The Stories of a couple of New England Players in the XFL

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On Saturday another league will try to convince American sports fans that spring football is worth spending time and money on. The XFL, which has already had two lives, will see if a third time is really a charm. The eight-team league will run from February 18 until the scheduled championship game which is set for May 20. The league boasts a television contract with ESPN and a satellite radio deal with Sirius XM Radio. The league is being run by a well-known Actor/Entertainer Dwayne Johnson. Better known as “The Rock” to those who followed him during his days as a performer for the WWE.

However, this is not about the people who will be running this league, this is about some of the players who got the call to play in the XFL. These players were all members of the Northeast Conference. There is Andrew Jamiel, who for four years played college football at the Division II level for the Stonehill College Skyhawks. He was a wide receiver for the team and graduated from the school in 2020. During his career at Stonehill, Jamiel caught 308 passes for 3,639 yards and 30 touchdowns. He averaged 11.8 yards per catch in 39 games played. The numbers for a division two career are pretty good. He had two seasons of over one thousand yards, in 2017-18 he had 81 catches for 1,350 yards, and in 2019-20, 76 balls for 1,063 yards. In both seasons, he averaged over 100 yards a game. He also returned kicks and punts in both the 16-17 and 19-20 seasons averaging twenty yards a return on kickoffs and 4.2 yards on punt returns. Jamiel threw two passes in his college career and completed one for a 17-yard touchdown pass. We are talking about a player that could do a little bit of everything.

The XFL recently held their draft for the eight teams. The Orlando Guardians, with the 13th pick in the second round, took Jamiel. He is one of eight wide receivers on the current roster. He will wear uniform number 19 for Orlando. He is one of two players from a New England school that are on this roster. The other is Shawn Page of Merrimack, an offensive lineman who for the moment is on the Reserve List.

Page played for three schools during his college career. He started at Bloomsburg where he played in 30 games. From there, he transferred to Maine and played for one season for the Black Bears before finishing his playing days at Merrimack in 2021. The 6-3, 310-pounder appeared in all eleven games for the Warriors in 2021. He was also invited to play in the 2021 FCS All-Star bowl game that was held in Orlando, Florida. He was one of four Warriors players to be named to that game.

Sam Cooper is a 6-2, 305-pound OL who played at Merrimack and is also in this league. Cooper was taken by the D.C. Defenders. He will start the year on the Defenders Reserve List. Cooper started his career at Maine in 2015 as a Redshirt but did not play at all in 2016. He played in four games in 2017 for the Black Bears. Once that season was over, he transferred to Merrimack and played for two years. In 2018 he played six games and was part of an O-line that allowed only 17 quarterback sacks. The offense that year for the Warriors gained 377.1 yards of total offense and 244.3 through the air. Those numbers ranked them second and fourth in the NEC. In 2019, Cooper was named Team Captain. He played in ten games for Merrimack and helped the offense put up 368 yards of total offense, a game good for third in the league.

Over the coming days, we will highlight other New England players that have been drafted into the XFL.