Last Chance for UMass Football With Return to the MAC

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UMass is going all in on football after announcing all sports would be joining the MAC. A few t’s need to be crossed and a few I’s dotted but this looks like a done deal. For the Minutemen, it is a full circle moment for the athletic department which opted against MAC-tion in 2014 in favor of keeping its non-football teams in the Atlantic 10.

Of course, that decision also saw the football program go independent, a move that yielded 16 wins in seven full seasons. With the rise of New Mexico State and UConn’s bowl bid under Jim More in 2022, UMass has unquestionably become the consistently worst team in the FBS. In any given year, a team may have a worse record than the Minutemen but no program matches their body of work in terms of futility since 2014.

Let’s be honest here, this is really the last chance for UMass football to make it at the FBS level. The administration is going all in here on Pigskin. There is no question about that. But why now and can this move spark a turnaround for the Minutemen?

I sincerely hope UMass does find success in the MAC and eventually lands that elusive bowl bid. You will find countless people dumping on the program for not being very good and saying they should go back to FCS. Maybe that’s true. Maybe it’s not.

What no one should fault is a school for trying. In college football, there will always be winners and losers. Someone has to lose. And even though the Minutemen have lost more than most teams, they are still in the game and that is a victory in and of itself.

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