– Last Updated on June 8, 2018 7:51 am
2017 Football Preview – Independent – Minutemen
Looking for 2017 UMass Minutemen predictions? The Minutemen are doing all the right things trying to rebuild the program in the right way, but right now that way hasn’t resulted in just wins. In three seasons as the head coach of the Minutemen head coach Mark Whipple only has eight wins to his name, and he is probably going to need to show some sort of improvement, and success for him to get an extension and to continue being the head coach of this team.
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- 2017-18 College Football Preview – UMass Minutemen
- Head Coach: Mark Whipple
- 2016 Record: 2-10
- UMass Minutemen Odds to win the 2017 FBS Championship: +50000
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- ***More 2017 NCAA Football Team Season Previews***
Will rebuilding the right way finally pay off for this team? Or will it be another disappointing year for the Minutemen?
2017 UMass Minutemen Predictions: Team Strengths
Skill Players Are Impressive: For being such a bad team they do have a few impressive players on their team.
The best player on the team is at the tight end position. Adam Breneman is a Penn State transfer who is not only one of the best players on the team, but he might be the best tight end in all of the country.
In 2016 he had 70 receptions, 808 yards, and eight touchdowns. If he has another good year this year, that should be enough to get him a career in the NFL. I would expect him to be the leader of this team in receptions and a big part of this teams success.
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Andy Isabella is the number one wide receiver on this team and he is also a good one. The sophomore wide out had 62 receptions, 801 yards and seven touchdowns last year for the Minutemen.
Recruiting Well: The one thing this team has done well is recruit, even though they haven’t had the success on the field yet.
In 2016 he had the 82nd best recruiting class. Now that doesn’t sound great, but when a team only wins two or three games, 82nd is really good.
They have good players on the team, now they just all need to come together and start playing like a team for them to really have success.
2017 UMass Minutemen Predictions: Team Weaknesses
Turnover Battle: The UMAss Minutemen have not been good with the turnover battle over the last few years.
The defense had a lot of issues causing turnovers last year. They only had more then two turnovers in two games last year, which is not good.
With the offense not being the best they have a lot of turnovers too. To have more success this year they need to force more turnovers on the defensive end, and make smarter decisions with the football on the offensive end.
If they can do that this team can take a big jump forward, but they haven’t shown any reason why it will be any different this year.
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Defense as a Whole: The defense was terrible last year, and they haven’t really brought in anything to show that it will be better this year.
The team allowed 46 points in four of the last six games last year. The biggest thing that needs to happen is the secondary needs to be better.
They gave up a lot of big plays that resulted in the offense needing to score a lot of points to keep up.
UMass Minutemen Prediction
9-3
How well the UMass Minutemen do this season will be decided in the first three weeks of the season.
They play three toss up games against Coastal Carolina, Hawaii and Old Dominion. All three of those games can go either way, and if UMass wants to get up to the six win mark, and to a bowl game they need to win all three of those games.
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I think this team is going to be better, but I don’t see them winning the first three games. I think they will win two of the first three games, and that will get them to five games, and one win short of a bowl game.
2017 UMass Minutemen Football Schedule
- 8/26/17 TBD HAW
- 9/2/17 7:00 PM ET @CCAR
- 9/2/17 7:00 PM ET @CCAR
- 9/9/17 TBD ODU
- 9/15/17 7:00 PM ET @TEM
- 9/23/17 TBD @TENN
- 9/30/17 TBD OHIO
- 10/14/17 TBD @USF
- 10/21/17 TBD GASO
- 10/28/17 TBD APP
- 11/4/17 TBD @MSST
- 11/11/17 TBD ME
- 11/18/17 TBD @BYU
What do you think about our 2017 UMass Minutemen predictions? Please leave us a comment below telling us how you think they’ll do in 2017!
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