Steve1981
Heisman
Posts: 5,460
Joined: Nov 2010
Reputation: 275
I Root For: UMass
Location: North Quabbin Region
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RE: UMass Football
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
http://pilotonline.com/sports/college/ol...dbdcc.html
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