(08-26-2017 09:26 PM)billybobby777 Wrote: [ -> ]Well, UMASS came close to winning. What was the final attendance numbers?
Attendance was 12,145.
Ooph.
No students on campus, 3k plus would have changed those number close to a sell-out. The last 4 year slide in FCS followed by 5 terrible years as FBS, certainly hurts. There was so much riding on this game it really hurts in the syhcey as nothing has changed. We played a 7 win G5 team close so there is progress, but we need wins at this point and it just hurts.
The last 4 years of fcs were bad when Brown left and Morris took over and the cupboard was totally empty at the dawn of FBS era. It will take time but man it's so painfully. We are just getting up to FBS recruitment and playing freshmen. Like Jesse Britt, who dropped the fair catch and they recovered and then scored. He was one of the best players we have and listen.
He looked like that was THE last place he wanted to be at that particular moment.
I wish he owned that prevent offense scheme they decided to go with when they could have iced the game. That was just dumb on every level. You have about 4 net yards up the middle for the entire game so you decide to kill clock buy running your least effective play set at that moment..... The opposite of Brilliant!
He is the Jeff Lebo of college football.
But can you blame him. He is a under paid, FBS coach, coaching an a recent move up independent team with nothing to play for, who has no fan base.
For the most part agree with Michael Traini post and lead guy for umass.247sports site.
Quote:Before this season started, a season where I predicted four wins, I thought that Whipple's job was relatively safe. There was some heat, but if the team pieced together a 4-8 season and looked decent doing it, with improvements on defense and such, I figured he would be here to see what could happen in 2018.
That of course was predicated on the team starting the season off well and winning two of the first three games, particularly last night's affair with Coastal.
I had people ask me if Whip was gone with another 2 or 3 win season, and my answer was always that given all the mitigating factors, I didn't even want to think about how bad a season UMass would have to have in order for Whipple to get fired.
Unfortunately, we're much closer to that today than we rightfully should be.
UMass had or has maybe six "winnable" games on the schedule this season, maximum. Three of those games were the first three of the season. So far, they're 0-2 and they haven't looked good in either. Same mistakes, same issues, same old same old.
In college football, if you're not moving forward, you're moving backward. The University of Massachusetts cannot afford to move backward any further as a program. If changes need to be made, we have to hope that the administration, namely Bamford, will make them without hesitation.
Bamford has shown he is willing to make changes if necessary, and has replaced UMass "royalty" before. He did not hire Whipple, and given Bamford's own personal aspirations (like eventually being a P5 athletic director) he must be completely bought in to making the entire athletic department better quickly, with football as the crown jewel. Both his own personal future and the university's cannot afford to have a football program that is stagnant like UMass' is right now.
We'll see how the program responds next weekend, but I can say with certainty that Whipple seat went from warm to white hot after that loss last night. Now if they manage to turn it around and win those four or five games this season, well then he's not going anywhere. But if they don't.
Well kittonhead, the Calipari play anyone, anywhere motto would compensate for a weak BB conference. That said, don't see CUSA splitting anytime soon. So we'll solder on and continue to work on our issues. We do play one of those teams Saturday, ODU. (-: Then on the road for Temple and Tennessee, and then guess who's coming to town. OHIO!
If UMass goes 1-11 or 0-12, it might be time to consider canning the sport. For pride reasons, I don't see them going back down to FCS, and dropping football would allow them to focus on getting basketball back to being competitive. Being a 1-A independent is brutal and you have to schedule pay day whoopings to fill out the schedule but that just results in losing more.
UMass isn't alone though. Plenty of FCS New England schools will probably drop the sport in the future as less and less NE kids play high school football. I could see schools like URI, CCSU, Sacred Heart, and Bryant give it up.
Well kittonhead, the Calipari play anyone, anywhere motto would compensate for a weak BB conference. That said, don't see CUSA splitting anytime soon. So we'll solder on and continue to work on our issues. We do play one of those teams Saturday, ODU. (-: Then on the road for Temple and Tennessee, and then guess who's coming to town. OHIO!
8 schools and a national TV deal.
Conference do-do
UMass
Marshall
Liberty
ODU
Charlotte
Georgia St
FAU
FIU
Split the G money only 8 ways. Split the autobids only 8 ways. Add a national TV deal.
If UMass could be in the top 2-3 every year in Cdo-do that might do it for the alums. It might at least be possible to win a conference title in a smaller conference like that.
Then in basketball UMass can compensate by playing a national schedule in the non-conference if it wanted featuring local powers (UConn, BC, Providence). Only a 14 game conference basketball schedule in Cdo-do so there would be room. UMass could pull a New Mexico State and dominate the conference too.
Another thought, to get to 10 in basketball invite Albany and Stony Brook from the American East to give UMass travel partners.
Well kittonhead, the Calipari play anyone, anywhere motto would compensate for a weak BB conference. That said, don't see CUSA splitting anytime soon. So we'll solder on and continue to work on our issues. We do play one of those teams Saturday, ODU. (-: Then on the road for Temple and Tennessee, and then guess who's coming to town. OHIO!
8 schools and a national TV deal.
Conference do-do
UMass
Marshall
Liberty
ODU
Charlotte
Georgia St
FAU
FIU
Split the G money only 8 ways. Split the autobids only 8 ways. Add a national TV deal.
If UMass could be in the top 2-3 every year in Cdo-do that might do it for the alums. It might at least be possible to win a conference title in a smaller conference like that.
Then in basketball UMass can compensate by playing a national schedule in the non-conference if it wanted featuring local powers (UConn, BC, Providence). Only a 14 game conference basketball schedule in Cdo-do so there would be room. UMass could pull a New Mexico State and dominate the conference too.
Another thought, to get to 10 in basketball invite Albany and Stony Brook from the American East to give UMass travel partners.
Well kittonhead, the Calipari play anyone, anywhere motto would compensate for a weak BB conference. That said, don't see CUSA splitting anytime soon. So we'll solder on and continue to work on our issues. We do play one of those teams Saturday, ODU. (-: Then on the road for Temple and Tennessee, and then guess who's coming to town. OHIO!
8 schools and a national TV deal.
Conference do-do
UMass
Marshall
Liberty
ODU
Charlotte
Georgia St
FAU
FIU
Split the G money only 8 ways. Split the autobids only 8 ways. Add a national TV deal.
If UMass could be in the top 2-3 every year in Cdo-do that might do it for the alums. It might at least be possible to win a conference title in a smaller conference like that.
Then in basketball UMass can compensate by playing a national schedule in the non-conference if it wanted featuring local powers (UConn, BC, Providence). Only a 14 game conference basketball schedule in Cdo-do so there would be room. UMass could pull a New Mexico State and dominate the conference too.
Another thought, to get to 10 in basketball invite Albany and Stony Brook from the American East to give UMass travel partners.
I have followed UMass from a distance since their move up. Mainly to see how they handled the transition. They were not a very good FCS team when they made the move. Although they did play Michigan pretty tough. I also watched some of the game against Coastal. Wipple has lost this team, kids are just mailing it in right now. It is imperative that they get a new coach....now!!! Not later. They should look at what EMU did to find Cris Creighton. I fear the voices to either drop the program or drop down to FCS are going to start sounding reasonable and will soon start to convince their Chansoller. They need to start winning now. A loss to ODU might be the "straw that breaks the camel's back."
There are a lot of moving parts (per captain obvious). The team has not given up; the coach is just not the same guy that was there 15+ years ago when they won the 1AA championship - plain and simple. This is a coaching issue moreso than an players issue. The Hawaii game was winnable and that loss was 100% on the coach. Any one of 4 or 5 critical plays in the 4th quarter end that game in the positive - every one of those go back to poor coaching decisions - I am still burning over that F-ing blitz call on 3rd and 10 which gave up a 45 yard gain on an f-ing 5 yard pass......
The program cannot get any lower than it already is at this point so to say Umass needs to blow this up and start over is kind of an oxy-moron.
This season is about to be lost in the abyss with a loss this week so what are the options? Nobody who is fully qualified is available right now, and most who are qualified would probably not touch Umass with a 10 foot pole anyways. No matter what happens it is going to hurt and prolong an already painful and f'ed up move to FBS.
IMO Whip's fate was likely sealed last week, but our AD will not pull the trigger until the end of the season - this is reminiscent of when the Hoop team got absolutely obliterated by [last place] Duquesne - that game IMO sealed DK's fate. DK should not have even been allowed off the court before being fired after that game, but he hung on until about 1.5 hours after the final buzzer of the last game.
So far our AD has made 3 high-profile sport changes:
Hockey - Greg Carvel has signed the 4th best recruiting class in the country
Women's Bball - Toni Verdi - with basically 8 scholarship players was able to still win 9 games and has a really good class coming in
Men's Bball - Matt McCall - has blown up the old model and cleaned house - results TBD, but the product on the floor will be better than anything we have seen in the last 9 years regardless of the win total this season.
Whip was not a hire of our current AD but he seems to have a good feel for hiring so far. Hiring Whip made too much sense when it happened so it is hard to truly bash the move; however, it is clear now that Whip's services need to be terminated. I am also pretty sure that of Whip completes the season he is fully qualified for his state pension - It would take a pretty significant [negative] event to pull the plug on the guy at this point.
Quote:My advice to UMass is to get a breakaway CUSA conference started.
Tie in with some better recruiting grounds, win some conference titles.
Id sacrifice basketball for it.
Although it'd be a sacrifice in some ways in bball, I think UMass though may be hanging on the past tooo much on bball, as they aren't as good as they used to be in the past. Sure, a lesser conference -- but if you win CUSA much easier, or fall just short but with a tough OOC schedule with some wins -- you'll make the NCAAs easier.
I think the main thing is for football is that they need to get a good coach. And have some $$ for investment into it... and once rolling bowl-eligible for a few years, then join a conference. They could go back to the MAC with joining bball -- get stuff going there, and then look for an opening in the AAC (which I assume is their main Goal), once a couple teams get plucked to the B12. But time's running out, IMO, when it comes to getting things churning to join AAC.
MAC is not an option - they gave Umass the all sports or no sports ultimatum and we punted (although not using our ****** special teams to do it :-) ).
It is very disheartening because most of the realistic Umass followers knew this was an absolute long shot at the very best. There are a few small (and loud) fans who are sure this will still work, but the majority of people who are watching knew exactly that what is happening now was a very real likelihood. I am a believer, but the administration has done very little to make feel good about this. As events unfold over the next 3-4 months I will reassess my feelings on this. In short, if this does not start turning a corner with the naming of the next HC, I will be officially of this bandwagon.
It will be interesting to see what the breaking point is - at some point you cannot allow the money to hemorrhage any more. They will have to push all their chips in and do the stadium/increase the pay to attract a legit head coach or cash out and raze the whole thing.
We need a new stadium because our stadium is old and hasn't been touched since the 60's. Nothing FCS/FBS related, it's just an old falling apart stadium.
(09-05-2017 02:07 PM)Hood-rich Wrote: [ -> ]At what point does UMass just hang it up? I don't mean to disrespect but you've got a lot working against you guys right now.
IMO this will run its course until the next big conference shake up in 2024 - When the music stops - if we don't land on a chair - it is game over for Umass football. That leaves us about 6 years to fix this f-ing mess. In reality it leaves us about 4 years because we need to show these conferences we have a viable product to offer.
I do think we can get by without a stadium in the near term. It would be foolish to spend it with no guarantees and a horrific team on the field. They do however need a legitimate stadium plan that is ready to be funded and executed in the next 4 years as well as a team that is not ranked 130 out or 130. I would think that they will have a good idea if this is sustainable by then (2022) and at that point they stick some dynamite in our stadium and start building a new one, or the play out the string and shudder this mess at the end of the 24 season.
It wasn't really that long ago that Temple was NOT COMPETITIVE to the point Vegas would not even book a line for their games..... It can be done..... it can be done......
(09-05-2017 01:39 PM)Minutemen429 Wrote: [ -> ]We need a new stadium because our stadium is old and hasn't been touched since the 60's. Nothing FCS/FBS related, it's just an old falling apart stadium.
Everybody is right, UMass has been doing it on the cheap. Seen the Athletic budget grow from 27M to 42M. Wonder were the money is going. Guess regarding football could call all this stuff 5 Million. Bonds on the SkyBox and Champion Center, COA, FBS coaches salaries with the caveat we are 5th from the bottom, plus travel and recruiting. Athletic Dept staff yes, needed some growth to support FBS and general improvements, paid parking and traffic flows.
We need a IPF yesterday not two years from now. Tell me another team that does not have an IPF.
The only thing we have an advantage on is the University.
What gets me if we are not spending significantly more on Football, how are we going to generate interest. We are getting jerked around.
Hope the he]] that the players rally around Whip and we have a win.
This fan among many could really use a home win.
