Image courtesy of the MIAA By Tyler Amaral NEFJ Staff Nine weeks of regular season football games are in the books. It’s time to turn the page to the postseason. The MIAA football playoffs begin Friday night. State champions will be crowned at Gillette Stadium December 4-6. Some divisions are more predictable than others, but we’re in store for another exciting postseason in Massachusetts. Division 1 The field: 1. St. John’s……
Don’t look now, but after an 0-4 start, Maine has ripped off five straight wins and has a real shot to threaten for the CAA title this season. With three games to go, the Black Bears (4-1 in the CAA) have stunningly shot up the standings with the winning streak. More importantly, they’ve taken a program that had become a laughing stock in recent years and restored the pride that…
Image courtesy of UMass Athletics One night after another embarrassing showing for the UMass football program, the Minutemen made a significant addition. On Wednesday afternoon, the school officially announced that former Minuteman player and longtime URI Athletic Director Thorr Bjorn would become the new Senior Deputy Athletic Director. In a statement, the school says Bjorn will serve as the Chief Administrative Officer and oversee the football program. “I am honored…
Image courtesy of UMass Athletics Another night, another disappointing performance for the Minutemen. UMass had its first true ‘MACtion’ game in the middle of the week on Tuesday night when the Minutemen visited Akron. Unfortunately, the new era in the MAC has led to many of the same results fans have grown far too accustomed to. UMass lost in pretty embarrassing fashion, 44-10, dropping to 0-9 on the year and…
By Tyler Amaral NEFJ Staff It’s officially playoff season in Massachusetts. The final week of the regular season was a memorable one; there were ranked vs. ranked battles, upsets and plenty of changes to the playoff seeding. Abington, Bedford, and Burlington each debut in this week’s Top 25. Andover, Marblehead and Bridgewater-Raynham are out after suffering losses last week. Catholic Memorial and Bishop Feehan have first round bye weeks due to…
Image courtesy of ESPN By Ryan Barry NEFJ Staff Kickoff: The UMass Minutemen (0-8) head back to Ohio to take on the Akron Zips (3-6) in their first dosage of midweek MACtion since 2014. With four games left in the season, head coach Joe Harasymiak only has four games left to try and get his first win of the season. 1st Down: The Minutemen got a much needed weekend off after their…
Image courtesy of Maine Athletics We’ve established who the superstars around New England are. You’ll see more familiar names this week, while a few others make one of their first appearances in our Dudes of the Week… Joe Fagnano has made a case for NFL teams to consider drafting him late in April. The Huskies clinched a third bowl bid in four years with a blowout win over UAB and…
One month to go. Once again, the postseason picture became clearer for a few teams after Week 10 while others are now simply playing out the string. Here’s how the D1 landscape currently shakes out around New England: 1. Harvard (7-0) – Another week, another fairly dominant performance for the Crimson. Harvard is 13th in the latest AFCA Coaches Poll and three wins away from the Ivy League title, as…
By Rob Gullo & Andy Close NEFJ Correspondents Not a ton of movement this week in the latest Connecticut state rankings, as the top teams have definitely separated themselves through seven weeks. Killingly and Greenwich did flip-flop positions, however, with Killingly moving up to their highest spot of the season at No. 2, while Greenwich drops one spot to No. 3. Southington is the only new addition to the poll,…
Image courtesy of Maddie Meyer/Getty Images FOXBOROUGH – No one knew what Pop Douglas was going through before the game Sunday. Not even his head coach. As we’ve all seen and heard by now, Douglas revealed postgame in an interview with NFL Network that he was dealing with tragedy after his uncle was shot and killed on Saturday night. Pop went on to have a career day, catching four passes…