AMHERST — It certainly didn’t look like a typical Tuesday practice for UMass at McGuirk Alumni Stadium.
There were far fewer Minutemen than normal out on the field, and those who were participating were wearing just their shoulder pads. Typically the Minutemen are in full pads on “Tough-Man Tuesday,” but that moniker was thrown out for a day to save bodies on a team desperate for healthy ones.
Some of those missing faces were those of players who have already made critical contributions to UMass on Saturdays. Starting quarterback Andrew Brito is in the concussion protocol, although coach Walt Bell said his symptoms are lessening by the day. Starting center Jaylen Larry will be sidelined for an extended period with a knee injury. And the big news of Tuesday was the indefinite suspension of Ray Thomas-Ishman, a four-year starter on the offensive line, for violating team rules.
But that didn’t stop UMass from having a high-energy Tuesday practice, Bell said, even if the session had to be structured a little bit differently.
“We’re a little bit beat up, I think we only had 56 or 57 scholarship players who were healthy,” Bell said. “We weren’t able to do any development work, we had to do everything together almost NFL style, but we had a lot of good work.”
The depth issues are at their worst on defense, especially along the defensive line. At Tuesday’s practice, freshman walk-on Grant Laws was working as the first-team defensive tackle with fellow freshmen Wilson Frederic and Billy Wooden out with ankle injuries. Bell even had to shift Xavier Graham from offensive line to the defensive line and the freshman out of Niceville, Florida, was practicing with the backups.
Bell was optimistic that the Minutemen will be healthier for Wednesday’s practice, but he said it’s his job to assemble enough players to go out and compete Saturday against Akron. The limited depth, however, has hindered UMass on defense, he said, especially since many of the players thrust into more prominent roles are freshmen and haven’t played college football.
“Within our system right now, we have so many depth issues,” Bell said. “Whether it’s a run-heavy team or a throw-heavy team, whether it’s generating pass rush or stopping the run, we just have a lot of roster development to do. That’s on our end when they’re here doing a better job coaching and teaching and making sure we’re putting young guys that are really inexperienced to be in the best position we possibly can to be successful.”
SPECIAL TEAMS SUCCESS — When Bell hired Luke Paschall as his special teams coordinator and wide receivers coach, he called him the best coach he’s ever worked with. He raved about the work Paschall did coaching special teams at each of his previous stops.
So it isn’t a surprise to Bell that Paschall has turned the Minutemen into one of the better kickoff return units in the country through four weeks. Across the board, UMass is roughly average in most of the special teams categories, but it’s kickoff return unit has been the star. Senior Isaiah Rodgers ranks ninth in the nation with a 33.4-yard average on returns, and the unit as a whole would be a top-30 unit if you excluded the four times teams intentionally kicked short of Rodgers and the Minutemen just fell on the loose ball.
Bell said the special teams philosophy has played a large part in how committed the players are to performing in the oft-forgotten third element of the game.
“You don’t start on offense or defense here unless you start on special teams, we’re going to play our best players,” Bell said. “Hopefully for our program moving forward and in building a program, that’s something we can hang our hat on and every single year continue to evolve and get better as the roster improves. For me, that’s going to be something we take great pride in, so I’m excited to see us have some early success there and hopefully we can build on that throughout the year.”
CARVEL’S LESSONS — If anyone can understand what Bell and his staff are going through right now, it is UMass hockey coach Greg Carvel. In Carvel’s first year, the Minutemen won just five games and lost their final 17 games of the season.
Two years after that inauspicious beginning, Carvel coached UMass to the national title game this past spring. Though the two haven’t had any extensive communication, Carvel said his impressions of Bell is that the young coach has the right mindset for what will be at times a painful rebuilding process.
“You have to believe in what your ceiling is and have belief in your staff,” Carvel said. “You have to have a vision and believe in it and just take steps toward that goal. They’re baby steps and there are a thousand of them, but if every day you feel like you’re doing things to move forward, that’s all you can do.”