Thursday, October 09, 2008

Northeastern Preview


UMass game notes for the Northeastern--- html here and pdf here .

Northeastern's game notes for UMass ---- html here and pdf here .

The CAAZone's Northeastern message board here . DieHardDogs.com is here .

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Sports Network's David Coulson takes a look at this week's FCS games here .

The CAA has this week's CAA news here .

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About the game:

When you consider Huskie football, you have to take into consideration their schedule. Every year Northeastern probably plays FCS/I-AA's toughest schedule. This year, in addition to the tough CAA schedule, they have played two FBS/I-A opponents and Southern Conference power Georgia Southern.

They lost to Ball State 48-14. Ball State is ranked 25th in AP poll.

Northeastern lost to Georgian Southern in overtime .

And the Huskies gave Syracuse a hard time .

Northeastern beat UC Davis at home and crushed Towson on the road .

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Offensively, they have an excellent QB Anthony Orio . His stats are 83-141 3 INT 58.9% 1032 yards 6 TD 130.1 EFF. Running back Anthony Bloomfield is fourth in the CAA in rushing 112 473 yards 4.2 ave 5 TD 87 yards/game.

Senior WR Chris Plum is 5th in the CAA with 65 yards/game .

Senior TE Brian Mandeville is 6-7 253 is a potential NFL prospect.

LB Phil Higgins is second only to Josh Jennings in tackles in the CAA. Cornelius Bunch is another very good LB for the Huskies.

DB Nate Thellen is the brother of UMass freshman Darren Thellen .

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

UMass needs to take care of business at Northeastern. The Huskies could be a trap game if UMass reverts to its poor tackling of earlier in the year.

Liam Coen and the offense has to recover from a scoring poor effort against Delaware and and make the Huskies play from behind.

Hopefully, we'll play well on both sides of the ball and come away with a win in Boston.