AMHERST — As the UMass players filed into the Football Performance Center to check in for training camp, the changes were evident.
There were the massive physical changes that came with a summer training program with strength coach Matt Shadeed, but psychologically, the Minutemen looked like different men. Their heads were held high, the energy was palpable and they walked like they had a purpose.
The word Larnel Coleman used was “focus,” something that was lacking at times for UMass last season on the field. This year, the Minutemen understand the rationale behind everything they do, so they are able to devote more time to focusing on those tasks and executing them properly.
“With the way we do things now, there’s a lot of purpose behind it,” Coleman said. “Every rep we do in the weight room, there’s a purpose behind it. It’s not just ‘let’s get through this workout because we want to just go play.’ It’s more ‘this rep is going to make me better or me listening in on these meetings is going to make me better.’ Everything serves a greater purpose, so we’re definitely more focused now.”
New coach Walt Bell’s message of self-discipline has hit home with his players and the response has produced the tangible results plastered all over social media this summer. The players look bigger, leaner and quicker than last season, making the January versions of themselves look like freshmen entering a college football strength room for the first time. Even veterans like Jake Byczko who lifted a lot previously, dramatically changed how their bodies looked.
It’s part of the culture that Bell wants to establish at UMass, one that has already seemed to take root with the veteran leaders on the team. But it also spoke to senior Bilal Ally, who returned to UMass in January after entering the transfer portal last October. Ally said there are a lot of differences between how the Minutemen felt entering training camp last year and how the team feels now entering the start of practice on Friday.
“There’s more of a buy-in attitude now, everybody’s buying into the program,” Ally said. “It’s just a different atmosphere, period, between the players and coaches. We want to be here, we want to work and we’re ready to work. That’s been the attitude all summer.”
The proof of that commitment came this summer in the form of player-run practices, something Byczko said didn’t happen in his previous two years in the program. Although NCAA rules prohibit the coaches from watching or being at these sessions, the older Minutemen took the lead to help teach the younger players the system and keep everyone sharp as they head into fall practices.
The PRPs as they’re called not only helped the players maintain their knowledge of the playbook, but also helped strengthen the leadership skills of the veterans who will ultimately need to be leaders for this younger team. Byczko said both of these traits make the inclusion of these player-run sessions vital to helping the program take the next step in its FBS era.
“It was great to go out there and you never get rusty at all,” Byczko said. “You’re always running the plays and it’s going to help us a lot this season. The coaches can’t go out there for the PRP practices, so I’m trying to coach the D-line, older linebackers are trying to coach the linebackers and stuff like that. We’re trying to get the young guys involved and get them familiar with the playbook. It was great for the program to introduce PRPs, so now everyone is ready and it won’t be brand new when we start camp.”
U-MASSIVE BATTLE – Barring some fluky formation from Bell in his first game as head coach, someone is going to start at quarterback for UMass in four weeks when it faces Rutgers in the season-opener.
The competition to be the Minutemen’s quarterback this season will commence again Friday with the first practice of training camp. The race seems to have narrowed down to five candidates – seniors Michael Curtis and Randall West, junior Andrew Brito, sophomore Josiah Johnson and redshirt freshman Jaret Pallotta – which is to say that Bell will need to find a way to spread out reps equally.
In order for one of the five to earn the starting job, Bell said it’ll come down to which quarterback does the best job at making the staff feel comfortable about investing in them as the signal caller.
“Just like a stock broker, there has to be a level of trust there to where you know whatever amount of money that you give them that a year later, you’re still going to have your money,” Bell said. “Number one is trust, the ability to manage the line of scrimmage, the ability to take care of the football, the guy who can minimize risk. Once whoever the guy is has proven he can minimize the risk, once that guy is established himself that he’s the best at doing that, then we can focus in on what his skills are and ensuring that you’re putting him in the position to be the best that he can be.”
Bell said he isn’t going to rush the competition and he fully expects it’ll take almost all of the four weeks to make the final decision. However, he said he will definitely make a choice before the Rutgers game and won’t play multiple quarterbacks similar to what Mark Whipple did in previous seasons with Ross Comis and Andrew Ford. He said what he’s most interested in seeing is how the rest of the offense interacts with and responds to each quarterback because ultimatley, the unit will gravitate to who they believe should be the starter.
“To me, if you’ve got two or three, that means you don’t have one,” Bell said. “We’ve got to get to the point that not only myself, but way more important than me and way more important than the staff, that the guys around him believe that. A lot of time everybody thinks coaches have all these really difficult decisions to make, (but) coaches don’t typically choose a starting quarterback, the other 10 guys in the huddle do. It’ll be exciting to see as camp moves on who those kids have their belief in.”
Josh Walfish can be reached at jwalfish@gazettenet.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoshWalfishDHG. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage.