AMHERST — What became evident through 12 football games this past season was how undersized UMass was in the trenches.
The Minutemen’s 1-11 record was a direct result of their inability to win at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. So Walt Bell and his staff went to work to try and fix that inequality on the defensive and offensive lines, and the fruits of their labor were evident on Wednesday.
UMass unveiled 18 players who signed their National Letters of Intent on the first day of the early signing period, and half of those players were linemen. Those nine big bodies weigh in at an average of 299.4 pounds with six of the linemen listed at 300 pounds or larger, a significant change from the leaner bodies the Minutemen had on the lines this season.
“We’re like Arby’s now, we’ve got the meat,” Bell said. “We got some big kids that we’re all unbelievably excited about. Between (Josh) Atwood and Taishan (Holmes) and Aaron Beckwith and (Sammy Solomon), it’s going to be a complete reconstruction of the D-line. Then offensively, we’re really confident in those four young guys. Especially knowing it’s a line of scrimmage game and we’ve got to win there first, we’re really excited.”
Bell split the linemen nearly evenly with four on offense and five on defense. Among the offensive linemen who signed was Williston-Northampton’s Dominik Behrens (6-foot-5, 305), whom UMass offensive line coach Jim Jackson said was the ideal candidate for the Minutemen’s player development model that Bell stresses. Lackawanna College guard Reggie Marks is the most likely of the four offensive linemen to earn early playing time after paving the way for the Eagles on the road to the NJCAA national championship game this year.
Defensively, Bell said he expects several of the linemen to earn early playing time, especially given the lack of depth in the position group. The player jumping out of that group is German defensive end Hugo Klages, who made a name for himself last summer when he toured through various camps with PPI Recruits, an international service run by former UMass defensive lineman Brandon Collier. Bell said Klages demonstrated a lot of positive attributes off the field that made him a good fit for the Minutemen.
“The thing that you knew about him right away is everything he does, he overdoes,” Bell said. “He’s a maniac in the weight room, he’s a maniac with how he eats and lifts, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone more invested in themselves and continuous improvement. When we saw him in camps … just how he competed, tenacious, aggressive, chip on his shoulder, really had something to prove. We got to see him go against high-level competition and do an unbelievable job.”
After the lines, UMass was in need of more quarterbacks to add some competition to a group that struggled much of last season. Bell added two in Butte College transfer Kyle Lindquist and Niceville, Florida, native Will Koch, both of whom Bell said UMass was fortunate to sign.
In Lindquist’s case, the former Fresno State QB was the NorCal Conference Offensive Player of the Year after throwing for 2,552 yards and 26 touchdowns at Butte, the same junior college that helped mold Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
Koch was being recruited heavily in the final weeks leading up to Wednesday, and Bell said he was unsure if Koch would have signed with the Minutemen if he had waited 10 more minutes to sign his letter of intent. Bell had familiarity with the 6-foot-3 signal-caller when Koch attended a camp at Florida State in the one offseason Bell was the offensive coordinator in Tallahassee and said Koch is “a great young quarterback to develop and build a future around.”
Despite having a poor first season, Bell said the 1-11 record didn’t have any effect on the recruiting trail in the final month. UMass lost just one recruit who committed to the Minutemen through the cycle, although several players who have verbally pledged to the Minutemen have not signed yet and it is unclear if they will end up in Amherst.
Regardless, Bell was able to persuade recruits to buy into his version of the future of UMass football, and he said that vision hasn’t changed since he took the job last December. He added the recruits understood his message and bought in not to the immediate results on the field but the chance to make history at the school and play a large part in those historic achievements.
“What we’ve been selling the entire time recruiting is a vision of what could be,” Bell said. “The young people are smarter than people give them credit for, they understand what this place can be, they understand the unbelievable academics, they understand the accelerated growth on this campus and at the same time, they also want to have a chance to play early and be a contributor to what can be here and doing something that’s never been done before and going to the first bowl game in the history of the school.”
SKILL GUYS — The Minutemen received some help for their quarterbacks with the signing of three skill players that add a different depth to the offense.
Stone Bridge (Va.) running back Jared Cole adds some much-needed depth to the backfield and is the type of versatile back that can complement Cam Roberson’s speed. Garden City College transfer Ellis Merriweather is 6-1, 220-pound back and adds a power-running game the Minutemen didn’t have last season. North Clayton (Ga.) wideout Onuma Dieke is a true outside receiver at 6-4, 220 pounds, instantly becoming UMass’ biggest receiver on the team.
EARLY STARTERS — Bell said seven of the 18 players who signed Wednesday will enroll at UMass for the upcoming spring semester and therefore would be eligible to participate in spring practice. Those seven are: defensive back Tristan Armstrong, Cole, Holmes, Klages, Lindquist, Merriweather and Marks.
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.