At an imposing 6-foot-7, 250 pounds, few things can weigh on Jean Sifrin. But the Massachusetts football team’s current record of 0-5 is certainly doing its best.
Sifrin enters the sixth week of the season preoccupied with preparation for Miami (OH) as he and his teammates continue to search for the Minutemen’s first victory of the season. UMass is close – it traded blows with former Mid-American Conference champion Bowling Green in a 47-42 loss a week ago – but hasn’t cleared the final hurdle. And it’s clear simply from speaking to Sifrin that it’s eating away at him.
“It’s just a lot, being 0-5 right now,” Sifrin said. “I have a lot on my mind.”
The junior transfer from El Camino Community College’s start to 2014 put himself in opposing coaches’ minds, too. In four games, Sifrin has 14 catches for 194 yards and two touchdowns. He scored two touchdowns in his UMass debut against Colorado and caught eight passes for 135 yards last week against the Falcons.
He’s a hulking target across the middle of the field and showed an ability to catch passes in traffic against Bowling Green. But it was the plays he didn’t make – Sifrin dropped three passes – combined with an inability to secure a victory which Sifrin harped on when interviewed Wednesday.
“It’s not how effective you are, it’s how efficient you are,” Sifrin said. “I had a pretty OK game, but I still had three drops. I had one ball that I couldn’t locate that could have easily been a touchdown for me.”
“It’s a learning process, you build on your mistakes,” he said. “But it shouldn’t have been like that. Those plays were simple enough; the balls were in my hands. I shouldn’t have ever dropped them.”
While Sifrin is equal parts critical and accountable, his injection into UMass coach Mark Whipple’s offense is garnering positive feedback.
“He’s huge,” Minutemen quarterback Blake Frohnapfel said.
“You see a couple of those plays, it’s pretty tight windows. And I can trust him to go in there and try to make a catch. He’s a guy that I’ve really enjoyed to have and I’m lucky that he came here.”
Initially, Sifrin’s involvement in 2014 was unclear. He missed all of training camp and the first week of the season while he awaited eligibility clearance from the NCAA after transferring. Unable to practice with the team, Sifrin was left to watch practice from the stands and work out on his own.
Upon gaining clearance before UMass’ second game of the season against Colorado, Sifrin was immediately inserted into the lineup. Each week, he becomes more comfortable.
“He’s just getting better,” Whipple said. “(He’s) understanding coverages a lot better and the speed of the game after not practicing at camp. He took another step this past week and he’s seen the tape, now you can coach him. He missed a few things but made some plays.”
Sifrin said he’s “adjusting well” to the offensive system. It helped that he played in a style of offense similar to Whipple’s in junior college. He said the biggest difference was an increased amount of plays and the new terminology used to describe them.
He also noted that team continues to install new packages every week. Sifrin called the ability to play in an offense as creative as Whipple’s a “blessing.”
“It’s a blessing to have a coach like that,” Sifrin said. “(He) can show you things that you’re going to learn when you go to the pro’s or the next level after college football.”
Now, Sifrin said the focus is on earning the first win of the season. And he’s certainly not tasking that task lightly, noting that the “only thing” on his mind was trying to get a win.
“We’re sitting at 0-5 right now, nobody should feel good about how we are right now,” he said.
“We’re just not getting that ‘W,’ that’s the only thing that hurts.”
Mark Chiarelli can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @Mark_Chiarelli.
