UMass Football News--September 23rd, 2025

 UMass has their game notes for Missouri up.

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UMass Coach Harasymiak speaks to reporters in the Monday Press conference. 

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UMass A.D. Ryan Bamford speaks to reporters about improvements to McGuirk stadium. 

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Missouri's homecoming game against UMass is sold out. 

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Hustle Belt has MAC Musings after Week #4.

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The UMass Daily Collegian has UMass A.D. Ryan Bamford addresses the state of UMass football. 

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The Greenfield Recorder reports Coach Harasymiak names AJ Hairston as starting QB for the Missouri game.

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UMass Football News--September 22nd, 2025

 UMass opens as a 42.5 underdog to Missouri.

Vegas has UConn to a 3.5 underdog to Buffalo. I think the Huskies could win that one.

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UMass-Missouri will be televised on ESPNU.

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UMass continues to be dead last in Power Rankings after Week #4.

BC is #75, UConn is #91. 

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 UMass alum Isaiah Rogers had  a great game against Cincinnati.

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Hustle Belt reports NIU was unable to silence the cowbells at Mississippi State.

I watched much of the Kent State-Florida State game on the treadmill yesterday. As Hustle Belt says, it was a beat down. 

Miami (Ohio) ended up 0-3 after a last-minute loss to UNLV. 

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UMass Football News-September 21st, 2025

 With UMass having a bye week, most of the news was results from their opponents.

Temple was competitive early with #18 Georgia Tech, but faded in the second half and lost 45-24. 

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Bryant lost a two-overtime thriller to Campbell 50-48.

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Iowa beat Rutgers Friday night. 

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Missouri rallied to beat South Carolina as the Tigers dominated in the fourth quarter. 

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Western Michigan threw the MAC championship into turmoil by upsetting Toledo.

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Florida State scored 35 points in the first quarter and drubbed Kent State 66-10. 

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Buffalo, another MAC Conference Championship favorite, was upset by Troy. 

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Central Michigan blasted FCS Wagner 49-10.

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Akron rang up over 500 yards of offense to dominated FCS Duquesne  51-7.

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Mississippi State pulled away in the second half and beat Northern Illinois 38-10.

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Ohio handled FCS Gardner-Webb 53-35.

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Bowling Green lost to Power Four Louisville 40-17.

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UMass Football News--September 20th, 2025

 UMass is off this week, but plenty of past and future opponents are playing.

Rutgers gave Iowa all they could handle, but faded late and the Hawkeyes pulled away late to win 38-28. 

The Iowa kid who ran one back against UMass, Kaiden Wetjen, did the same thing to Rutgers on the opening play of the game. 

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Temple plays #18 Georgia Tech on TV at 4:30 today.

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Bryant plays Campbell at 6:30 today to open CAA play.

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Missouri plays a tough South Carolina team.

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UMass' next home opponent Western Michigan plays Toledo.

SB Nation previews the game. 

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UMass Football News--September 19th,2025

 

The Minuteman Command has a post titled "Is it time to give AJ Hairston his shot?"

Since we're not going to beat Missouri anyway, we might want to give Hairston more than one or two series. Better OL play would also be a big help. I thought Grant Jordan did a creditable job while facing pressure nearly every time he dropped back. 

We might want to alos try some new OL combinations as the Minuteman offensive line really got crushed by Iowa. 

UMass could also work on their run game as it has been nearly nonexistent so far. 

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UMass remains last in the Hustle Belt MAC power rankings.

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Hustle Belt also previews this week's interesting game between UConn and Ball State. The Huskies lost two overtime games to Syracuse and Delaware.

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Missouri has had 31 fans ejected from their games this season. That's an average of 10 fans/game.

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Temple is +23.5 against Georgia Tech, Iowa -3 against Rutgers and Missouri is -3 against South Carolina.

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UMass Football News--September 18th, 2025

 Rene and Mike are back with Episode #22 of the Flagship Podcast.

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Iowa QB Mark Gronowski discusses the UMass win.

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Alex Buchanan image

The UMass-Missouri game will start at 7:30 East Caost time. BTW, the Tigers are averaging just under 52 points/game..

Missouri is  8th in the nation in scoring.UMass is #124 averaging 14.3.

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Hawk Central has a post with a section on the struggles of UMass' offensive line in  the Iowa game. The Minutemen passed 28 times and Missouri got pressure on 23 of them.

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CBS Sports has a story on how the new single transfer portal will impact college football. As the article points out, it may help Group-of-Five schools as their roster can only be raided once a year.

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UMass Football News--September 17th, 2025

 UMass A.D. Ryan Bamford says coach Harasymiak is the answer.

I think the new coaching staff and the other reforms will kick in. Everybody (including me) got way ahead of themselves on optimism.  This is UMass. Nothing is easy. We still have a chance  to win a couple of MAC games. Contending for the MAC championship and a bowl game is going to be another year though.

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College Sports Wire has UMass-Missouri game time, TV coverage and other game details. 

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UMass is #3 in CBS Sports Bottom 25 rankings. 

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MISERY LOVES COMPANY PART II

UConn is 1-2 and "beat up" after an overtime loss to Delaware 

Boston College is 1-2 after their second overtime loss in a row. 

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College football is still having a huge TV ratings success.

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UMass Football News--September 16th, 2025

 A transcript of Coach Harasymiak's remarks after the Iowa game. An off week is coming up and it's a good time to heal as the Minutemen are pretty beat up.

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Hustle Belt has week #3 MAC Musings.

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Iowa lost some players too.

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 Missouri announces the kickoff time between the Tigers and the Minutemen.

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Hawkeye QB Mark Gronowski broke the Division I QB career wins record.

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UCLA fires coach DeShaun Foster after an 0-3 start.

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UMass Football News--September 15th, 2025

 

Hawkeye Report has a photo gallery from the UMass-Iowa game.

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Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz supports injured UMass DB TJ Magee.

Update on Magee. Hope he is OK and can return to the team.

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Hustle Belt reviews UMass' loss to Iowa and sees some positives.

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Western Michigan, the Minutemen's next home opponent,  fell to 0-3 as they were shutout by Illinois.

The Broncos next two opponents are Toledo and Rhode Island.

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UMass Football News--September 14th, 2025

 I didn't think UMass played that badly. Against a powerful Iowa team playing on their home field, the Minutemen's defense battled all day. The defense stopped three Hawkeye drives and was generally competitive all  night. With no offense production, the score was going to lopsided.

I agree with Coach Harasymiak's first go-for-it on fourth down. The play was there, we just didn't complete the pass.

The offense didn't do much against a very strong Iowa defense, but defense is the Hawkeyes trademark. Getting throttled by Iowa is no disgrace, scoring two TD's against Bryant is. 

All in all, I thought the Minutemen hustled and played hard. The loss was foreordained, but I believe UMass showed some spirit.

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UMass write-up here. 

Iowa write-up here. 

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The UMass Daily Collegian said it was one step forward, two steps back. 

The Minuteman Command said the offense went nowhere.

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 Temple lost to Oklahoma 42-3.

Bryant beat Bentley 42-6. 

Missouri beat Louisiana 52-10. 

Central Michigan lost to Michigan 63-3. 

Ball State squeaked by New Hampshire. 

Buffalo escaped Kent State. 

Ohio lost to Ohio State 37-9. 

Northern Illinois had a bye.

Bowling Green beat Liberty. 

Akron lost a close game to UAB. 

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Game Day -- Iowa 2025

After two bad losses there probably not much upside for UMass fans in a game against a Power Four team like Iowa. The goals for the Minutemen would be to play hard, be competitive, and try some new combinations.

We ran the ball on Georgia.  Working on the UMass run game would be an excellent goal. If you can run the ball, you generally have a good lookin' QB and a good looking offense.

Implementing a zone defense could be another goal. Man coverage has not worked (which is a massive understatement) so far this year. Since we are not going to win the game anyway, working the kinks out of a zone defense could help the rest of the season.

Whatever the score, I'll be cheering for the Minutemen.

Go UMass! 

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 The Hampshire Gazette reports UMass is battling injuries and odds as they visit Iowa.

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Hustle Belt previews the Hawkeyes-Minutemen game and predicts Iowa 27-UMass 10

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Action Network says take the over in the Iowa-UMass game. 

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Four Sports Illustrated writers predict the score of the UMass-Iowa game. 

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Five Black Heart Gold Pants writers have a consensus score of Iowa 34-UMass 3.

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The weather in Iowa is going to be great. Tailgating should be a good time for Hawkeye fans.

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Three offensive keys for Iowa against UMass.

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Pick Dogs says take UMass and the points. 

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Hawkeye Insider has three focal points for Iowa in the UMass game.

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UMass Football News--September 12th, 2025

 The Minuteman Command reports injuries hamper the struggling UMass defense.

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The Hampshire Gazette says UMass will get better ----eventually.

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Hawk Central predicts Iowa 41 UMass 7.

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The Daily Iowan has five things to watch for in the Hawkeyes-Minuteman game. 

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247Sports predicts Iowa 48 UMass 7.

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Sports Illustrated points out first-meeting-ever-games are getting rare.

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The MAC game-of-the-week is probably Ohio (the MAC's  best team) going into the lion's den at Ohio State.

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UMass Football News--September 11th, 2025

Mike and Rene do Episode #21 of  the Flagship Podcast.

Some epic rants by Rene and Mike, but last Saturday's results cannot be changed, so it's no use being upset. To me, it seems for whatever reasons, injuries, inexperience, or not the right personnel, we do not have the horses to play man coverage. We need a different defensive plan.

On offense, we flat need to score more. Three TD's in two games will not win many contests.

Since Iowa appears to want to work on their passing in this game, we too could experiment with some different  coverages since we are unlikely to win anyway. UMass needs to find some things (and players) that are effective and ignore the score in this game.

Go UMass.

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Iowa will be without some key offensive players for the UMass game. 

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Hawkeye coach Kirk  Ferentz talks about the state of Iowa football.

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The Gazette says UMass-Iowa is the definition of mismatch. 

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Hawkeye QB Mark Gronowski thinks Iowa should throw deep more often. Against the Minuteman defense that'll probably work..

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College Football News predicts Iowa 41 UMass 3.

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Missouri's starting QB is out for the season with a broken leg. 

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UMass Football News--September 10th, 2025

 The Minuteman Command says the UMass QB position is up in the air.

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Iowa's HC Kirk Ferentz's press conference for the UMass game. 

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Iowa is expecting UMass' coaching staff to use Big Ten tendencies against the Hawkeyes. 

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Iowa QB Mark Gronowski looks back on the Iowa State game and previews UMass.

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Black Heart Gold Pants says the Hawkeyes are big favorites over the Minutemen.

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The UMass Daily Collegian reports UMass prepares to play Big Ten Iowa.

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UMass drops to last in the Hustle Belt MAC power rankings. 

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UMass Football News--September 9th, 2025

 

 

Keegan Andrews wins his second Ray Guy punter-of-the-Week award. Could UMass have a first-team FBS All-American?

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It will be Gold Out night in Iowa for the UMass game.

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UMass has their game notes for Iowa up. 

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The Minuteman Command says UMass can make improvements.

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Coach Harasymiak challenges the team to take ownership.

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Nine UMass players may be unavailable for the Iowa game.

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Hawkeye Report previews the UMass Minutemen. 

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Hakeye Insider has five things to know about the Minutemen. 

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The Gazette says Iowa has an opponent that they can practice passing on.

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Hustle Belt has MAC musings for Week #2, which included two losses to FCS teams.

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Sports Book Wire predicts Iowa 29 UMass 12 (?!).  I would think 59-12 would be more realistic..

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UMass Football News--September 8th, 2025

 The Minuteman Command says there is no excuse for the loss to Bryant.

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The Daily Collegian reports UMass drops it's second consecutive game in a loss to Bryant. 

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The Providence Journal says Bryant stuns UMass .

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Hustle Belt reports small issues snowballed into a disastrous loss for the Minutemen.

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DraftKings.com has UMass 33.5 point underdogs to Iowa. 

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Hawk Central.com says Iowa's passing game sucks.

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MISERY LOVES COMPANY DEPT

Eastern Michigan loses to FCS Long Island University.  That was the Sharks first FBS win.

I had been meaning to do a short preview of New England's other two FBS teams UConn and BC, but never got around to it.

Boston College has been a .500 team for a number of years and now with the addition of ex-PAC 10 teams the Eagles seem headed for the bottom third of the expanded ACC. Athlon had them 12th preseason and Lindy's 13th. 

BC blew out Fordham and just lost to Michigan State (they beat the Spartans last year). So now BC needs to go 5-5 in their remaining games to be bowl eligible. They should have a good shot at ACC bottom feeders Stanford and Cal. That would be three wins. However their remaining opponents Pitt, Clemson, UConn, Louisville, Notre Dame, SMU, Georgia Tech and Syracuse all had winning records in 2024. And the Eagles did not play Clemson or Notre Dame in 2024. Could be a long year at the Heights..

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UMass Football News--September 7th, 2025

Well UMass has completely flipped the switch on special teams. Derek Morris executed a perfect program-record pressure should-have-won-the-game-kick. We've never had that kind execution in the kicking game in the FBS era.

Keegan Andrews continued his All-America run with five punts for 44.6 yards/punt and he put all five inside the 20 yard line.

Marcus Lye averaged 64.7 yards/kickoff. 

But the rest of the evening was flat out bad. The UMass offense has had three TD's in two games. A 10.5 points/game will not win many contests. A first down in UMass' last possession would have won the game.

UMass has not been able to run the ball. We had 101 yards and a 2.9 yards/rush against a FCS team.

The Minuteman pass defense was horrid. UMass gave up 318 yards passing and 14.5 yards a completion. The bulldogs easily moved the length of the field in under two minutes to kick the winning field goal.  

I believe the reforms will eventually kick in but, for UMass fans, it appears 2025 will be another season in purgatory.

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UMass write-up here. 

Bryant write-up here. 

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The Minuteman command said it was embarrassing. 

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The Hampshire Gazette said it was rock bottom.

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Ohio knocks off Power Four West Virginia. 

Toledo beat WKU. 

Western Michigan lost in overtime to a field goal. 

Temple won their FCS game 55-7. 

Iowa lost their rivalry game with Iowa State 16-13. 

Missouri rang up nearly 600 yards of offense and beat Kansas 42-31. 

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Game Day Bryant--2025

 

The weather looks bad with possible lighting delays. UMass really needs this game and needs to play well.

A loss to a FCS program would send the program into a major tailspin. Several MAC teams including Kent State and Northern Illinois came close to losing to an FCS team last week.

After cataract operations on both eyes, I do not see well at night and dark wet roads are particularly difficult, so I have to sit this one out and watch it on ESPN+.

 I'll be cheering for the Minutemen. Go UMass!

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The Minuteman Command has an interview with Jacquon Gibson. He was the star of the first game and it would be great for him to have a break out season. Having a WR have a 1,000 yard season would be a real boost for the program.

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Bryant actually has their game notes up.

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The Hampshire Gazette reports UMass remains optimistic despite the opening game drubbing from Temple. 

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Also today on TV :

Click on any image and Blogger displays a larger view. 

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Hustle Belt has a post on the competition for the bottom of the MAC.  The leading contender for position (according the author): UMass.

They also preview all the MAC-FCS games this weekend. 

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Watched NIU lose to Maryland last night in a slow defensive struggle. 

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UMass Football News--September 5th, 2025

 The Minuteman Command has a video breakdown of UMass QB Brandon Rose's first game as a Minuteman.

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 Still no game notes from Bryant as of 6:50 am today. They need to pay that intern more..

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MAC teams continue their OOC schedule this week.

Bowling Green plays Cincinnati. 

Ball State gets Auburn. 

Toledo plays Western Kentucky at home. Both teams are slated to be league champion contenders and this could be a very interesting game.

Northern Illinois plays Maryland tonight on the Big Ten network. 

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Weather is not lookin' good for Saturday's game.

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UMass Football News--September 4th, 2025

 

Keegan Andrews is the Ray Guy Punter-of-the-Week. I don't think we've ever had a national player-of-the-week in our FBS era.

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The Minuteman Command has episode #20 of the Flagship Podcast. 

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Still no game notes from Bryant..

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Hustle Belt previews Northern Illinois vs Maryland. 

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Our September 13th opponent Iowa has a big rivalry game with Iowa State Saturday.

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Fox Sports and ESPN/ABC announce record viewing numbers after Week #1 of college football.

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UMass Football News--September 3rd, 2025

 Coach Harasymiak's Monday video press conference.

He said Bryant will be no easy task.

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Still no game notes up at Bryant.

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The UMass Daily Collegian says UMass regroups and readies for Bryant.

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 Keegan Andrews leads FBS football after Saturday's game.

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Profootballnetwork.com has Missouri #24, Iowa #29 and UMass as #134 after the first week of football.

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UMass Football News--September 2nd, 2025

 UMass has their game notes for Bryant up.

No game notes from the Bulldogs yet.

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Dave Beaudin of Minuteman Command breaks does a video breakdown of the Temple loss. 

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Jacquon Gibson

 UMass WR Jacquon Gibson talks about the state of the UMass locker room after the loss to Temple.

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Hustle Belt looks at last week's MAC results including the Minutemen's loss to the Owls. 

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UMass is #134 out of 136 in USA Today's college football rankings after Week #1.

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Week #1 MAC conference players-of-the-week.

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UMass Football News--September 1st, 2025

 The Hampshire Gazette says turnovers were costly in UMass' loss to Temple.

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The UMass Daily Collegian reports UMass drops season opener to the Owls. 

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Temple QB Evan Simon won't say if he knew UMass' defensive calls.

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The Minuteman Command says adversity came early to the Minutemen.

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Kentucky's defense held what is probably the MAC's best team's offense in check. 

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Purdue shut out Ball State 31-0.

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MAC Football Week #1 video plays of the week.

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If you missed it, Kent State broke a 23-game losing streak as they squeaked by Merrimack on a fourth quarter kickoff return. 

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