AMHERST — It doesn’t matter to Mark Whipple how many starters he has returning, the first few practices are largely the same.
The UMass football coach uses the first week or so to drill down the fundamentals of his offense, making sure everyone is on the same page. In certain years, that means the first-teamers will earn a lot of work if there’s a need to replace a lot of pieces.
But this year, the projected starters haven’t been stressed too much in the first days of practice with nine players returning. Whipple said the veterans have done a good job leading the younger guys and helping the newer players grasp the schemes.
“We kind of keep our installs the same the first four or five days,” said Whipple, who is entering his fifth year of his second term with the Minutemen. “We’re just trying to teach the offense and go back to the fundamentals and the routes. Both sides have a lot of guys who have played, and that’s made a difference because their leadership has shown.”
Senior quarterback Andrew Ford said UMass is fortunate that its offensive system hasn’t changed much since Whipple returned to Amherst. He said building a familiarity with a scheme over multiple years lends itself to veterans being able to help the younger players more and help speed up the installation process.
Once the Minutemen move on to more specific game plans in the coming weeks, Ford said he expects the offense’s experience to play a larger factor. In the meantime, the veterans are continuing to nurture the chemistry that has developed within the unit for the past year and hoping that bond will lead to a faster, more high-octane attack in 2018.
“We’ve had the same group around since essentially this time last year,” Ford said. “Having this core group together all last season and then having a full spring and a full summer together, it just makes the learning curve that much easier for us in the fall. A lot of these guys don’t have to learn a new system, we’ve been in the same system for two, three, even four years now, so for us it’s all about execution now; we don’t need to think, we can just go out there and play.”
Last season set a high bar for the offense after UMass ranked 47th in the FBS in scoring offense and 35th in yards per game nationally. The Minutemen exceeded 40 points in four games last season and topped 500 yards in three of them en route to averaging 30.6 points and 432.8 yards per contest.
That success has spurred on a deeper drive this offseason, senior receiver Andy Isabella said. He said the focus of the group has transitioned into finetuning the offense to make sure the unit is ready to go for Aug. 25 when UMass hosts Duquesne in the season opener at 5:30 p.m.
“There’s a high expectation for us,” Isabella said. “We just have to come out and do our job every day and focus on the little things now and clean up everything so we can get ready for the season.”