After season-opening win, UMass football has real reason for optimism

Published Aug. 28, 2023, 6:15 a.m.
By Matt Vautour |
Even when Isaiah Rutherford returned an interception 55 yards for a touchdown to give UMass a 17-point lead with 6 minutes, 40 seconds left in the fourth quarter, the longest-suffering Minuteman fans were still uneasy.
They remember seemingly assured victories that landed in the loss column. They can vividly recall the missed kick at Vanderbilt. Or the blocked PAT returned against Temple. Or the failure to call time out at Miami (Ohio). Or losing quarterback Andrew Ford when they were leading at Tennessee.
UMass fans wear those losses like scars. Too many would-be foundational wins were wiped out by scenarios that would have been unimaginable and became unforgettable.
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But those seared-in memories make wins like Saturday that much sweeter. Because the Minutemen didn’t crumble. They held to beat New Mexico State, 41-30 for an honest-to-goodness road win over a team that won a bowl game last year.
Don Brown wasn’t there for any of those collapses. He’s built a career on making players believe and play hard, often in less-than-ideal situations. After pushing them through camp, he was there dancing with them in the locker room on Saturday night.
“I’ve been through the thick and thin of this game. I love the challenge. I’m not afraid of the challenge. But it’s nice to see the guys bear the fruit from their labor,” Brown said. “That’s what I feel good about. This is it, baby!”
Saturday was just one game. But it could be the start of something. It gives the players confidence in each other and in the coaching staff. It’s one thing to have faith in the process, but they’ll go to practice knowing it can work.
This season will be defined by whether the offense can continue to take steps. It was way better than last year and drastically better than the Walt Bell disaster years that Brown is cleaning up from. But they got a lot of help from the defense. They can’t rely on opponents’ turnovers and the field position created by them to set up the offense.
“I think we got a lot of ground to cover and there’s a lot of room to grow still,” Brown said. “But you gotta play a game to kind of figure out what you can do and what you can’t do and what you gotta get better at. That’s what we’re working on.”
Still, they scored 41 points. They didn’t score their 41st point in 2022 until October.
Now there’s hope in their hearts and a win over a bona fide FBS team and it’s not even September yet. UMass can go into Auburn next week with nothing to lose and the rest of the season feeling confident.
After that, who knows what UMass can be? They’re almost certainly not going to beat Auburn or Penn State but there are wins to be had against Merrimack, New Mexico, Arkansas State, Miami (Ohio), Eastern Michigan, UConn or Army.
“Hopefully this is a great start for the new year,” Brown said. “Don’t worry about the history and all that. We have a chance to do something special here this year.”