Northeastern's football cut alters landscape
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The news that Northeastern University is ending its football program hit University of Massachusetts coach Kevin Morris and his predecessor Don Brown particularly hard.
Just seven years ago, with Brown as the Huskies' head coach and Morris as his offensive coordinator, Northeastern surprised the Atlantic 10 and I-AA football by winning the league title and earning a playoff berth, despite meager financial support and facilities that were far inferior to most of the rest of the conference.
But since Brown left in 2004, new coach Rocky Hager was unable to match the previous success, and the Huskies fell back to the bottom of the conference.
With many other schools in the Colonial Athletic Association, especially in the league's southern division, investing heavily in their programs and facilities, Northeastern chose not to try to keep up any longer and announced the end of the program Monday.
"I think everybody in higher education is faced with the dilemma of competing priorities and investments," Northeastern athletic director Peter Roby told The Associated Press. "So this wasn't about what we were already spending. This was about what we were going to really need to spend going forward if we were really going to be fair about allowing people to compete equally.
"The status quo was not an option."
He estimated that replacing or upgrading Parsons Field would cost "tens of millions of dollars."
"It's a very, very sad day," said Brown, now the defensive coordinator at Maryland. "I've thought a lot about all those great players that gave us a great run in 2002 and 2003 to put Northeastern football back on the map. I'm disappointed that happened for sure."
Morris expressed similar sentiments.
"It's a shame. They had an opportunity to support that program. In tough economic times, people are looking for cuts, but I think they made the wrong choice," Morris said. "I think everyone involved in football is disappointed nationwide."
The move will affect the Minutemen in both the short and long term.
UMass likely will be one of several schools that may offer scholarships to Northeastern players with eligibility. Junior safety Nate Thellen, who is coming off a shoulder injury, could be a likely target if he's healthy because his brother Darren already is on the UMass roster.
The CAA will have to scramble to adjust its schedule for next season as eight of its members, including UMass, were expecting to play Northeastern in 2010.
Any scheduling changes will be temporary because Old Dominion and Georgia State are scheduled to join the conference in 2011 and 2012, respectively.
"We've had discussions with the conference already," UMass athletic director John McCutcheon said. "They're looking at reshuffling schedules and that kind of thing so we will still get eight conference games in some kind of different alignment."
McCutcheon said that UMass football remains on strong footing.
ALL-CONFERENCE MINUTEMEN - Nine UMass players were named to the CAA all-conference teams on Monday.
Wide receiver Victor Cruz, offensive lineman Vladimir Ducasse, safety Jeromy Miles and fullback Chris Zardas were named to the first team. Linebacker Tyler Holmes, tailback Tony Nelson and defensive lineman Kyle Harrington were named to the second team, and defensive tackle Brandon Collier and kicker Armando Cuko landed on the third team.
CAA GETS FOUR PLAYOFF SPOTS - As expected, the CAA received four bids to the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs, including two of the four seeds in the 16-team field.
Villanova is the No. 2 overall seed and will host Patriot League champion Holy Cross. Defending national champion Richmond is the No. 4 seed and will host Elon.
William and Mary will host Weber State, while New Hampshire travels to McNeese State.
Opening-round games are Saturday.
The teams were part of the last playoff field that McCutcheon helped shape. After six seasons as the chair of the Division I-AA/Football Championship Subdivision postseason committee, his term is complete.
Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. Follow UMass coverage on Twitter at twitter.com/GazetteUMass. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at http://www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage.
