ORONO – A homegrown Black Bear is taking a shot at the next level after signing a free agent contract following the 2022 NFL Draft.

The University of Maine announced on May 1 that wide receiver Andre Miller has signed a free agent contract with the New York Giants.

It’s a relative rarity for local athletes to make the leap to Division I football at UMaine, but Miller – an Old Town native – not only survived but thrived, becoming an integral part of the Black Bears offense.

ORONO - What do you do for an encore if you’re the University of Maine football team, coming off the most successful season in school history? “Elevate The Standard.”

That’s the message that new boss Nick Charlton has preached since he got the job after the departure of Joe Harasymiak to the University of Minnesota.

The ride is officially over for the University of Maine football team.

A storybook season – in many respects the greatest season in program history – came to an end with a 50-19 loss against Eastern Washington in the FCS semifinals.

The 2018 Black Bears are boldly going where no UMaine football team has gone before – the FCS semifinals.

They are doing so courtesy of a 23-18 victory over Weber State. The seventh-ranked Black Bears took down the second-ranked Wildcats, thanks in large part to a phenomenal defensive effort and a few opportunistic plays by the offense. The win means that they’ll be heading to the West Coast for another showdown, this time on the red turf (also known as “The Inferno”) of the Eastern Washington Eagles in Cheney, Washington.

The Black Bears won their seventh game in a row with this one; it also marked their seventh consecutive victory when facing a ranked opponent. This UMaine team is one that has no fear and believes that it can play with any team in the country – because they can.

That was certainly the case with Weber State, an excellent team that was handled quite efficiently by the Black Bears.

ORONO – It was an historic afternoon for the University of Maine Black Bears last week.

UMaine won its first-ever home playoff game and its first playoff game of any kind since 2011 when the Black Bears knocked off the Gamecocks of Jacksonville State 55-27 in the second round of college football’s FCS playoffs.

The Black Bears – seeded seventh overall in FCS - now sit at 9-3 and head to Ogden, Utah next, where they will take on the second-seeded Weber State Wildcats.

ORONO - Exceeding expectations has been a way of life for University of Maine football for many years but this year’s edition of the Black Bears is taking that practice to new heights.

If you were to just look at the numbers, you might not be that impressed with the season that University of Maine kicker Kenny Doak is having. Doak currently sits seventh in the Colonial Athletic Association in field goals made, having converted five of his eight attempts on the season to go with a 13-for-15 conversion rate on extra points. It’s a perfectly fine season, but nothing to write home about.

Yet it’s a safe bet that these days, head coach Joe Harasymiak wouldn’t trade him for any kicker in the country. Because in this case, it’s not about quantity, but quality. And let’s be clear – Kenny Doak is giving UMaine QUALITY.

The placekicker from Perkaskie, Pennsylvania has drilled game-winning kicks as time expired in the last two Black Bear victories.

ORONO - It’s an old flintlock rifle made by a guy named Ebenezer Nutting sometime in the 1700s and named after a couple of coaches who did their best work during the Coolidge administration. It was largely forgotten for decades until Jack Cosgrove made it a thing again during his tenure as boss of the Black Bears. Oh, and it’s spent the better part of the last decade and a half on a shelf in Durham, New Hampshire, providing a tangible reminder to the Wildcats of their domination of the football rivalry with the neighboring state university.

And now, it’s found a new/old home in Orono, after a 35-7 opening night stunner by the Black Bears in the “Thursday Throwdown.”

HOUSTON – The newest general manager of the NFL’s Houston Texans has ties to the University of Maine.

BOSTON - When you talk about the iconic stadiums in football history, places like Lambeau Field, the Rose Bowl and “The Horseshoe” at Ohio State come to find. Fenway Park would rank near the top of any list of similar baseball venues, but many forget that the home of the Green Monster has also hosted football since, well … before the Green Monster.