Friday, August 05, 2011

Friday--August 5, 2011

image by UMass Football Blog
Thanks to the blog reader who sent me a link about Brandon Collier being picked up by the Philadelphia Eagles.

Jeff Thomas also has an article on Collier's signing.
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Matty V says he has a source that claims the Jets will not re-sign James Ihedigbo.

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Jimmy Reid considers William & Mary's Jimmye Laycock an offensive genius.

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TSN has a couple of stories: FCS is considering five years of eligibility and the FCS  there is a distinct possibility or more expansion in the FCS playoffs.

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My copy of Phil Steele's FCS magazine arrived yesterday. Steele rates recruits by his "power strength", which is a compilation of 11 recruiting services plus his imput.

I know recruit rankings are dubious on the individual level. But they do work in a macro sense. I'll take the average BCS school's recruits and you take the average Patriot league recruiting class ------or a non-BCS FBS school for that matter. Then match them up four years later.

In Steele's rankings, you can really see the downgrade that Rhode Island is going through as they drop to forty scholarships in the NEC.

For example Steel ranks Villanova's 18 recruits and the Ram's 12. I've blogged before that when it comes to recruits more is better.

The average power strength of Villanova's recruits was 399 (lower is better) and Rhode Island's average was 1334. The four Rhode Island players signed by the Rams had an average ranking of 1611. It is unlikely that a CAA team would have recruited any of those four.

Four years from now, Villanova will be gunning for a national championship (should they stay in FCS). And the Rams, if they win the NEC that year will be a decided underdog in the first round, should they draw a CAA team.

UMass did pretty good in Phil's recruiting rankings and I'll have more on that in future blog posts.

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Saw an unusual sports occurrence last night while watching the Red Sox. Cleveland pitcher Justin Masterson struck out four Red Sox players in the same inning. One Red Sox player  reached first base when the catcher let the strike out pitch get by him. Don't know if I've ever seen four strikeouts in one inning before.

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