UMass Football Saturday, August 22, 2009

I sat down a little while ago to write a post about FCS Apologetics. I got to the third paragraph when the mail man rang the door bell. He had the most important package ever delivered: My season tickets to the University of Massachusetts Minutemen (and parking pass). I am the proud owner (renter?) of Section 5, row S, seats 10 and 11. I'm now too excited to concentrate on the FCS apologetics, so I'll write a bit about UMass football and then finish that post at a later date.

So here's 2009 UMass Schedule:
9/5 @ Kansas State (FBS)
9/12 vs Albany
9/19 vs Rhode Island*
9/26 vs Stony Brook
10/10 @ Delaware*
10/17 vs New Hampshire*
10/24 @ Richmond*
10/31 @ Maine*
11/7 vs Northeastern*
11/14 vs James Madison*
11/21 @ Hofstra*

So, I put an asterisk next to all the CAA teams, which is the UMass Football Conference. It's a tough schedule, though that always happens when you play in an elite conference like the CAA. It's especially tough because Quarterback Liam Coen graduated last year and head coach Don Brown left to become the defensive coordinator at Maryland. Coen set pretty much every UMass passing record and lead the team to a National Championship game. They lost to a team who went out to Michigan the opening week next season and beat the Wolverines. And that Michigan team went on to win a Rose Bowl, so it wasn't like they sucked. So yeah, UMass'll miss Coen. Brown was a real good coach too, especially on the defensive side of the ball. He always blitzed a bit too much for my tastes, but who can argue with the success he had? New coach (Kevin Morris, former Offensive Coordinator at UMass) and new quarterback (as to who, you're guess is as good as mine, assuming you know who the four on the UMass roster are) aren't exactly how you want to start a season. Especially with UMass, who runs a pro style offense where the quarterback is expected to throw the ball down field. Due to these great unknowns, I think UMass will probably finish around the .500 mark (maybe a game or two below). However, the last time UMass was in this predicament, the new coach was Brown and he benched the old starter in week one in favor of Coen. That worked out nicely.

I'll have more to say when the season gets closer. The only thing I have to do is figure out who goes to what games. My brother called Albany and my dad called James Madison (a double header with the a hockey game vs UNH that night).