The north wall of McGuirk Alumni Stadium has been torn down to make way for the new football facility. The UMass football team posted a video of the demolition on Facebook. For those who want to take a daily look at the progress, the Consigli Construction Company has set up a live webcam. Check out the proposed final product here. Follow Bob on twitter: @BobMcGovernJr
The Mid-American Conference is re-opening television negotiations with ESPN while simultaneously contemplating a media grant of rights, according to multiple outlets, including CBS Sports and Cynopsis Sports. Successful negotiations would likely increase the “less than $100,000″ each member school pockets under the current agreement, which runs to 2016-’17. Implementing a media grant of rights would frustrate further realignment possibilities involving MAC programs. In short, a media grant of rights is a contract between a conference and its member schools. If a school decides to leave for another conference during the length of the contract, that school surrenders all media rights and revenues earned for a certain percentage [...]
Darren Thellen, the face of UMass’ upgrade to FBS football, has been named the university’s Male Athlete of the Year. From UMassAthletics.com: Thellen started all 12 games on the season and served as one of the team leaders for the squad in its first-ever year at the FBS level. Thellen set the tone for the Minutemen throughout the year and earned All-MAC Second Team from the Mid-American Conference and Third Team All-MAC by Phil Steele Magazine as a result of his strong play in the secondary. Thellen finished the year with 79 tackles – the second-most on the squad – and [...]
It’s early May. The sun is finally out, flowers are in full bloom, and the Red Sox are overcharging their fans for hot dogs. Irish eyes are smiling, while freckled skin burns like a burger patty, freshly flopped on a recently uncovered grill. It is completely unreasonable to guess what a college football team’s starting lineup will look like more than four months from now. There is no way to know what freshmen will overachieve, what upperclassmen will sustain injuries or whether some athletes simply choose to leave the program. With nearly 50 new athletes joining the UMass football team [...]
