Thinking about 2006

There have been a couple of articles on UMass Football looking forward to 2006 to assess what UMass needs for personal.
The Springfield Republican has one here.
Matt Vautour of the Hampshire Gazette does his usual excellent job here (registration required, but worth it)

2006 Schedule

The A10 Football League actually has 12 members. In order to leave some room for OOC (out-of-conference games) A10 members usually schedule nine conference opponents and three OOC games.
The general rule is that a team plays all the other teams in their division plus three teams from the other division.
In order to play all [...]

Good things in 2005

Well, we didn’t make the playoffs, but UMass Football had a lot of accomplishments in 2005. It shows the level of the UMass program when going 7-4 in the nation’s toughest conference is a disappointment.
Time to reflect on what went right in 2005

Went 7-4 against what was arguably one of the toughest schedules in [...]

Six UMass defensive players named 2005 A10 All Conference

The A10 has announced six UMass defensive players have been named to the A10 2005 Football All-Conference teams.
First Team:

Keron Williams Sr. 6-1 254 Stats 25UT,31 AT, 56 TT, 4 sacks, 0 INT
Shannon James Sr. 5-10 196 Stats 30 UT, 25 AT, 55 TT, 0 sacks, 4 INT
Christian Koegel* (has his own article below)

Second Team:

Jason Hatchell [...]

Four UMass Offensive Players named A10 All-Conference

The A10 has posted its 2005 Football All-Conference list. Four UMass players were named to the All-Conference Offense.
Named to the First Team were:

Steve Baylark Jr. 6-0 225 Stats 255 att., 1057 yds, 4.1 ave, 9 TD
Alex Miller Jr 6-2 300, # 62 in the image below, three year starter as center

Named to the Second [...]

Christian Koegel A10 Special Teams Player-of-the-Year

UMass Junior Punter Christian Koegel has been named the A10’s Special Team Player-of-The-Year. The UMass writeup is here (it incorporates the A10’s article, so I won’t post a separate link).
Koegel should be a strong candidate for All-American status.
Koegel had great stats (the NCAA punting stats page is here)
In 2005 Koegel had:
49 punts, 2108 yards, 43.0 [...]

More 2005 Playoff stuff

The I-AA Championship bracket above is a rip-off from I-AA.org. View the complete article here
There have been many rants about who will win the National Championship (including my first round picks. Scroll down), but I would like to ask the UMass Football Fanzone visitors who you would like to see win the Championship. Actual likelihood [...]

2005 I-AA playoffs Round One

Sixteen teams will meet for the 2005 I-AA playoffs. They are:
First Round (Home teams listed first) :
GAME 1: (1) New Hampshire vs ColgateGAME 2: Northern Iowa vs Eastern Washington
GAME 3: Montana vs Cal PolyGAME 4: (4) Texas State vs Georgia Southern
GAME 5: (3) Hampton vs RichmondGAME 6: Furman vs Nicholls State
GAME 7: Eastern Illinois vs [...]

Drinkin’ in the Crapsville Bar

For such a big game, the local media did not seem to spend much effort to cover the game. Only the Boston Globe has any quotes and personal coverage here. I could not find any game images
The Hampshire Gazette has an article here (registration required).
Update: The Springfield Republican has a game article here.
Update Monday 11/21: [...]

Drinkin’ in the Crapsville Bar

For such a big game, the local media did not seem to spend much effort to cover the game. Only the Boston Globe has any quotes and personal coverage here. I could not find any game images
The Hampshire Gazette has an article here (registration required).
Update: The Springfield Republican has a game article here.
Update Monday 11/21: [...]