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UMass Must Find Receivers
AMHERST - When camp opens in August for the University of Massachusetts football team, opponents are going to know the Minutemen possess arguably the top quarterback in the Colonial Athletic Association.
However, they’re not going to know much about the wide receivers who will be charged with catching the passes thrown by Liam Coen.
It’s not because the UMass receivers have been flying under the radar, they just haven’t done enough to register on the radar screen.
The UMass receiving corps returns just 20 percent of its catches from last season and 15 percent of the receiving yards. And there isn’t a senior in the group.
“It has been different, but the learning curve has been pretty good,” UMass receivers coach Brian Crist said this week as the Minutemen continue spring practice. “They obviously paid more attention back in the fall than I thought they had.”
Jeremy Horne, who transferred from Syracuse last year, is the leading returning receiver, having caught 12 passes last year for 146 yards and three touchdowns.
Returning players accounted for 50 catches, 499 yards and five touchdowns out of 3,228 receiving yards, 246 receiving yards and 30 passing touchdowns the Minutemen had in last year’s campaign, which ended in the quarterfinal round of the playoffs at Southern Illinois.
And of those returning yards and catches, only 243 of the yards and 17 of the catches came from the wide receivers. Fullbacks, running backs and tight ends accounted for the rest.
Horne, Joe Sanford (4 catches, 71 yards, 2 TDs), and Victor Cruz (1 catch, 26 yards) are the “experienced” receivers for the Minutemen. Fortunately, UMass is not asking them to be the next J.J. Moore (80 catches, 1,100 yards, 5 TDs), Rasheed Rancher (49 catches, 1,007 yards, 9 TDs) and Mike Omar (44 catches, 530 yards, 2 TDs). Not by themselves.
“Our numbers are good at wide out, but who is going to step up and make plays, that’s what it comes down to,” UMass coach Don Brown said.
With Coen under center and Moore, Rancher and Omar spread wide in every game last year, the UMass offense had yet another impressive season. If the 2008 season is going to resemble last year, the young receivers will have to get up to speed in a hurry.
“We feel that there’s a sense of urgency in our receiving corps to get it down pat now so in the fall it will be bang, bang, bang,” Cruz said. “We’ll manage. We’ve been here a long time learning the system.”
While there are no seniors, there are also no true sophomores. All the receivers have worked in the offensive system for at least one year prior to this spring practice. Julian Talley, a promising 6-foot-1 receiver from Winslow, N.J., is the only redshirt freshman. The rest are redshirt sophomores and juniors who just need more game experience.
Ke’Mon Bailey played as a true freshman in 2006 but redshirted last year. Aaron Fears is a redshirt sophomore who has special teams experience and Warren Wilson is a redshirt sophomore who transferred from Boston College.
Crist said a big difference between last year and this year will be roles. Moore, Rancher and Omar were experienced and versatile, while this year’s group may be a little more regimented.
“The three guys last year could do anything, but these guys are going to have to have more defined roles,” Crist said. “The whole game of football today is finding the best match-up. That’s where I think the guys’ roles will change week to week.”
The presence of Coen should help ease some of the pressure off the young receivers. Coen, who holds just about every passing record there is at UMass, enters his senior seasons the most accurate passer in UMass history.
“We don’t need to make the outstanding play,” Crist said. “Liam’s going to put the ball where it needs to be.”
With an outstanding quarterback, good numbers, decent size and overall speed that is greater than last year’s group, about the only quality missing from the UMass receiving corps is game experience.
Who will be that receiver to step up and stand out?
“We’re looking for anybody, and that’s at all positions,” Brown said. “We have a lot of talented guys, but who’s going to turn talent into performance?”
UMass must find receivers
By Jeff Thomas, The Republican
http://www.masslive.com/sports/republican/index.ssf?/base/sports-0/1209167402200300.xml&coll=1
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