Travel Friday for the Minutemen

As our Minutemen make their way to Carbondale IL, we get to do some pre-game reading.

If you have been following the articles I've been publishing links to so far this year, it will not surprise you that David Coulson is picking Southern Illinois.

Bruce Dowd does not like our style of play, but he grudgingly gives us the nod.

The Boston Herald, which does an excellent job covering UMass football, has a game article here .

Jeff Thomas of the Springfield Republican has an article here .

The JG-TC has an article about Saluki redshirt freshman Connor James.

Satuday is going to be a busy day in Saluki land.

The pressure is on SIU .

The Providence Journal has an article about favorite son Liam Coen and Rhody's search for a new coach.

UPDATE: Matty Vautour says that Brad Listorti may be available for the SIU game .

AROUND THE NATION:

Delaware is raising ticket prices in the expectation of another home playoff game.

And New Hampshire is looking for a defense .

Coach Brown's show tonight at 7:00

OK, it seems as if Coach Brown's show will be on tonight at 7:00 pm.

Listen here .

I thought there might not be one because of travel.

Recruiting 2008 -- QB Mike Pierce

UMass is interested in Mike Pierce a 6-0 203 pd QB from Andover, MA. Story here . Pierce went 146-260 for 2,179 YDS 20 TDs.

The Boston Globe has a page on him here .

More UMass-Saluki stuff

The Boston Herald has an article about the friendship between Liam Coen and Rasheed Rancher.

The UMass Daily Collegian has an article about the challenges SIU presents . The collegian has another game article here .

An SIU paper has an interview with Saluki running back John Randle (96-489 5.09 YDS/Carry 4 TDs)

Meanwhile, Saluki WR Justin Allen is confident he can handle our defensive backs.

This article looks at UMass from the SIU side.

And Sporting News columnist Kent Schmdt picks SIU over the Minutemen .

More Playoff Articles

The Salem News has an article about UMass players (and roommates) Chris Zardas and Kyle Harrington. Zardas was injured in the last series in the Fordham game and the article infers that he's OK, which is good news.

Jeff Thomas of the Springfield Republican has an article that interviews SIU head coach Jerry Kill.

The Saluki's have their UMass game notes up here (a pdf download)

We're part of the biggest day in SIU's sports history .

David Coulson reviews last Saturday's playoff games.

The Flordia Sun-Sentinel has an article about UMass LB Charles Walker. Some nice publicity for UMass football in talent-rich south Flordia.

UPDATE: Matty Vautour has a game article here, which includes the UMass injury status. Chris Zardas did injure ligaments in his knee (but he may play anyway).

AROUND THE PLAYOFFS:

UNI gets Delaware in the next round .

And UNI found New Hampshire a different level of competition than they were used to.

UMass-Fordham Web Album

I've added a UMass Fordham Web Album on Picassa. The link is here. There are about 40 images of the game.

Also added a link in the sidebar under the "2007 UMass images section"

UMass-SIU to be televised on MASN

That's the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network . Their program listing does not yet show Saturday's schedule.

The game will also available on ESPN+ .

This page shows the game on MASN.

MASN is found on Dish TV Channel 438 and Direct TV's Channel 626.

Some people are saying that the game may be blacked out in certain areas...

Great UMass minds think alike, I got an e-mail, a comment from blog reader Drew Comeau (and former UMass player) and I found it myself all about the same time. Thanks to all who made sure I had the information.

More info when I have it.

UPDATE: The game will be shown on NESN as per this UMass Athletic Dept post. Yeah! NESN easily has the widest distribution of any channel we've talked about so far.

That's channel 434 on Dish Network.

More playoff stuff

The Boston Herald has a UMass article here .

Keeper has UMass as #4 in FCS, however he has UMass as a three point underdog to SIU (in fact, he has all the CAA teams as underdogs).

Meanwhile, back in Carbondale, the Salukis have a suffocating defense .

Eastern Illinois TE Jordan Campanella had a big day against SIU. Wish we had Brad Listorti available. Sigh.

UPDATE: UMass has its game notes up. Nothing yet from SIU.

AROUND FCS:

Mark Whipple is not going to Rhode Island.

The Delaware Hens are, on the other hand, going to UNI.

Monday Morning Reading

The Boston Herald has a UMass article here .

Jeff Thomas of the Springfield Republican has an article here .

Three articles about the Salukis: They're thinking about UMass, their quarterback Rick Hill is unstoppable, and SIU is so good they're boring .

They have a message board "Saluki Talk"

Southern Illinios' press guide is only a six meg download here .

By the way, SME network is picking SIU over UMass in the next round (see the playoff chart)

UPDATE: Matty Vautour of the Hamp Gazette has a game notes article here .

AROUND THE PLAYOFFS:

Delaware is the next CAA team to have a shot at #1 Northern Iowa.

UNH is looking towards next year.

Uh-Oh! TV coverage of UMass-Southern Illinois may be a problem

Just received the following e-mail from Jason Yellin, the UMass Sports Information Director:

The UMass at Southern Illinois NCAA Quarterfinal FCS Football game will take
place at 3:30 p.m. ET in Carbondale, Illinois. It will be shown on ESPN
Gameplan. It will also be available on other various channels across the
nation. Those channels will be released later this week.

 Here is the complete Quarterfinal schedule.



December  1 at Boone, North Carolina (ESPN Gameplan at Noon ET)

Eastern Wash. (9-3) at Appalachian St. (10-2)



December  1 at Cedar Falls, Iowa (ESPN Gameplan at 2 p.m. ET)

Delaware (9-3) at No. 1 UNI (12-0)



December  1 at Carbondale, Illinois (ESPN Gameplan at 3:30 p.m. ET)

Massachusetts (10-2) at No. 4 Southern Ill. (11-1)



December  1 at Spartanburg, South Carolina (ESPN Gameplan at 7 p.m. ET)

Richmond (10-2) at Wofford (9-3)

Let's hope NESN or somebody picks up the game. Otherwise it's $21.95 a week. Link here.

Fordham game articles

Image above is a UMass Athletic Dept image.

On the day after one of the most impressive offensive showings in UMass history, we have a lot of game articles.

The Hartford Courant has an article featuring the running of Matt Lawrence.

The Boston Herald has an article featuring the pass-and-catch combo of Coen and Rancher .

The Herald has another game article here .

The NY Daily News has an article about Fordham's last game of the season here .

Jeff Thomas has two game articles here and here .

The Boston Globe has a game article here .

And the Worcester Telegram has another here .

Matty Vautour has a game article in the Hampshire Gazette here.

AROUND THE PLAYOFFS:

The CAA has game recaps for all the CAA teams in the playoffs including box scores here .

New Hampshire came within 7 seconds of upsetting #1 UNI.

JMU fumbled away a win at Appalachian State (and brought a groan from the UMass crowd at McGuirk)

Richmond took care of business against Eastern Kentucky.

CSN recaps the entire playoffs here .

Woah! Major Offense!

Well, on a day that the defense struggled (but notice the defense did its job at the end) the UMass offense was all over the Rams.

Liam Coen added another significant record to his total----best passing yards in a single game with 419 yards. UMass had over 600 total yards. He went 24-37 for 419 and 4 TDs.

Matt Lawrence had a huge game with 167 yards and 3 TDs.

And Charles Walker proved you can beat 'em with brains as UMass took the blitz off and the
fordham QB threw the ball right into his arms.

The UMass write-up (with quotes and stats and stuff) is here .

The Fordham write-up is here .

ESPN game recap is here .

And a NY Times reporter totally screws up up this game story. Can you guess who we were booing? It wasn't the Minutemen.

UPDATE: We'll be off to Southern Illinois next week.

Game Day Fordham

Well, it's 12 degrees here in Jaffrey, NH. We're going to have to bundle up for the game. Let's Go UMass!

The Boston Herald has an article about Masella's Fordham Rams visiting UMass. The Herald also has another game day article here .

Matty Vautour has a game article here .

Jeff Thomas of the Springfield Republican has a Fordham game article here .

The CAA has a game-day page for all CAA teams in the playoffs with links to their audio feeds and the like here .

Some game notes: UMass, following a tradition set by Coach Whipple will switch to all-maroon uniforms for home games and all-white for road playoff games. This will be the first time we've seen them in this color combination with the new uniforms.

Also, teams are only allowed to dress 60 players in the playoffs.

AROUND THE PLAYOFFS:

This Winston-Salem sports writer likes the FCS playoffs, but does not know much about the teams.

If we win this week, we meet the winner of the Southern Illinois-Eastern Illinois game. The Southern Illinoisian has a game article here . Another SIU-EI game article here .

Meanwhile, the Hens destroyed the Hornets in their first ever meeting.

And New Hampshire plays #1 ranked UNI later today.

Friday Morning reading

A couple of articles feature senior UMass players this morning. The Boston Globe has an article about the friendship between J.J. Moore and Charles Walker and is worth your time.

Matty Vautour has an article about senior UMass kicker Chris Koepplin that is also worth reading.

Three articles about tomorrow's UMass-Fordham game: the Journal-News has one here , the Daily News has the Rams ready for UMass and the UMass Daily Collegian has a game article here.

AROUND THE PLAYOFFS:

The Union Leader has a UNH-UNI article here.

If UMass wins Saturday, they meet the winner of the Southern Illinois-Eastern Illinois game. TG-TC online has an extensive article on those two teams here .


UPDATE: Bruce Dowd has his weekly "CAA Today" column here . Worth reading.

FCS Playoffs start today with Delaware-Delaware State

Remember to set your VCR for the first game of the 2007 FCS Playoffs today. Delaware meets the team they have been trying to avoid for fifty years, Delaware State at 1:30 pm on ESPNU.

That's channel 148 on Dish network and Channel 609 on Direct TV.

UPDATE: The Hens-Hornets game will also be shown on ESPN and ESPN HD. A big thank-you to the Lawrence family for the update information.

UPDATE II: OK, just to mess with our heads, ESPNU is showing Toledo-Central Michigan. That's not what was shown on the listed schedule on their website.

Looks like the only broadcast of the Hens-Hornets is ESPN as the Lawrence family indicated. Start times seems to be 1:30 pm.

KAEO Shannon James

Coach Brown said in the his Chanel 40 TV show that former UMass All-American Shannon James has been named the defensive MVP of Calgary Stampeders.

Turkey Day reading

Some reading while you recover from your Thanksgiving Day Feast. The image above is from the UMass Athletic Web site.

In case you missed it, seventeen Minutemen were chosen to the CAA All-Conference teams. The UMass web site has an article here . Matty Vautour has an article on the All-conference selection here . I'm a little pressed for time today, so I don't have links to the individual players. The UMass article does.

The UMass Football Blog is in agreement with the picks. However, the Blog feels that UMass DE Michael Hansen belongs in the All-CAA list somewhere.

The PA Times-Tribune has an article about Fordham WR Asa Lucas.

AROUND THE PLAYOFFS:

Charles Burton reviews the first round of the playoffs in his "CSN Way" column.

David Coulson in his "Around FCS" column rails against the inclusion of UNH in the playoffs .

In his weekly "FCS Preview" (a small pdf download), Eric Gemunder praises the selection of UNH in the playoffs.

In the meantime, UNH is damm glad to be there.

Out in Northern Iowa, they're looking forward to the game.

And Appalachian State is feeling confident.

Hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving.

More playoff stuff

If you haven't read CSN's "All about the Division I Championship", you should.

Ditto with CSN's "Division I Championship Notes and Facts".

The Boston Herald consistently does some of the finest articles about UMass football and this one about the aftermath of the Boston College game certainly keeps the average up.

The Herald also covers Liam Coen's playing through his knee injury.

The UMass Daily Collegian does a Fordham article here .

On the Fordham website there is an article on how Coach Mesalla and 12 Ram players were named All-Patriot League.

UPDATE: Matty Vautour has an article about Jeromy Miles and an update about Brad Listorti.

UMass-Hofstra Picassa Web Album

Right Click on the image and Blogger displays a larger view.

I've set up a 27 image Picassa Web album here .

The images are courtesy of the Koepplin family.

More Fordham and playoff news

UMass has its Fordham game notes up here . Fordham has an article, but no game notes yet.

Jeff Thomas of the Springfield Republican has a UMass-Fordham article here .

AROUND THE PLAYOFFS:

Three UNH articles here and here and here .

Rhode Island's Head Coach Tim Stowers was fired yesterday.

If we win, we meet the winner of the Eastern Illinois-Southern Illinois game.

UPDATE: We finished the regular-season Gridiron Power Index at #5.