UMass opens its season with Big10 Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights went 5-7 (2-7 in the Big10) in 2025.
Oh, and they won their FCS game against Morgan State 60-10.
For 2026, Lindy' College Football Magazine picks Rutgers last in the Big10 and Athlon picks the Scarlet Knights 16th in the 18 team league.
I do not think the Minutemen have any chance of an upset here. Rutgers is operating on a different planet than UMass.
For one thing, they have two preseason All-Americans. Wide receiver KJ Duff is 6-6 and went 60 catches for 1,084 yards in 2025. He also led the nation in contested catches (22).
Running back Antwan Raymond ran for 1,275 yards and 13 TD's against Big10 defenses.
Athlon Sports named Duff and Raymond pre-season All-Americans
They also have last year's Boston College's starting QB Dylan Lonergan. He started 9 games and threw for over 2,000 yards for the Eagles in 2025.
This article covers the Scarlet Knights QB battle.
The Scarlet Knights also signed three (or four depending on the recruiting service) four-star recruits. That's more than the MAC, Sun Belt and American conferences combined.
Last year Rutgers played two MAC teams and beat them both. Ohio played the Scarlet Knights tough and lost by three points. The next game Rutgers pulled away from Miami (Ohio) in the fourth quarter and won 45-17.
So Rutgers should be the best team UMass plays in 2026 by a significant margin. This article predicts the Scarlet Knights game-by-game season and thinks they beat UMass 44-7.
The Minutemen should have a tough time with the high-octane Rutgers offense, but I'm hoping Pop Watson and the UMass offense can show some life and be competitive for most of the game. A score of 44-20 would indicate a substantial improvement over last year's Minuteman squad.
I recently watched the full game Rutgers-Penn State 11/29/25 replay on YouTube. It's well worth watching if you like college football and will get your juices flowing for this year.
Go UMass!
