More on the Offensive Line situation

Every year it seems that a football team coming out of pre-season camp will have injuries concentrated in one or two positions.

This year the UMass offensive line was the area hit the hardest.

UMass lost All-A10 Rob Kane to graduation. The pre-season projected starting OL looked like this:

• LT Colin Stoetzel 6-6 290
• LG Matt Austin 6-5 285
• C Alex Miller 6-2 300
• RG David Thompson 6-3 310
• RT O.J. McBride 6-3 298

Both pre-season tackles ended up being injured. Stoetzel is a UMass captain and has been a starter since he was a red-shirt freshman. O.J. McBride was also a senior and started for us against North Carolina State and Kansas State.

Matt Austin was the "fifth" offensive lineman last year.

With three of the projected starting linemen out, UMass has been playing Redshirt freshman Sean Calicchio, Rutgers Transfer Brent Caldwell and Redshirt Jr Mike Pearson. The situation was so bad that TE Chris Hopkins 6-2 260 has been working with the offensive line.

Matt Vautour reports in this article (registration required) that O.J. McBride may be lost for the season. Coach Brown said as much during his weekly coaches show on Thursday.

OTOH, Colin Stoetzel may be back for the JMU game and Matt Austin may be improved for Northeastern. The return of two projested starters in Stoetzel and Austin should make an improvement in our running game and offense in general.

Interesting that Rutgers transfer Jon Carnes Redshirt Soph. 6-4 290 is still not eligible. Listening between the lines on what Brown said, it seems it's about 50-50 if Carnes will be available this year.

The two UMass Athletic Dept. images are of Stoetzel and Austin.