Game 5, 2025: Western Michigan (10/4)

[Floyd]

^ The Magic Bus?

[JoleonLescottsHair]

…makes a big difference for our long-term sustainability irrespective of winning.

Can you say a little more about what you mean by this? ‘Conference stability’ (I still honestly don’t know what that means even though we frequently hear it) will allow for us to sustain long-term failure? Isn't that paradoxical? Isn’t the very point of sustainability to preserve resources, outcomes, investments etc for continued success, however that is defined?

[Merlin Samuels]

There has never been a serious FBS effort until now. Playing as an Independent set the program back a decade and was essentially starting from scratch each season. It was a terrible decision.

Again, we were in the MAC before. That failed. We were independent (not by choice) and that failed. We have had multiple coaches, a new training facility (that was the last time I heard the story of how a capital investment would change things), and yet there was no serious FBS effort in your book.

Like I said, I know some people never will just admit that this is a failed experiment. I would argue that even if, by some miracle, we in 5 years were in MAC championship game how many people would even care at this point. The answer is very few. Most alumni try to pretend football doesn't exist, and laugh awkwardly when the ESPN bottom ten rankings come up.

Again, to each their own, but to me once they have to start using other sports because of this new investment in football I start saying we have overdosed on crazy pills.

Being a football-only member for exactly one recruiting class is not a serious effort to build a program, no.

[Merlin Samuels]

There's been a lot of focus on Bamford, the stadium, and the program in general, that I think this is actually be lost in the weeds to an extent. I'm with you, he's not a good coach and I'll think we'll be looking for another in the not too distant future. The offense is the worst in the country (and arguably in the last decade), the defense is eh, and the recruiting is atrocious.

I agree with you that the focus of the problem right now should be on the team’s performance. Harasymiak was on pretty much every short list of potential candidates during the last search. I don’t think many people here thought he was a terrible hire, and of those we could realistically land, he was probably among the best. There’s no question he didn’t come in and make the progress people were expecting, but that’s not unusual for a first-year coach inheriting a terrible team. Look at Calapari’s and Carvel’s records in their first years, not that much different from the previous coaches’ final seasons.

Harasymiak is rightly on the hot seat. This is really his problem, not Bamford’s, and it’s up to him to fix it. But I think labeling him as a “bad coach” is premature. One recruiting cycle was not enough to turn this team around.

IMO, he could have pushed for MAC membership a decade ago.

No, he couldn’t have. It was exactly a decade ago that we rejected the MAC’s ultimatum to go all sports, a decision made before Bamford was named AD. The decision was made for financial reasons and Bamford’s hands were tied. There was no path back to the MAC 10 years ago, or probably even five years ago, and the American wasn’t taking us. The only possible move I could have seen happening in that period was CUSA all sports, and that probably was as much of a financial dead end as the MAC.

More recently, the financial landscape has changed, making an all-sports move to the MAC possible and attractive, but I don’t think it was really possible much before now. I also think having a new Chancellor played a part.

I do agree with you that in the end, we wound up in the right spot, given that the American simply isn’t interested in us right now.

I have a genuine question for the people on the "other side" of this issue. Is there any level of performance failure, any amount of financial losses, on any series of events at all that would make you change your mind? … I know some people never will just admit that this is a failed experiment.

First off, I don’t consider FBS an “experiment.” University leadership has made the decision to move up, and from what I can see have given exactly zero consideration to reverting to our previous FCS status. It’s not an experiment. It’s a decision.

That said, similar to the decision to go 1-AA back in the late 1970s and the decision to go FBS in 2012, I think consideration should always be given to the status of football (or really any program at the University) to make sure it fits the needs of the institution at a given time. Different leadership and changing times will govern this evolution. As a football supporter (and a supporter of all UMass athletics) is there a potential moment or event in the future that would make me think football (or any other sport) is no longer viable? In theory, yes, but I would need to see the institution make a case that carrying the sport represented an unsustainable burden or was causing some sort of tangible harm.

As much as the losses suck, I don’t think that’s the case with football. Having a conference gives us a much better chance to field a competitive team but also makes a big difference for our long-term sustainability irrespective of winning. If folks don’t want to watch the team lose, don’t watch, but carrying football isn’t an existential issue for UMass. If it becomes one, then consideration should be given to dropping the sport, but just losing isn’t justification in my mind for cutting bait. Lots of our athletic programs have gone through dry periods. Yes, this one is probably the worst, but that doesn’t mean future success isn’t possible.

This is a great post, and for some reason I thought that decision to jettison the MAC was while Bamford was AD. I stand corrected.

[Rolling Ridge]

…makes a big difference for our long-term sustainability irrespective of winning.

Can you say a little more about what you mean by this? ‘Conference stability’ (I still honestly don’t know what that means even though we frequently hear it) will allow for us to sustain long-term failure? Isn't that paradoxical? Isn’t the very point of sustainability to preserve resources, outcomes, investments etc for continued success, however that is defined?

What I mean by that is that we benefit financially from being in a conference through the TV contract and perhaps though some share of bowl or other revenue sources and that is irrespective of our record. This was exactly how we got money in the A-10, and that revenue could be significant when the A-10 were a multi-berth league, but we rarely made the tournament. That was why it was so difficult to go all sports in the MAC in 2014, but the situation has changed since then with the decline of the A-10, and we needed a replacement source of revenue. We also needed a reasonable group of peer athletic institutions to play against.

No one wants or expects the team to take that money and go 2-10 for the rest of eternity, but realistically we will have down periods, just as the basketball team has had for, like, basically forever. The conference gives us a stable financial platform to count on and a group of reasonable peers against which to compete. If we truly can't ever find success in this paradigm, and it starts to create financial or some kind of significant stress for the institution, then I'm not opposed to a reevaluation. But this model should be sustainable and should be one in which we can find a tolerable level of success. If we'd had a setup like this from the beginning, we'd likely be farther along than we are now. As it is, I think we were fortunate to survive independence and emerge into such a favorable situation.

[JoleonLescottsHair]

Thanks for taking the time to respond. Two quick points:

(1) there is no “forever” with respect to the basketball team. They won 20 games two seasons ago. And have been to the NCAA in the same time we’ve experienced 14 straight losing seasons in FBS.

(2) if the goal of an FBS football program is revenue production and floating 100 scholarships to achieve as much, wouldn’t we be better investing in the stock market, the B-school, or any other numbers of way to support student talent at UMass with a return? That strikes me as significantly more “sustainable” than a dice roll on a regionally misaligned conference for a sport that is not even passionately supported.

Sorry, 3 points- You also mention “peers,” a term that seems to have made its way into the FBS promotion tool kit. What does this mean? Certainly we have no more in common with Ball State than we do with URI or even VCU. And why does “peer institution” even matter? Is there a law school at the UMass Amherst campus like so many of our peers? Are our peers at Eastern Michigan scrambling to add a lacrosse team or a tower library? We are a first rate university and our measure should be our own. If we play hoops and hockey and not football like Toledo, so what? So what? Make it our identity and brand. We’ll survive. Over 100 other D1 schools have:

[Rolling Ridge]

(1) there is no “forever” with respect to the basketball team. They won 20 games two seasons ago. And have been to the NCAA in the same time we’ve experienced 14 straight losing seasons in FBS.

They've been to the tournament once since 1998 and went out in the first round. I'll grant you, they haven't been as consistently atrocious as our 14 years of FBS football, but it's been a pretty mediocre and largely futile 25-year run, imo. I'd love to see them turn it around. Maybe they'll find better success in the MAC.

(2) if the goal of an FBS football program is revenue production and floating 100 scholarships to achieve as much, wouldn’t we be better investing in the stock market, the B-school, or any other numbers of way to support student talent at UMass with a return?

I have no problem investing donor restricted endowment on athletics. I assume that is done at some level, but our endowment is relatively small, and I'm not sure how many dollars would be available. Probably not enough to make up for not having the revenue for a conference. If it had been, they wouldn't have needed to play so many payday games when they were independent. I think the expectation is that the Athletic Department generate a significant financial offset to their activities rather than rely strictly on university funds.

Sorry, 3 points- You also mention “peers,” a term that seems to have made its way into the FBS promotion tool kit. What does this mean? Certainly we have no more in common with Ball State than we do with URI or even VCU. And why does “peer institution” even matter? ...

When I talk about "peers," I'm talking about schools that spend roughly in the same range as our athletic department. The MAC fits our current profile in this regard. If we want to compete at a different level or find different peers, we'd have to increase our investment dramatically. As far as I'm concerned, that's why the concept matters.

[JoleonLescottsHair]

(1) You said “forever” but let’s just stick to 14 years as that baseline, not since 1998, ok? Since the arrival of FBS, the hoops program has had 3 20 win seasons, 6 winning seasons (we’ll call those “bowl eligible,”) two NITs and an NCAA. Impressive? Hardly. But wildly successful when compared against our 26-127 and zero winning/bowl season FBS squad. So, not exactly “forever”.. IMO, of course.

(2) why must revenue generation be the charge of an athletic department, particularly if it is not strapped with the heavy weight of an enormously expensive FBS football program? This point is lost on me. If we are sending out tackling dummies each week so we can pay for crew or lacrosse, maybe there’s a bigger problem than what quarterback is starting on a shitty team or the “game day experience.”

(3) Your colleagues in this “fight” over FBS/MAC have long argued “peers” has meant “flagships,” similar size state schools, and not small private, Catholic schools (sic). Comparative athletic department spending or budget is a novel angle. More importantly, why would we need to increase budget to find a different “peer” group. Why not drop football altogether and find a new group of “peers” if that’s the measure? I guess it begs the question whether there other non-MAC schools or non- FBS school budgets which we align? Do we know what a similarly sized (non-football) state school like VCU spends?

[Rolling Ridge]

You said “forever”

Well, I said, “like, basically forever,” which is sort of a euphemism for “a really long time.” Sorry if that didn’t translate well, but it isn’t worth wrangling over further. My point was that our A-10 revenues continued to flow and support all athletics during this period of relative drought. That same paradigm is now being used in the MAC. Every school that plays sports at the D1 level tries to maximize relationships like this, and our move to the MAC will generate more revenue which will be used to enhance the program.

(2) why must revenue generation be the charge of an athletic department, particularly if it is not strapped with the heavy weight of an enormously expensive FBS football program? This point is lost on me.

As far as I know, revenue generation is the charge of athletics regardless of the level at which they play. Go to a football game at Alma College in northern Michigan, and I’m sure they’ll be charging an entrance fee. Those revenues help subsidize the program. The larger the program and the higher the level of the program, the greater the costs. UMass has chosen to go FBS and are thus looking to maximize sources of external revenue, just like any other school at this level. This is the way it’s done, and I don’t think UMass can be faulted for pursuing the most favorable situation they can achieve for the level of ball they want to play.

What this comes down to is that you question their decision to play FBS football. That’s fine and I respect that, but I think you need to respect that it’s the institution’s decision, and that they will do what every other D1 school does to generate revenue for their program.

Comparative athletic department spending or budget is a novel angle. More importantly, why would we need to increase budget to find a different “peer” group. Why not drop football altogether and find a new group of “peers” if that’s the measure?

Again, it goes back to that pesky choice that UMass has made to play FBS football. We obviously needed to ramp up the investment in the program at that time, which we did to some extent, but not nearly to the extent that was needed. That appears to be on track toward being rectified with the commitments we’ve made going into the MAC.

If we decided we want to go P4 (which I’m not advocating for, but am just using as an example), we’d undoubtedly need to ramp up investments again, because we’d be competing with schools that spend far more on their football and athletics than we do, even if they look much like us in other respects. This is why I think athletic spending is really the defining feature of our peer group, but because of the choice the university has made to play FBS, the schools and conferences we would benchmark against are those that play FBS football. For all intents and purposes, the others are irrelevant.

[InnervisionsUMASS]

Oh the irony.

[eldonabe]

Joe - I think the Peer thing has been a bit of a moving target at times. I have always interpreted this as Education ratings (NWSR) & State "status" (Flagship).


I think there are many pros and cons to that comparison. I totally understand aspiring to be in the same Flagship breath as almost any of the other flagships, but Umass does not get the financial backing from their state like most of the others. It is hard to spend like them when your revenues (and overall funding) is a fraction of the group you want to play in the same sand box with.

I really don't have a problem being in (well trying to be in) FBS. Given the history of this School - I am just not confident in any way shape or form that they can be successful in this endeavor. They have upped their $$ game now, but that is still only 50% of what they really need to do overall (not just money, that includes other things as well).

[Used to be VOR]

Thanks for taking the time to respond. Two quick points:

(1) there is no “forever” with respect to the basketball team. They won 20 games two seasons ago. And have been to the NCAA in the same time we’ve experienced 14 straight losing seasons in FBS.

(2) if the goal of an FBS football program is revenue production and floating 100 scholarships to achieve as much, wouldn’t we be better investing in the stock market, the B-school, or any other numbers of way to support student talent at UMass with a return? That strikes me as significantly more “sustainable” than a dice roll on a regionally misaligned conference for a sport that is not even passionately supported.

Sorry, 3 points- You also mention “peers,” a term that seems to have made its way into the FBS promotion tool kit. What does this mean? Certainly we have no more in common with Ball State than we do with URI or even VCU. And why does “peer institution” even matter? Is there a law school at the UMass Amherst campus like so many of our peers? Are our peers at Eastern Michigan scrambling to add a lacrosse team or a tower library? We are a first rate university and our measure should be our own. If we play hoops and hockey and not football like Toledo, so what? So what? Make it our identity and brand. We’ll survive. Over 100 other D1 schools have:

This post makes too much sense to be in the Mass Football forum. Well said.

We are all just passengers on the football merry-go-round. Damn the others sports.