State of the Progam

[ZooMass84]

Can UMass sell hope? Why college football’s losingest program believes it can win by Matt Baker, The Athletic/NY Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/635432 ... nil-coach/

Interesting additional context in his X thread
https://x.com/MattBakerCFB/status/1922655425268236758

I'm all about the HOPE!!!!! yeah, I'm back (I jumped off the Tobin Bridge after the Liberty loss but whatever ). 2025 is the ZOO'S year

[Steve81]

Can UMass sell hope? Why college football’s losingest program believes it can win by Matt Baker, The Athletic/NY Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/635432 ... nil-coach/

Interesting additional context in his X thread
https://x.com/MattBakerCFB/status/1922655425268236758

So true Mike from 1996 and the X tweet. copied the image url. So without the commitment, the results ran true.

the move will most likely meet failure without the full support of all parts of the University including: academic, student, administrative, and staff.

Only took a dozen years to be fully support. Let's go and kick some a$$.

[ZooMass84]

so damn negative. What killed us was playing all those damn P5 games so early in the season (like Pitt) and shit like that.

[ZooMass84]

Can UMass sell hope? Why college football’s losingest program believes it can win by Matt Baker, The Athletic/NY Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/635432 ... nil-coach/

Interesting additional context in his X thread
https://x.com/MattBakerCFB/status/1922655425268236758

So true Mike from 1996 and the X tweet. copied the image url. So without the commitment, the results ran true.

the move will most likely meet failure without the full support of all parts of the University including: academic, student, administrative, and staff.

Only took a dozen years to be fully support. Let's go and kick some a$$.

this is what is was: shitty coaching hires like Molnar and Gomer/Bell. absolute killer scheduling like P5's early and often. yeah the "stadium" sucks but at least its on campus.

[PreecherJenkins]

really disappointing that they did not put steve 83 in the article.

[Jack]

We could have collectively written a better article. UMass had a very good FCS program until Don Brown left in 2009. Then the UMASS braintrust Foolishly hired Kevin Morris who promptly ran the program into the ground with teams that lacked toughness and always spit the bit in the 2d half of every season...

After the 2011 season the Morris experiment was over and the program was the worst it had ever been since 1997...lousy, slow, weak and getting worse... this was the precise moment when the UMASS Braintrust chose to a) upgrade and join MAC; b) hire Charlie Molnar and c) play games at Gillette..... How bout that for a trifecta ?

result: 2012-2013: 2-22; Mark Whipple 2014 - 2018 16-44: Walt Bell 2019-2021 2-26; Don Brown 2022-2024 6-30. Utterly Disgraceful.

[Steve81]

We could have collectively written a better article. UMass had a very good FCS program until Don Brown left in 2009. Then the UMASS braintrust Foolishly hired Kevin Morris who promptly ran the program into the ground with teams that lacked toughness and always spit the bit in the 2d half of every season...

After the 2011 season the Morris experiment was over and the program was the worst it had ever been since 1997...lousy, slow, weak and getting worse... this was the precise moment when the UMASS Braintrust chose to a) upgrade and join MAC; b) hire Charlie Molnar and c) play games at Gillette..... How bout that for a trifecta ?

result: 2012-2013: 2-22; Mark Whipple 2014 - 2018 16-44: Walt Bell 2019-2021 2-26; Don Brown 2022-2024 6-30. Utterly Disgraceful.

Yup, after Morris and Molnar and going independent, no one wanted to coach here. Especially with the low financial commitment and very difficult to get players. We went nearly 10 years of FBS below the scholarship limit. We had 53 dressed players at the end of a season with the low numbers and body bag games being body blows.

Cheers to the NewUMass going into the MAC, full administration support and money to be funded like a G6 team. May take a bit, but hoping for sooner than later. My giving went up, added an extra season ticket, and like the U Script program as now, instead of some unrestricted, can give to women's basketball, hockey and men's soccer. Give to men's basketball via the Massachusetts Collective.

Know some of you give, but some of you are just mouth pieces giving little or no financial support.

[Old Cage]

^ Making Steve's last sentence quite clear: you can still give to individual teams.

[Camby4Life]

Can UMass sell hope? Why college football’s losingest program believes it can win by Matt Baker, The Athletic/NY Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/635432 ... nil-coach/

Interesting additional context in his X thread
https://x.com/MattBakerCFB/status/1922655425268236758

I'm all about the HOPE!!!!! yeah, I'm back (I jumped off the Tobin Bridge after the Liberty loss but whatever ). 2025 is the ZOO'S year

Welcome back Zoo. Glad you survived jumping off the Stuart Bridge.

What’s your win prediction for this season?

Also need to know if your son picked a school yet? We need to set up a game day road trip.

[ZooMass84]

We could have collectively written a better article. UMass had a very good FCS program until Don Brown left in 2009. Then the UMASS braintrust Foolishly hired Kevin Morris who promptly ran the program into the ground with teams that lacked toughness and always spit the bit in the 2d half of every season...

After the 2011 season the Morris experiment was over and the program was the worst it had ever been since 1997...lousy, slow, weak and getting worse... this was the precise moment when the UMASS Braintrust chose to a) upgrade and join MAC; b) hire Charlie Molnar and c) play games at Gillette..... How bout that for a trifecta ?

result: 2012-2013: 2-22; Mark Whipple 2014 - 2018 16-44: Walt Bell 2019-2021 2-26; Don Brown 2022-2024 6-30. Utterly Disgraceful.

I know, Jack. Kevin Morris was a joke and I thought only Whip had a clue. He had more wins than the other 3 combined. I really think once we're back in the MAC there will be 3 or 4 wins anyway: kent state and akron are really bad.

[ZooMass84]

Interesting additional context in his X thread
https://x.com/MattBakerCFB/status/1922655425268236758

I'm all about the HOPE!!!!! yeah, I'm back (I jumped off the Tobin Bridge after the Liberty loss but whatever ). 2025 is the ZOO'S year

Welcome back Zoo. Glad you survived jumping off the Stuart Bridge.

What’s your win prediction for this season?

Also need to know if your son picked a school yet? We need to set up a game day road trip.

thanks Camby. I think we get 3 or 4 wins. And my son is thinking Clemson or Penn State.

[Steve81]

Finally was told a way to view the article on my cell phone and took a few screen shots. The article was fair and complete summary of how UMass underfunded the program and used body bag games. They covered why UMass prioritized basketball at the expense of football over 10 years ago and here are the two screenshots

Severe under funding resulting in bottom barrel assistant coaching salaries and results:


We are going all in to the MAC with resources to succeed. We have even hired a Special Teams Coordinator and many us know how bad our special team play has been. This quote is from our AD's Ryan Bamford Football Vision that you can see in my signature.

In our search process, we also wanted to show head coaching candidates that we were investing in a staff salary pool that would allow the program’s next leader to hire talented people around him. The entire football salary pool has grown by over 60% and $1.2M in the last five years. Coach Harasymiak will have a league-leading $2.65M pool to fill coaching and support roles as he wishes. By our estimates, this will be over $500,000 more than the highest salary pool in the MAC currently. The pool will expand to at least $3.0M by the end of the 2026 season.

Outside of our coaching and direct team support roles (analysts, grad assistants, operations and recruiting personnel), our program also boasts three full-time sports medicine staff, two full-time equipment managers, a video director and three strength and conditioning coaches that have
football-only performance responsibilities. This model is unmatched in the MAC and positions us well compared with our aspirational peers.

Why the change now and the power conferences squeeze out the high mid-majors. Including a quote from Patrick of the Mass Collective:


Was happy to finally see the article and wanted to share a few snippets beyond quotes posted about funding FBS football 2.5M below FCS ( wtf do we expect for results- just terrible).

[LS71]

Hockey has been in the NCAAs 5 of the last seasons including a national championship and is in the country’s best hockey conference, yet that success is completely overlooked in this article.

I think it’s fair to say that UMass hockey has a better chance at another natty than football has at making a play-off.

Not that I wouldn’t love to see football be successful but it’d be better for football to aspire to hockey’s current success than to bemoan basketball’s fall from grace.

[InnervisionsUMASS]

The current state of the program is still bad. The hope is that it gets better. It has my support to do so.

[Steve81]

The current state of the program is still bad. The hope is that it gets better. It has my support to do so.

The record was bad, but the state of the program has improved as we watched the offense and kicking team execute. The atmosphere in the locker room is good and hope the staff can get us more wins, than most here would venture.

Can UMass sell hope? Why college football’s losingest program believes it can win
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/635432 ... nil-coach/

Matt Baker's article is good and was talked about in this mornings podcast of Minuteman Command hosted by ESPN personalities Rene Ingoglia and Mike Corey. Matt, author subject of this thread had no knowledge of UMass and is a national writer for the nytimes/athletic. He interviewed 20 people for the story, including over an hour with Rene. Will post the podcast and is from 12:30 mark through 14:45 or 2 minutes listening time. Next week podcast will be dedicated to this article.
https://youtu.be/T24qBgJ4flw