UMass Minutemen: Keys To The Season, Top Game, Top Transfer, Fun Stats
UMass Minutemen: Key To The 2022 Offense
Just complete more passes.
No one’s asking for a high-flying fun show, but the passing attack has to be merely competent. The ground game will do its part, but UMass can’t go through another year without hitting half of its passes and have so many problems getting to 200 yards – it only got there three times.
The Minutemen generated five touchdown passes in the first three games, and failed to come up with multiple touchdown passes in any of the last nine games. As long as they’re hitting 55% or more of their passes, that would be a huge improvement.
UMass Minutemen: Key To The 2022 Defense
Third down stops, and …
Takeaways. The worst scoring defense in the country isn’t going to be a brick wall overnight, but it needs to find ways to not break after doing a whole lot of bending. That’s where the new staff needs to come though with tweaks and ways to generate more pressure and force more mistakes.
UMass came up with 11 takeaways, just two interceptions, and got just one turnover over the final four games. That will help with third down stops after allowing offenses to convert more than half of their chances.
UMass Minutemen: Key Player To The 2022 Season
QB Brady Olson, Soph.
Or any of the quarterback options. The receivers are okay, Ellis Merriweather is a terrific back, and the line is full of veterans. Now the quarterback play has to be more consistently good.
The 6-4, 200-pound Olson can run a little bit, and he took his lumps throughout last year with a little bit of early success. He’s got the arm and the skills to be far better, but it’s an open competition. As long as someone under center can be decent, the O will be far, far better.
UMass Minutemen: Key Transfer
DE Marcus Cushnie, Sr.
The former Florida State Seminole along with former Vanderbilt Commodore Marcus Bradley have to bring the pressure into the backfield. The Minuteman D has to start being more disruptive, and it starts by hitting a quarterback once in a while.
The 6-2, 250-pound Cushnie came up with seven sacks in 2020 for Alabama A&M before coming up with 1.5 sacks for FSU last year, and now he’ll be turned loose in the new UMass D.
UMass Key Game To The 2022 Season
Buffalo, Oct. 15
It’s going to take a while for UMass – even with all of its veterans – to start doing things consistently well. It has to beat Stony Brook in mid-September, but even with that it’ll likely be 1-5 to start the season.
The Buffalo game is in the middle of the campaign, and it comes before winnable games against New Mexico State and UConn. If things are starting to work, this is when the team might get to finally experience the fun of a winning streak.
UMass Minutemen: 2021 Fun Stats
– Points Per Game: Opponents 43.08 – UMass 16.33
– TDs Scored: Opponents 63 – UMass 24
– Interceptions Thrown: UMass 11 – Opponents 2
Offense, Defense Breakdown
Season Prediction, What Will Happen
UMass Top 10 Players | UMass Schedule