In Saturday's blog post I talked about the second half of the Minutemen's schedule as being tough. In the last six games, UMass plays three Power Five teams plus Liberty. College Football News previews the 2024 Flames and thinks they'll miss the college football playoffs by one game.
The Minutemen do have a home game against Wagner and they also host UConn for the last game of the season. Probably the best possible results will be 2-4 over the last six games.
However, the first six games are not without challenges.
Call it the "not being in a league" effect. UMass plays five MAC teams in its first six games. But check this out:
- Eastern Michigan-HOME
- Toledo-AWAY
- Buffalo-AWAY
- Miami (Ohio)-AWAY
- Northern Illinois-AWAY
The Minutemen again play the iron of the MAC as Lindy's ranks Miami (Ohio) as the top team in the MAC east and Northern Illinois and Toledo as the #1 and #2 teams in the MAC west.
Buffalo is ranked the #5 team in the MAC East. UMass will need to beat Eastern Michigan at McGuirk and then go at least 2-2 in the MAC road games to be bowl eligible at 6-6. Road wins have been hard to come by for the Minutemen.
If UMass was actually in the MAC, we'd get to play Akron and Ball State (the bottom ranked MAC teams) and the home-and-away games would be balanced.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
College Football News ranks UMass' 2024 schedule as the #84 difficult schedule.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Athlon's 2024 college football magazine is now available.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
