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SPRINGFIELD – The UMass staff, led by the man himself, was in Springfield on Friday morning.
The BONE camp (Best Of New England) has become a must-attend for hundreds of coaching staffs and scouts around the country. Close to 1000 kids competed in front of roughly 150 schools for five hours, with life-changing offers going to some guys.
We ran into Coach Brown and briefly chatted with him about the camp, his schedule this time of year and his thoughts on where the team is at with camp still over a month away.
ON THE CAMP
“The thing that’s important, is that Massachusetts high school players end up with homes to go to and these kinds of camps provide the coaches the opportunity to really evaluate the players and get a good handle on what their potential could be.”
ON IF HE EVER THOUGHT MASSACHUSETTS WOULD BE A POPULAR RECRUITING AREA
“You know, I feel really good about it. Over my years, especially when I went to Boston College and then Michigan, I had the good fortune where I recruited several players to both of those institutions. So, I feel good about doing that. Steve Addazio told me when I went there, he said ‘you’ll recruit New England and that’s what you’ll do.’ That was a major step. Then, couple that with Jim Harbaugh and Michigan, I could go on and on and there’s a bunch of names, I don’t want to leave anyone out…the bottom line is, it’s become a national deal, part of the recruiting, to come into New England.”
ON HIS SCHEDULE, THE STAFF’S SCHEDULE & STATE OF THE TEAM
“Obviously, we’ve got our players set up and they’re working the strength and conditioning. Also, with the new NCAA rules, we’re allowed to do two hours of football with them per week. We’re pecking away at that. Our guys will focus on the strength and conditioning and then we’re going to play Well 0. So, that means camp is going to start one week early for us late in July. That’s what it’s all about. That’s what you do all this for. In terms of us in person, we signed three new quarterbacks, three new tailbacks, four new receivers, six new offensive linemen…we’ve done a good job of evaluating the high school level, the junior college and the portal. We don’t think we’re missing a beat in terms of getting better.”