(01-20-2017 12:08 PM)Steve1981 Wrote:  

(10-08-2016 05:12 PM)Steve1981 Wrote:  

(10-06-2016 10:03 PM)NJ2MDTerp Wrote:  

(10-06-2016 09:58 PM)Steve1981 Wrote:  

(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

NJ2MSTerp, UMass has not been paying our HC and assistants very well. We've fired our DC and this will be an important hire and have faith in our AD, Ryan Bamford. He has used above budgeted revenue from football last year to pay the severance packages for the Men's hockey and Women's BB coaches.

Our Gridiron Club is fairly new and starting to bring in some real dollars. A friend made a very good point regarding the need to be in conference. For the most part, the only teams that want to schedule us are teams that know they can beat us as P5 and very good G5 teams. Look at this season, 9 of the 10 losses were teams that went to bowl games and those 9 teams in bowls had a record of 8-1. Personally think we need to make a move in the next 12 months.

AAC is plan A and the only good plan B is a real, long, long shot. Say CUSA loses a team to say the AAC and UTEP leaves. CUSA will probably stay at 12, but ODU could advocate for JMU and then that could open the door. Educated guess we'd like a football only with BB affilation for x games with CUSA. Say it could be to play a basketball game with everyone in the new CUSA football north division of Marshall, ODU, Charlotte, Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee and JMU.

UMass should have stayed in the MAC for all sports when it was offered to stabilize the football program. It could have filled its OOC Olympic Sports schedules with old local A-10 schools if it wanted to cut travel expenses for those sports or if it wanted to keep long established A-10 rivalries going. For football UMass could built a close rivalry with Buffalo and schedule NE AAC schools to establish a relationship with the American should something open there down the road. While waiting in the MAC for a future potential AAC call down the road the football program would have more stability especially in scheduling and the university could have continued upgrading the on campus stadium at least closing the stadium in on the final side trying to upgrade capacity to at least 25,000. By the way the latest upgrades to the stadium are great. Good luck on your current journey but UMASS should consider re-approaching the MAC for all sports with JMU if there is any interest on their part yet.