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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