Miles Named to Preseason All-America team

The UMass website has this article about Jeromy Miles being named to the Consensus Draft Services' preseason All-America team.

While this is good for Jeromy, I am not highly enthusiastic about Consensus Draft Services choices. Their complete list is here .

Appalachian State's Armanti Edwards is only an honorable mention. Delaware transfer QB Rob Schoenhoft is listed as one of the top QB's in the Division. He has not played a down in FCS/I-AA football and he only appeared in a couple of games at Michigan State. Liam Coen is not listed.

They list Bobby Reid as the best QB in FCS/I-A. He transfered to Texas Southern after loosing his starting job at Okalahoma State. He also has not played a down in FCS football.

Friday Morning Odd & Ends 05/30/08

I like the above image by Christopher Evans of the Springfield Republican. Wish I had taken it. The image originates on the Republican's UMass Football page.

Matt Hays of the Sporting News thinks that Appalachian State has a good chance to pull another stunning upset at LSU.

Josh Buchanan over at NFL Draft Bible looks at some "Small Schools" players including UMass' Ben Coblyn and Sean Smalls.

Santos signs with Alouettes

In my May 9th Blog post I reported that Ricky Santos had been cut by the Chiefs after a three day stay.

In that post I said" As the stories indicate, I've always thought Canadian Football was the place for Santos. Two men in motion. Wider field. Throw on nearly every down. I think he'd thrive under those rules just like Doug Flutie did."

He just signed with the Montreal Alouettes. According to my count, they have six QB's on their roster. The Alouettes' main page is here .

UPDATE: The Union Leader has an article about his signing here .

First 2008 polls are out

UMass is ranked 6th in the first AGS FCS/I-AA poll of the 2008 season. One article about it so far here .

Lindy's 2008 NCAA Football magazine (not out yet in my area) has UMass as 4th.

FWIW, here is my 2008 preseason ranking:

1. Appalachian State
2. Richmond
3. James Madison
4. UNI
5. Eastern Washington
6. UMass
7. Wofford
8. Southern Illinois
9. NDSU
10. McNeese State
11. Eastern Kentucky
12. Montana
13. Cal Poly
14. Youngstown State
15. Yale
16. Fordham
17. Holy Cross
18. Liberty
19. Furman
20. Delaware
21. New Hampshire
22. Villanova
23. Norfolk State
24. SDSU
25. Elon

You could also throw in somewhere Jax State, Eastern Illinois, Harvard and Sam Houston State.

Some notes: Appalachian State had 120 players in Spring football. Villanova, Richmond and JMU all return more than 15 starters for 2008. I don't see what everybody is seeing in Elon.

In the AGS poll, UMass plays four teams in the top 25 and three in "others receiving votes' catagory.

Chris Koepplin kicks for the Manchester Wolves

The images below are courtesy of the Koepplin family. Click on any image and Blogger displays a larger view.

Chris Koepplin kicked a 53-yard FG, which was just about the margin of victory in a 66-62 win over Albany.

Story about his signing here . Manchester Wolves website here .

Could someone explain to me why Koepplin did not get a tryout with the NFL?

Sunday Odds & Ends 05/25/08

Phil Steele's site has an "Interesting Tidbits" column about BCS/I-A teams that includes a "Highest scoring teams since 2000" section. UMass' I-A opponent this year Texas Tech is #5 at 36.69 points per game.

College football sites come and go, but "DPD's Dogs" seems interesting. His schedules page seems to have a lot of information.

Richmond RB Tim Hightower is in camp with the Arizona Cardinals where he will be in completion with former UMass RB's Marcel Shipp and Steve Baylark.

Flordia State's former TE Charlie Graham spent a year in JUCO to regain academic eligibility. When he became eligible after this spring semister, he was so happy he got drunk and went out in the street and fired a gun in the air...

Former UNH QB Henri Hendricks is being tried for murder.

And at about 8:53 pm EDT NASA's Phoenix Polar Lander will (hopefully) land on Mars today.

CAA Preseason

Anyone interested in New England football should bookmark the New Hampshire Football Report. It's a quality blog that I check often. It's owned by Roger Brown.

In this blog post, he reports on the CAA Preseason ballot of Mike Zhe, who covers CAA football for the Portsmouth Herald. Zhe has UMass winning the CAA North and UMass CB Sean Smalls as the CAA Pre-Season Defensive Player-of-the-year.

Article on Matt Lawrence with the Chicago Bears

The Bloomfield Journal has an article about former UMass RB Matt Lawrence's journey to the Chicago Bears.

Three UMass Players listed in 2009 NFL Draft watch

Draft Daddy's NFL Draft Blog lists three UMass players in the top 35 "Small School"NFL prospects for 2009 list (scroll down for the rest of the list after clicking the link).

They are:

29. CB Sean Smalls ~ Massachusetts (6004, 203), 4.50/4.53, PFA

32. OT Ben Coblyn ~ Massachusetts (6073, 296), 5.00/5.05, PFA (Ex-Boston U./basketball)

33. QB Liam Coen ~ Massachusetts (6013, 212), PFA

The list originates with Josh Buchanan over at NFLDraftBlble.com . He writes a column on "Small School" players at that site.

R.J. Cobbs joins the Calgary Stampeders

Former UMass CB R.J. Cobbs (UMass bio) has signed a contract with the Calgary Stampeders. His earlier career included the NY Giants.

Also with the Stampeders is Shannon James.

James has done well with the Stamps . Hopefully, R.J. will prosper too.

Brad Listorti signs with Falcons

Former UMass TE Brad Listorti has signed a free agent contract with the Atlanta Falcons.

UMass athletic dept news story here .

Image is UMass athletic dept image.

P.S. Brad probably did not get the $72 million they gave to Matt Ryan

More fun with football stats

Keeper's College football ratings has a page on how much offense and defense each team in the FCS/I-AA division lost due to graduation.

Interesting stuff.

Keeper's stats are interesting in their own right, but special kudos to his covering I-AA football. Most college football stat gurus totally ignore us.

Chris Koepplin to Manchester Wolves

Former UMass kicker Chris Koepplin will be playing for the Manchester Wolves.

The Manchester Wolves team page is here .

UMass legend Steve Schubert is one of the managing partners of the Wolves. I've blogged about his involvement in the Wolves before. Several blog posts are here (Blogger will display the post below this one).

Hope his folks will send us some images of one of his games!

Recruiting 2009 --- LB Anthony Lubischer

UMass is recruiting Anthony Lubischer, a 5-11, 212 pd LB from Red Bank Catholic in NJ.

His Rivals page is here (includes video links).

Also being recruited by UConn, Syracuse, Buffalo and FCS/I-AA schools Lehigh, Richmond, UNH and Northeastern.

Anthony, hope you choose UMass!

Steve Spagnuolo article

The Greenwich Times has an article about NY Giants Defensive Coordinator Steve Spagnuolo who was a graduate assistant at UMass. He also has a MA from UMass.

A BCS/I-AA transfer UMass probably did not want

Dave Coulson of the Sports Network has an article on the transfer of former LSU QB Ryan Perriloux to FCS/IAA team Jacksonville state.

The article also mentions the bone marrow registry program UMass football is involved in.

UPDATE: Perrilloux is a good move for Jacksonville state . Perrilloux is a bad move for Jacksonville State.

Bill Durkin coaching at Hofstra

Former UMass player and coach Bill Durkin (Richmond bio) has been hired as OL coach for the Hofstra Pride.

I blogged before how he had been let go at Richmond after new Spider coach Mike London brought in his own staff.

Hofstra does not do much on their website. There is no bio link for Durkin, but the CAA spring preview mentions him (pdf).

Durkin will be the second UMass guy at Hofstra. He joins Malik Hall (UMass bio), who has been coaching at Hofstra for several years.

Offense ruled in 2007

There's an old saying in football "Offense sells the tickets; defense wins championships". It didn't work that way in 2007.

Of the top 20 teams in total offense, six made the playoffs:

• #1 Appalachian St
• #5 E. Washington
• #6 Delaware
• #7 N. Iowa
  
• #10 S. Illinois
• #15 Woford

Note: none of the total offense teams lost in the first round and Appalachian State and Delaware went to the National Championship game.

Of the top 20 teams in total defense, two made the playoffs

• #11 N. Iowa
• #14 UMass

Of the top 20 teams in scoring offense, ten made the playoffs

• #2 Appalachian State
• #7 S. Illinois
• #11 Delaware
• #12 N. Iowa
• #14 UNH
• #15 McNeese
• #16 Richmond
• #17 Wofford
• #18 E. Washington
• #20 JMU

Of the top 20 teams in scoring defense, six made the playoffs:

• #2 Montana
• #7 N. Iowa
• #10 S. Illinois
• #12 McNeese
• #13 Delaware State
• #15 UMass

Note: three of the top scoring defense teams lost in the first round.

Liam Coen in 2008

I was looking at the NCAA's career passing stats page. Liam Coen is not only high on all the historic UMass records, he's way up there on the NCAA stats too.

Going into the 2008 season and looking at the players who will active this year, Coen is:

• 1st in passing efficiency 152.43
• 2nd in completion average 64.46
• 4th in yards/game 217.9
• 7th in completions per game 16.4
• 11th in attempts per game
• 1st in TDs 66
• 2nd in career total yards 8282
• 3rd in career INTs 31
• 2nd in career completions 624
  
• 3rd in career attempts 668

Interestingly, two QBs we are familiar with, Sean Schaefer (Towson) and Dominic Randolph (Holy Cross) are close to Coen in several catagories.

I'm looking forward to seeing Liam play this year!

Home winning streaks

According to this NCAA stats page, UMass has the second longest home winning streak in FCS/I-AA.

1. San Diego--- 24 wins
2. UMass--- 14 wins
3. Delaware State--- 8 wins
4. Eastern Illinois--- 7 wins
5. richmond--- 6 wins