appalachian State Mountaineers at LSU either. Amanti Edwards rushed 12 times for 1.9 yard average.

UPDATE: Ihedigbo was signed to the NY Jets practice squad.

Albany Game Report, Picasa Web Album & Thank You's

First, some thank you's are appropriate.

The UMass Athletic administration should take a bow. The Albany game was an event. McGuirk looked great under our new lights with our new sound system on our new field turf field. The fireworks were awesome. I bet a good 50% of the crowd stayed to watch the show after the game ended.

The UMass Marching Band was great for the umpteenth year. The band makes these halftime shows look easy------and it's not. Thanks for the great music.

The UMass cheerleaders were wonderful as usual. Speaking of making things look easy, that cheerleader that was ticking out those wide armed push ups, was in some serious good shape!

Special thanks to the 15,112 UMass and Albany fans who took in the game. The crowd made the atmosphere. That was the second largest opening crowd in UMass history. The UMass fans gave the team a nice hand as the game ended.

Consider these games:

• Albany@UMass 15,112
• Richmond@Elon (the FCS/I-AA game of the week) 10,842
• Colgate@Stony Brook 5,808
  
• Monmouth@ Rhode Island (the new version Rams open at home) 3,220

Take a bow, adminsitration, band, cheerleaders and fans. You were great!
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Then there was the game. The good:

Tony Nelson was all he was cracked up to be and then some. He averaged 8.6 yards a carry. He rushed 20 times for 171 yards and one TD. Nelson didn't fumble the ball and he didn't cramp up. He was flat out the best UMass player on field.

Punter Brent Arnold (47.5 yard average) and kicker Armando Cuko (62.0 yard average) in their 2.0 version did really well. Cuko kicked the extra points half way to Sunderland and also hit his kickoffs well. In the still, humid air, Arnold boomed several punts. A little better coverage would have helped. If we could have downed one of those punts on one yard line, it would have really put some pressure on the Great Danes. JUCO Terrance Farris was close to the ball on special teams all game.

Ian Jorgensen made a great one handed catch for a TD.

UMass broke Korrey Davis' redshirt in the first game as he had seven carries for 19 yards.

And the bad:

UMass players were dropping like flies with cramps (which was not happening to Albany, BTW). The constant change in offensive linemen did not help the offense, which was limited to 16 first downs and 307 total yards. UMass had only 92 net yards passing and Liam was at an unheard of low for him with a 50% completion rate.

Our tackling in the first quarter was awful. It looked like we were trying to play flag football. We were whiffing on tackles all over the place. As the game went on, that improved. The defense began to get pressure on Esposito and the hitting picked up. McCarty still averaged 5.2 yards per carry.

Albany is a good team. They were 8-4 last year and undefeated in the NEC. They were also the unofficial Patriot League champs as they beat playoff bound Fordham 23-20. Albany has a definite chance of beating Hofstra, UNH or Delaware.

All in all, the first quarter was terrible, but we worked our way through it. On to Holy Cross.

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The team was not the only ones not in game form. I left my image-stabilized zoom lens home and I was getting some serious blur in my images by the second half.

I made up a 54-image Picasa Web Album. It's here . Click on the "slide show" or view one-at-a-time.

Hope you enjoy the images.

Wisdom of the Blog --- Albany Game

The knowledgeable Blog community correctly picked the outcome of the Albany-UMass game.

UMass by 7 to 20 points collected the most votes with 51 and 43% of the vote cast.

I'll be back maybe later today with my thoughts on the game and a Picassa Web album from the contest. The web albums take a lot of time to edit and up load.

Hope to see everybody this evening with my rant and the images.

Go UMass!

Woah! New Sound speakers!

Click on the image and Blogger displays a larger view.

The old "horn shaped" speakers have been at McGuirk since at least the early 70's. Another nice up-grade to McGuirk from the Athletic Dept.

McGuirk has new speakers! At last we have a clear sound system.

Kudos to the Athletic Dept (who apparently reads the Blog) for getting this done.

Anyone in the know have the technical details on these babies?

Albany game news

Click on the image and Blogger displays a larger view.

The Boston Globe has an article here . The Boston Herald here .

The Worcester Telegram here . Another Telegram article here .

Schenectady Gazette has an article from the Albany side here and here . The Albany Times here.

Jeff Thomas of the Springfield Republican has an article with photos here .

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UMass athletic dept write-up here .

Great Danes athletic dept write-up here .

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UPDATE: The CAA has recaps for all the CAA games here .

Game Day ---- Albany 08/30/08

The Boston Herald has a game day article here . Note that they report John Ihne has taken over the starting right guard position.

Jeff Thomas of the Springfield Republican has another here .

From the Albany side, the Schenectady Times has one here . The Albany Times here . And the Capital News here .

Matty Vautour has a opening game story here . He recaps UMass' history of home night games here .

Matty has a blog entry on Brandon London hanging on with the Giants.

Marcel Shipp was cut by the Texans .
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You will remember in a previous post I linked to an article stating we were receiving $450,000 for our Texas Tech game. This reporter says $475,000. This reporter says $300,000 (which is the figure I believe was quoted last year). These big time MSM reporters would not write a story without actually checking the facts would they?

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The College Sporting News site is back up. Bruce Dowd's CAA opening week forecast is here .

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The CAA's Game Day page has gone active .

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The weather is supposed to be in the low 70's with 30% chance of showers. Winds light. Hourly forecast here .

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Go UMass!

One Day until Football 0829/08

This is a very cool feature. Matty Vautour is re-running his weekly articles (with notes) from UMass' 1998 National Championship year. Game one with Delaware is here .

I vividly remember that game. When Whipple was hired, I attended his first UMass sports luncheon and Whipple made a famous comment that he would like to bring a championship to UMass. I also went to the 1998 Spring game and it was nothing special.

But then, in the opening game against Delaware, UMass was flying up and down the field. We had always struggled against Delaware's superior talent and we were just smoking their defense. WHMP's tiny 250 watt night time power barely reached Whatley and I had to listen to the game on WMUA. The student announcers were saying things like: "Dude! This is the best game I've ever seen!". The magic was on. And it has yet to leave the UMass football program.

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Jeff Thomas of the Spring field Republican has an article about the season opener here .

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The South Bend Tribune has an article about ex-Notre Dame players including Chauncey Incarnato in a story here .

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Hofstra got crushed in its opening game against UConn.

Northeastern got crushed in its opening game against Ball State.

The CAA has recaps of both games on its news page .

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UMass' Liam Coen is on the Sports Network's Walter Payton Watch List.

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Speaking of the Sports Network, David Coulson has his week #1 predictions here .

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I found this over on the college football site "The Wizard of Odds". If you attend a Washington State practice, you have to sign a nondisclosure wavier. One booster got banned from practice for publishing this crucial information:" Some players showed some serious fire ... I watched each line going through drills and there was absolutely no screwing around ... I personally really like this coaching staff ... [Ed] Donatell is first-class ... [Steve] Gervais is a total stud ... I really hope it stays intact from the head coach on down." Story here .

Makes me appreciate how far UMass Football has gone to accommodate the UMass Football Blog.

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UPDATE: Reshaude Goodwin is back on the UMass roster.

Two Days until football 08/28/08

Remember to listen to Coach Brown's show tonight live from the Hanger at 7:00 pm on WRNX.

UMass and Clear Channel have reached a three year agreement on broadcasting UMass Sports.


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The Boston globe has a story about the UMass defensive secondary.

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FCS and CAA football opens tonight as the Hofstra Pride visits the evil UConn Huskies.

The Hofstra game will be shown live at 7:30 tonight on SNY TV, which is available nationally on both Direct TV (channel 625) and Dish TV (channel 438). Comcast will also carry the game.

Meanwhile, the good Huskies (Northeastern) open their season tonight against Ball State. No TV but there is internet radio.

The CAA has lots of info on both games here .

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Woah! Yesterday I returned home to find a pile of boxes that the UPS guy had left on my porch (Mrs. Blog is redecorating). Carelessly thrown on top was a white envelope from the UMass Athletic Dept.

In it were my Texas Tech tickets. We're in section 13 with end zone seats. Texas Tech has a neat feature that if you click on their stadium map, you get a view of the stadium from your seats. This is what I hope (God willing) to be taking images of in a couple of weeks.


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Matty Vautour has an article on the UMass defense .

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UMass football uses One Playbook software to manage contacts with UMass players and coaches.

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CSN has a excerpt from their FCS magazine covering the CAA here (.pdf). They are rather down on UMass.

Three Days Until Football 08/27/08

The Boston Herald, which always does the best job of covering UMass in the Boston area has two articles about the 2008 Minutemen. John Connelly has an article about UMass-UNH in the CAA North here . Connelly has a three page article about UMass here .

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Rivals.com has an excellent article about FCS Vs FBS games called Guarantee games don't always go as planned . It has a writeup about the UMass $450,000 guarantee for playing Texas Tech and Sean Smalls head to head matchup with Michael Crabtree.

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ESPN has an article about Sean Smalls here .

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The Charleston News has an article how FCS/I-AA teams are recruiting speed to counter the spread option offense.

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The Worcester Telegram has an article about Holy Cross' Ryan McGuire a 6-4 230 pd TE whom we will meet on Sept. 6th.

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Meanwhile down at Rhode Island, Darren Rizzi's Rams have 45% of their players new this year.

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The Providence Journal has an article on our Oct 25 foe Bryant's first year in FCS/I-AA.

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We'll be getting Delaware at home on Oct 4th. They still can't pick a quarterback .

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UPDATE: The Texas Tech-UMass game is close to a sellout.

UPDATE II: Matty Vautour looks at this year's offense .

Albany Preview

UMass' first foe of the 2008 season is the Albany Great Danes

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Their official football page is here . Fan site BigPurpleFans.com .

The Great Danes were the 2007 North East Conference champions with a 6-0 conference record.

Their head coach is Bob Ford. He has led the Great Danes for 35 years and is their only coach since the program was restarted in 1970. He currently leads all active FCS coaches with 225 career victories.

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Albany's games notes for UMass are here (.pdf)

UMass' game notes for Albany are here (html) and here (.pdf)

Note that there will be free internet audio through the UMass Athletic web site and live streaming video will be available for $9.95/month, which is a great deal.

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Albany is in the process of upgrading their program. They've had some success in that effort already. In 2006, they stunned Delaware 17-10 at Delaware.

In 2007 the beat FCS playoff team (and UMass' first round opponent) Fordham 23-20.

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This year the Great Danes return six starters on both offense and defense.

The offense is led by RB David McCarty Jr. 6-0 207 . McCarty went 218 1503 6.9 yards/carry and 13 TDs. They also return QB Vinny Esposito Jr. Jr. 6-1 210. In 2007 he went 154-277 1810 yards 55.6 comp % and 12 TDs and 6 INT.

They also return their top receiver Daniel Bocanegra Sr. 6-1 195. Bocanegra had 26 catches for 316 yards 12.2 yards/catch.

The Great Danes LT is Raphael Nguti. He's 6-7 330 pds.

In 2007 the Great Danes averaged 4.4 yards per play and 28.4 points per game. They were +14 in turnovers.

On defense the Great Danes return five of their top six tacklers: Justin Brancaccio, Dave Nicomini, Dave West, Dave Casale and Mark Peretore.

The Great Danes gave up 19.4 points per game and 334 yards per game in 2007.

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In 2008, Albany plays one of the toughest road schedules in FCS/I-AA. They play:

• 08/30 @ UMass
• 09/13 @ Hofstra
• 09/20 @ New Hampshire
• 09/27 @ Delaware.

They do get all three of their top Northeast opponents: Central Conn State, Monmouth and Wagner at home. That should give them a leg up on winning their fourth NEC championship.

The Albany Time-Union has an article on the scheduling challenges for the Great Danes.

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Trivia

UMass OT Ben Coblyn played two basketball games against the Great Danes in '05-'06.

UMass offensive coordinator Kevin Morris was an assistant coach at Albany in 1986-87.

The NY Giants have used UAlbany's facilities for their summer camp since 1996.

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Conclusion

This Saturday's game against Albany should be a decent introduction to 2008 football. The Great Danes are a good reduced scholarship team and UMass will have pay attention to get the win.

In particular, we should get a feeling for the revised 2008 UMass offense. How will the new OL block? Will our wide receivers make plays or clank catches like they did in the Spring Game? A good showing by the offense will bode well for our playoff chances.

Encourage all UMass fans to attend the first ever UMass game under permanent lights at McGuirk!

Five Days before the start of the 2008 season 08/25/08

Warren Wilson the transfer WR from Boston College is the feature of an article from the Lawrence Eagle Tribune.

Matty Vautour has a mention of the article in his Sports Blog and some additional comments on the UMass receiver corps.

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Jeff Thomas of the Springfield Republican has an article about the UMass defense and the end of training camp.

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The Schenectady Gazette has an article about the Albany Great Danes killer schedule. Indeed Albany's opening games are a load few FCS/I-AA teams would like to lift.

• @ UMass 8/30
• @Hofstra 9/13
• @New Hampshire 9/20
• @ Delaware 9/27

Another Great Danes article from the Albany Times-Union here . The Gazette has an article about Albany's struggle for recognition.
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UPDATE: Matty Vautour muses on the new season.

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Wisdom of the Blog---- Top UMass Quarterback

The greatest quarterbacks blog poll came directly from the career top 10 list in the 2008 UMass press guide. The 100 Blog votes went like this:

1. Liam Coen- 05-08 39 votes. Liam leads UMass in career TD's, Season and career passing efficiency, total yards and most yards gained in a single game (three of the top four). Coen has played in a lot of games and that adds to his career statistics. He played in 15 games in 2006, which was almost two seasons for the old time quarterbacks.
2. Todd Bankhead- 98-99 23 votes. Todd is the only UMass QB to win a national championship. Coach Whipple offered a scholarship to a QB he never spoke with in person from a JUCO in CA. A couple of months later, Bankhead was all over the Delaware defense and the single greatest season in UMass history was in motion. Bankhead played two years and holds the top two single season yards gained record. He put UMass on the map in the modern era.
3. Greg Landry 65-67 13 votes. Landry is UMass' only first round NFL Draft pick. His 1965 QB efficiency rating of 145.4 still stands as the UMass record. All-Pro for Detroit in 1971. Again, it would be interesting to see Landry in Whipple's offense.
   
4. Dave Palazzi. 85-88 13 votes. Palazzi was a I-A level QB. He was somehow missed by BC, Syracuse or Penn State. If he had played for a I-A team, he would have had several bowl trophies sitting in his rec room. Palazzi's 3rd in all-time career passing. Remember he was playing in an option offense.
5. Jeff Krohn 02-03 5 votes. After UMass' national championship, the question was open if UMass was going to have to wait another 20 years for a top level FCS/I-AA team. Krohn answered that question. Jeff kept the lights on in the Minutemen's reputation as a national and conference power. In his time before UMass, he led the PAC10 in passing...
6. Tim Day 02-05 1 vote. Tim is 6th in career passing for UMass and third in career passing completion average.
7. Mike McEvilly 77-79 1 vote. Mike is 9th in career yards passing.
8. Andrew McNeilly 92-95 1 vote. McNeilly is 10th in total yards passing. Another QB who played in an option oriented offense. He never had more than 86 completions in any season.
9. Gary Wilkos 89-90 1 vote. If any UMass QB reminded me of Tom Brady, it's Wilkos. Gary had that kind of demeanor as a QB. He only played 1.5 seasons before suffering a spinal injury that ended his career. He's still the #3 ranked freshman QB in UMass history.
10. Peil Pennington 71-73 0 votes. Maybe UMass' best pure passing QB. Still #6 in total yards passing.
    
11. Jerry Whelchel 62-64 0 votes. Played in the old-old Yankee Conference "three yards and a cloud of dust" offenses. He's #11 in total yards passing.

The results show a tendency to favor the more recent quarterbacks (as you might expect). Many of the older QB's played in offenses that were far removed from Whipple's high-octane passing game. Parsing the list by yards per attempt is fairer to the older QBs and looks like this:

1. Liam Coen 8.6 yards per attempt
2. Jerry Welchel 8.4
3. Tod Bankhead 7.5
4. Gary Wilkos 7.2
5. Tim Day 7.1
6. Noel Reebenacker 7.1 (1950-1952)
7. Dave Palazzi 7.1
8. Jeff Krohn 7.0
9. Greg Landry 7.0
10. Brian NcNally 6.7
11. Peil Pennington 6.6
    

One week to go!

Time to get your game faces on. We're going live in seven days. Get your tailgating equipment together. Find your Maroon & White shirts. Got your "UMass Football' hat. Are you ready for some football?

Matty Vautour has a nice story about UMass WR Victor Cruz. It looks like three years of potential is finally going to make it to the field.

Sean Smalls is named a preseason All-American by Sporting News.

Our I-A opponent Texas Tech has sold out its season tickets for the first time ever.

Next week's opponent the Albany Great Danes are cautiously optimistic . Another story from the Great Danes' Media Day.

Besides Comcast Sports broadcasting of CAA games, they also plan significant weekly coverage of the CAA in their "SportsNite on Campus" show.

Without comment-----Hofstra's new helmet.

Friday Moring stuff 08/22/08

Jeff Thomas has an article about the 2008 UMass offensive line here .

Looks like the lineup for the opening game is:

• LT Valdimir Ducasse Jr. 6-5 315 17 games and 12 starts
• LG Ben Coblyn RSr. 6-8 300 9 games 2 starts
• C Sean Calicchio Rsr. 6-5 300 26 games 22 starts
• RG Josh Samuda RFr. 6-3 305 0 games 0 starts
• RT Bob Getek RJr. 6-6 295 10 games 0 starts at OL

Top backups are John Ihne RSo. 6-5 280 0 games, Chauncey Incarnato RSr. 6-7 300 0 games, Justin Sawicki RFs. 6-5 305 0 games and Brian Ostaszewski RF. 6-5 285 0 games.

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Matty Vautour has a long article about Joe Sanford . Sanford played in 12 games and had 4 catches for 71 yards and 2 TDs.

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NESN has video interviews of Coach Brown and a number of UMass players here .

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Many FCS/I-AA teams play at least one BCS/I-A game. Those contests tend to generate a lot of fan interest on the FCS level.

The Georgia Southern- Georgia game is turning into the "Suspension Bowl" Eight GSU players are suspended from the game here and here . And it's kinda tough to keep track of how many Georgia players are suspended.

Thursday news 08/21/08

I received an e-mail from Comcast sports about this year's UMass TV schedule. Bob McGovern is all over it on his UMass all-sports blog "Between Mullins and McGuirk", so I'm not going to reinvent the wheel.

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Matty Vautour has an article about UMass being ranked #5 in the Sports Network Preseason poll.

In his Sports Blog, he gives his preseason top 25.

The UMass Football Blog's preseason top 25 runs like this:

1. Appalachian State
2. JMU
3. Richmond (the most returning starters in the CAA)
   
4. Eastern Washington
5. UMass
6. Northern Iowa
7. Cal Poly
8. North Dakota State
9. Wofford
10. McNeese State
11. Delaware
12. Montana
13. Youngstown State
14. Southern Ill
15. Eastern Ill
16. Elon (I'm not sure Elon is as good as everyone thinks)
    
17. Georgia Southern
18. Villanova (maybe too low)
19. UNH
20. Montana State
21. The Citadel
22. Fordham
23. Holy Cross
24. Harvard
25. South Dakota State

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Keeper's has his FCS team and conference power rankings up.

He has UMass ranked #7 in power rankings and he rates UMass' schedule difficulty as #1 in the Division with a predicted 9-3 2008 record.



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UMass has a new cheerleading coach . The cheer leaders do a great job at McGuirk and usually have a squad at the away games. The UMass cheerleading webpage is here (needs updating).

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Did you know the UMass Dance Team has an active Blog with images, video and more? Well they do.

The Dance team is first rate, but their videos could use some improvement. Anyone want to volunteer as their Videographer?

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Matty Vautour has an article about Sean Callicchio's move to center.

Media Day Practice and comments

Click on the image and Blogger displays a larger view.

On August 12th I attended the UMass Media Day and a practice at McGuirk. A thirty-three image Picassa web album is here. Click on the "slide show" button or view individually.

Truth-in-blogging note, I was asked not to take images of offensive or defensive sets. And the athletic dept asked to see the web album before I published it. The reason being that this was a "live" practice and they didn't want potential opposing teams having any more information than was necessary. As we bleed Maroon & White here at the UMass Football Blog, I had no problem with that.

The kickers felt that the addition of Travis Tripucka had solved the long snapping problems I witnessed in the spring. At 6-2 215 he looks like a football player and I did not see a bad snap during the practice. Both Armando Cuko and Brent Arnold kicked well in this practice.

Both Liam Coen and Sean Smalls sat out the practice with minor physical problems.

I was impressed with RFr Spencer Whipple . His throwing mechanics seemed excellent, as you might expect given who's son he is. He's 6-2 200. He was moved around in high school because his father was hired by Pittsburgh and he ended up only starting one year. He could be a steal as a walk-on. A concentrated year in weight room and learning the UMass offense could place him in contention for a starting job when Coen graduates.

The UMass offensive line looked like athletes. For a while, it seemed every team had to have 315+ pound offensive linemen. Seems like the pendulum has swung to taller and leaner players.

This year's "Best Biceps" award goes to Captain Brandon Collier. At 6-1 280, he looks like he could bench-press a pickup truck.

I was impressed with the speed of Terrance Farris and Sam Besong. Our defensive teams speed could be second to none in FCS/I-AA. We have some defensive line depth this year. In 2007 UMass had five DL with numbers in the 90s on their chest. This year we have eight. Transfer Ray Jones at 6-4 275 and JUCO Theluxon Pierre at 6-3 260 have some size.

The players looked motivated. This could be a fun year for UMass football fans.

Tuesday Morning articles 08/19/08

The Berkshire Eagle has an article about Liam Coen.

The UMass Athletic website has more information about Marcel Shipp's signing with the Texans and includes a video link. Houston Texans story here .

The Bleacher Report has a Marcel Shipp story here .

The CAA has a UMass 2008 preview up on their website.

I hope to have my UMass Media Day article up tomorrow. Today is a "Honey do" day :)

Recruiting 2009 --Keith Bourne & Russell Braithwaite

UMass is recruiting two of the top 10 Massachusetts players not committed for 2009.

Keith Bourne a 6-4 270 pd OL from Fitchburg, MA is a rivals two-star recruit. Also being recruited by Boston College and Temple.

Bourne's TruPreps page is here (with a couple of images)

Russell Braithwaite is a 6-2 185 pd DB from Southborough, MA. He's another Rivals two-star. Also being recruited by Boston College, Syracuse and UNH. He's also getting looks for hoops .

Hope they both consider UMass!

Monday Morning Odds & Ends 08/18/08

The CAA has started a "Press Box" of team and league information. They also have been running a football preview of the CAA teams on their front page.

UMass' freshman DB recruit Dan McLaughlin's brother Mike McLaughlin has been named a captain at Boston College.

And Marcel Shipp has been signed by the Texans (as reported by everybody)

UPDATE: The Giants play tonight at 8:00 pm EDT on ESPN. Brandon London should get quite a bit of playing time. I'll probably be watching with the sound off as ESPN announcing drives me nuts. Maybe WFAN 660 NY will stream the Giants audio feed...

Defensive line article

Image was taken by me at the UMass Media Day. Click on the image and Blogger displays a larger view.

Jeff Thomas has an article about the 2008 UMass defensive line here .

Thomas reports that the starting UMass line will be:

• Darnel Delaire RDE RSr. 6-2 240
• Kyle C. Harrington NT RJr. 6-3 285
• Brandon Collier RJr. DT 6-1 280 (Captain)
• Michael Hanson LDE RJr. 6-2 260

UMass looks to be deeper this year with a number of players with game experience as backups Darrlyn Fenner DE RSr. 5-11 230 (12 games), Shaun Allen RSr. DL 6-3 255 (7 games) and Bob McLaughlin DT RSo. 6-2 265 (13 games).

Other DL expected to contribute this year are Anthony Monette DE RJr. 6-2 245, Theluxon Pierre DL JUCO Junior 6-3 260, Ray Jones DL RSo. 6-4 275 (9 games in 2006 for Delaware) and Courtney Jackson DE RFr. 6-2 235.

Other DL on the roster includes:

• Nicholas Collilouri Fr. 5-11 260
• James Gilchrist RFr. 6-3 250
• Charles Thompson Fr. 6-3 290

Three of the starters will return in 2009, so this is young group. Looks like more talent and more speed than in the past. This will be an exciting group to watch.

Wisdom of the Blog----Expectations 2008

Well, we're an optimistic bunch. The 2008 expectations poll ran as follows:

1. Deep into the playoffs 47 votes (53%)
2. To the National Championship Game 25 votes (28%)
3. Just miss the playoffs with a 7-5 record 6 votes (6%)
4. Make the playoffs 4 votes (4%)
5. Loosing record 4 votes (4% probably UConn trolls and "Tubby Raymond")
6. About .500 record 2 votes (2%)

The lowest poll ranking I've seen for the Minutemen was 12th, so it seems we are in line with the professional writers.

A lot has to go right to make it to the National Championship game, but I think this is a powerful club and we should be a force in 2008.

UMass linebackers 2008

The image above was taken by me at the 2008 UMass Media Day. Click on the image and Blogger displays a larger view.

Matty Vautour has an article on the 2008 UMass linebackers here .

Starters look like:

• George Byrd ( Sr. 6-1 235) at WLB
• Josh Jennings (RJr. 6-0 220) at MLB
• Andy Resende-Gomes (RSr. 6-1 230) at SLB

Anthony Rousier (RJr. 6-1 220), if healthy should get a lot of reps as the run-stopper.

Sam Besong (RSo. 6-0 215), Chad Arango (RSo. 6-0 225) and JUCO's Kurt Filler (Jr. 6-3 230) and Terrance Farris (Jr. 6-0 195) should be the top backups and also figure in various packages.

Also on the roster are:

• D.J. Adeoba Fr.
• Chris Chamberlin Fr.
• Nicklas Haag Fr.
• Tyler Holmes Fr.

Our three starters have good size and speed for a FCS/I-AA club. Both Filler and Farris are regular Juniors and could take a redshirt year in 2008 in order to maximize their playing time at UMass.

Hope they all have a great year!

Brandon London still doing well with the Giants

I did a quick check of Bob McGovern's UMass All-Sports Blog "Between Mullins and McGuirk" and I don't think he covered this story.

I was channel surfing Wednesday and hit a replay of Sunday's Giants-Lions game. Brandon London led all Giants receivers and had a great catch.

The Giants write up is here .

Relevant quote from the story: "

So was the play London made on the Giants’ touchdown drive. On third-and-two from the Detroit 40, he took a short Carr pass, broke two tackles and bulled his way to the 11 for a 29-yard gain.

“I thought Brandon London made an outstanding play,” Coughlin said. “He showed some real enthusiasm and some real desire to get to the end zone with the ball. I liked what I saw with the way he played tonight.”

London, a free agent from Massachusetts, spent the entire 2007 season on the Giants’ practice squad. Although the Giants began camp with a deep cast of receivers that includes several high draft choices, he believes he can earn a promotion.

“I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time,” London said. “This year, my goal is to not be on the practice squad. My goal is to make the 53-man roster and slowly build off of that. Any chance that comes my way I have to make that play. I want to make sure the quarterbacks keep their confidence in me and that’s going to make the coaches keep their confidence.”

London led the Giants wide receivers with three catches for 46 yards, but it was his long gain that garnered the most attention.

“I wanted the end zone,” London said. “When I got back to the sideline everyone was making fun of me, because I should have broke that last tackle. To tell you the truth, I was kind of tired. But that was my chance to make a play to stand out and that’s what I was going to do. David Carr put a nice ball there, so you have to catch it.”

YouTube has the game highlights. London's catch comes at about the 2:35 point.