(09-25-2016 09:22 AM)Steve1981 Wrote: [ -> ]Left the game feeling optimistic about our future. Scoring in the second half and being with in 5 points near the end felt good. Yes Ford did turn it over and they got the last TD. This team is battle and fighting to the end.
week 1: Florida 24 - 7: P5 L
week 2: Boston College 26 - 7: P5 L
week 3: Florida Int'l 13 - 21: G5 W
week 4: Miss State 47 - 35: P5 L
Know the record does not look like we are improving, but we are hanging tough. Playing mostly P5 teams in our 5th year FBS is a tough row to hoe. We need more wins than losses to start bring in new fans. Expected 3 wins this season, but 4-5 is possible, not probable. So, hoping for 4 wins. Two at McGuirk would be great. Tulane just won and they're coming to town.
Coach Whipple Post game.
I was very happily invested in the game the whole time, and for more reasons than just "gotta support my team." They played competitive ball, and as Ford gets more experience he'll make less mistakes out there.
Thought this was amusing from Ryan McGee, ESPN author of Bottom 10.
Quote:It's no secret that this season, we here at Bottom 10 HQ, located in an old Winnebago parked behind the humidor where Tom Rinaldi keeps his neckties, have been embroiled in a bit of a spat with UMass football fans. Yes, they exist. And yes, they have been angrier at me than Tom Brady when his bottle of hair mousse runs dry.
Yes, I was watching back in Week 1 when the Minutemen hung with Florida in The Swamp. Yes, I was watching Saturday when they hung with Mississippi State in Foxborough, or Foxboro, or however you spell it. But yes, I was also watching when they were stomped by Boston College. And yes, I was also watching when they wrestled with FI(not A)U for their lone win of the season.
Within minutes of the loss to Mississippi State, the stream of angry emails and tweets from the commonwealth had already started. My measured response was to rank them again, just to throw a rotten onion into their D'Angelo's order. But then I heard from Alex Sterzin, who asked politely, "Did my beloved UMass (it is an unhealthy and abusive relationship to be fair) do enough to get out of the bottom 10?" I responded that I didn't know and that I was struggling with what to do but that I appreciated his loyalty. And I did. I still do. Then he responded with a comment that crystallizes the Bottom 10 experience.
@ESPNMcGee I am a history professor with a thing for overlooked and lost causes (Carthage, Byzantium, Aksum) my alma mater thematically fits
You see, the Bottom 10 isn't merely a list. It's a mindset. It's an obsession. It's an academic exercise. Like watching a group of people through two-way glass as they suffer from Stockholm Syndrome. Which side of the glass are the Minutemen on this week? Load your muskets and read ahead.
The ESPN segment we show up in the most right there. How often does a team already on the list lose and then not even get put in the "waiting list" portion of it? Must have been why there was such a huge write up above.
(09-27-2016 02:00 PM)JDTulane Wrote: [ -> ]Keep the course of losing. Especially to Tulane this week!
We may be banged up after playing 3 P5 teams with a lot of beef up front. This does not change our expectation. This team has proven they will compete every week with the expectation they can win. We are undefeated against G5 teams.
Disappointing that after play 3 P5 teams with stronger players that we have a number of injuries, especially Huber as the defensive QB on the field.
week 1: Florida 24 - 7: P5 L
week 2: Boston College 26 - 7: P5 L
week 3: Florida Int'l 13 - 21: G5 W
week 4: Miss State 47 - 35: P5 L
Week 5: Tulane 31- 24: G5 L
Were playing ODU on a shorten week and the pilotline has a ver nice article by Harry Minium.
Quote:Things were very different the last time the Old Dominion and Massachusetts football teams met at Foreman Field.
It was 2011, and UMass had a storied program that began playing football in 1879. The Minutemen were ranked 20th nationally in the Football Championship Subdivision and had a national championship trophy back home in Amherst.
ODU was in just its third season of football, but a star was born that night for the Monarchs, as Taylor Heinicke came off the bench to relieve injured quarterback Thomas DeMarco. He threw two touchdown passes to rally the Monarchs to a 48-33 victory and would go on to break many NCAA passing records.
The victory was ODU’s most significant to that point, its first in the Colonial Athletic Association and first over a ranked team.
When the teams meet again tonight, they do so as relative newcomers to the Football Bowl Subdivision, two teams scratching and clawing to carve out a measure of success at college football’s highest level.
ODU (3-2) has seen its record dip from 11-2 in its final FCS season in 2012 to 5-7 last year. The Monarchs, eight-point favorites against UMass, are aiming this season to get to their first bowl.
UMass (1-4), meanwhile, has become something of the poster child for the problems FCS programs experience moving up to “big boy” football. The New York Times used UMass as an example of what can go wrong.
UMass left the CAA for the Mid-American Conference in 2012 and instantly struggled. The Minutemen were 1-11 in each of their first two seasons and 3-9 the last two.
They also faced challenges in conference affiliation. They were given an ultimatum to move all of their teams from the Atlantic 10 to the MAC, including their nationally powerful basketball program, but declined.
Some faculty members advocated that UMass drop back to FCS and rejoin the CAA for football since the A-10 doesn’t have a football league. But a vote on the issue failed and the school elected to go it alone as an independent this season.
Hired as athletic director in 2015, Ryan Bamford faced a mammoth task. UMass had just one home game scheduled for 2016, four fewer than the NCAA minimum.
“We were 15 months away from playing and I’m saying, ‘Crap, how am I going to do this?’ ” he told the Boston Globe.
He did it by scheduling games against some top programs that were attracted to playing in Boston. UMass plays some games at Gillette Stadium in suburban Boston, 93 miles from its campus in Amherst.
The team’s 1-4 start comes with this caveat: Three of the losses came to Power 5 schools, and the Minutemen were competitive in all three: a 24-7 loss at Florida and then home losses to Boston College (26-7) and Mississippi State (47-35).
UMass plays four of its last five games on the road, including trips to South Carolina, Troy, BYU and Hawaii.
Bamford also signed a deal with the American Sports Network, the New England Sports Network and ESPN3 to televise all six home games, providing better TV exposure than most mid-major programs have.
Life as an independent isn’t a long-term option, Bamford has admitted. UMass needs a league that provides TV revenue and guaranteed entry to bowls, as well as an eight-game league schedule.
“I’m so competitive and I love the fact that people don’t think we can get this thing going,” Bamford said. “That drives me like I’ve never had anything drive me.”
UMass is hopeful that if the Big 12 expands, the American Athletic Conference might invite it to join. Connecticut has reportedly been lobbying for UMass.
Regardless, the Minutemen come to Foreman Field with a quality coach with a significant connection to the school’s more successful past. Mark Whipple, who graduated from Brown University with a degree in political science, coached UMass to the 1998 national title. An offensive innovator, he left to become quarterbacks coach for Ben Roethlisberger and the Pittsburgh Steelers, who won a Super Bowl in his second season there.
He moved later to the Philadelphia Eagles, University of Miami and Cleveland Browns before taking on the UMass challenge in late 2014. He has recruited well, and like ODU, has one of the nation’s youngest teams. UMass and ODU both have just 13 seniors, tied for the fourth fewest in FBS.
“Mark Whipple and I coached against each other for 15 years when I was at Maine,” ODU’s Bobby Wilder said. “He has won won championships at the collegiate and professional level, and he is as good as anyone at making adjustments. They have played a brutal schedule.”
UMass’s only victory was a 21-13 victory over Florida International, a team that crushed ODU 41-12 last season.
“We know this is a good football team, and it will be a major challenge,” Wilder said.
Harry Minium, 757-446-2371, harry.minium@pilotonline.com Twitter: @Harry_MiniumVP
(10-06-2016 09:48 PM)NJ2MDTerp Wrote: [ -> ]So, has the UMass crowd grown weary of HC Mark Whipple? If so, can the school afford to replace him?
No, very happy to have Whip. Some fans may not be thrilled with his play calling, but none are asking for his head.
That's good to hear. It takes time to build a program, especially in the northeast region.
This is no longer the case, some are calling for Whips head if he does not produce next year or hires an offensive coordinator. To be fair, we were missing 5 starters and 2 looked like discipline action.
week 1: Florida 24 - 7: P5 L
week 2: Boston College 26 - 7: P5 L
week 3: Florida Int'l 13 - 21: G5 W
week 4: Miss State 47 - 35: P5 L
Week 5: Tulane 31- 24: G5 L
Week 6: ODU 36 - 16: G5 L
If New Mexico St. decides to call it quits and drops down to FCS for 2018 or 2019 will UMass do so if its football program continues to win less than 4-5 games a year and as P5 conferences continue to get more stringent on who teams can schedule?
(10-09-2016 03:43 PM)shizzle787 Wrote: [ -> ]If New Mexico St. decides to call it quits and drops down to FCS for 2018 or 2019 will UMass do so if its football program continues to win less than 4-5 games a year and as P5 conferences continue to get more stringent on who teams can schedule?
I hope not. I'd like to see FBS-level football thrive in the northeast, and I think it'll be a long-term project.
(10-09-2016 03:43 PM)shizzle787 Wrote: [ -> ]If New Mexico St. decides to call it quits and drops down to FCS for 2018 or 2019 will UMass do so if its football program continues to win less than 4-5 games a year and as P5 conferences continue to get more stringent on who teams can schedule?
The question I think is will CUSA stay together by 2020 or could there be a split?
UMass
Army
Marshall
Old Dominion
Applachian State
Charlotte
Georgia State
Georgia Southern
Florida Atlantic
Florida International
This leaves CUSA with 9 teams and the SBC with 7. CUSA grabs Texas State, Louisiana and Ark State then its lights out for the SBC.
(10-09-2016 03:43 PM)shizzle787 Wrote: [ -> ]If New Mexico St. decides to call it quits and drops down to FCS for 2018 or 2019 will UMass do so if its football program continues to win less than 4-5 games a year and as P5 conferences continue to get more stringent on who teams can schedule?
So you are saying if the ACC and SEC follow the Big Ten policy of not scheduling FCS schools (itself not a done deal), and P5 schools are less likely to schedule UMass as an FCS school, does that make UMass more likely to drop back to FCS?
No, no it doesn't. If P5 schools get "more stringent" than they are now, that would reinforce UMass's decision to remain in the FBS.
Pretty sure we'll stay FBS and alot of it has to do with support at the top and faith in AD Ryan Bamford. He would not have come here if we were not FBS. In 15 months we went from 1 home game for 2016 to 6 home games and three on campus. Think major decision will be made in the next 15 months, especially the scope of the McGuirk expansion, which will say a lot about conference affiliation.
If UConn makes a break for the Big East, I could see UMass joining them as FB-only MAC teams to make it an even number.
While this would be great for us, there is so much hate displayed on the MAC board for football only, don't see it happening. Football only is a very tough sell. The MAC has a nice 10 million dollar TV contract and no body there is thrilled to share any money, especially if your not all in. Do think the MAC made a mistake on how they handled the required basketball games. The projected top 3 teams should have played us and the other two to be rotated. Being realistic don't see any conference wanting Football only. CUSA would be an outside chance, since they are not receive a lot of TV money and would like to see their basketball become stronger and not always be a one bid conference. They would probably require us to play at least 6 games. But that would be a looong shot.
We are rebuilding this year and can see our RPI being respectable this year and then very, very good. Time will tell.
There's up to 1 million reasons for any G5 school not to leave its current conference. I would expect that UMass joining the American will be more likely when the Big 12 expands.