Wendel: A dreadful UMass season by the numbers

Tuesday put an end to a season that the Massachusetts football team will soon look to forget. A 45-14 loss to Bowling Green secured the 2025 Minutemen (0-12, 0-8 Mid-American) in the doldrums of college football history, as they became just the fourth FBS team in the past decade to finish a season 0-12. “I think I just got to sit down and look at everything [in the offseason],” head coach Joe Harasymiak said. “Got to get [a] better roster and then everything else will fall into place.” The stats of the game paint a picture no different from the previous 11. UMass was soundly outplayed by the Falcons (4-8, 2-6 MAC), giving up 278 rushing yards and falling behind by two touchdowns before seven minutes had passed. When its offense took the field, it could only muster 14 points, still qualifying as one of its best showings of the year. In honor of the season of giving and the 12 losses that the Minutemen finished the season with, I feel it’s time to play the numbers game with this team. Counting down from 12, I’ll point out how each digit got woven into the fabric of UMass’ season, from the obvious ones to the more concealed. Let’s reflect. 12: defensive players, kickers and punters combined appeared in all 12 games for the Minutemen this season. Forget an injury bug: it was more of an injury plague that infected Harasymiak’s squad in 2025, with the coach mentioning that 20 players suffered season-ending injuries. In the press box for the season opener against Temple, I remember finding out that both Joshua Nobles and Zachary Franks were out for the season before ever playing a down. That moment should have set off alarms in my head that UMass was going to struggle with its overall health this season. It didn’t, so every week brought new surprises and new thoughts of how this team could get by with an injury list that could fill up a classroom. 11: minutes before 5: 00 on Tuesday, any last hope of a Minutemen win this season vanished. The timestamp puts us at the 8: 30 mark of the opening quarter, where on a second-and-7, Bowling Green wide receiver Brennan Ridley took a screen pass 87 yards to the house untouched. The score put the Falcons up 14-0, giving UMass a deficit that was far too wide to claw back from. This play stands out not only for its impact on the game, but also when it happened. It came out earlier this week that the athletic department eschewed a primetime kickoff to instead play this game at 4: 30 p. m. on national television. An opening kickoff during daylight is common in the MAC in the months of September and October, but not in November when midweek MACtion begins. That didn’t matter for the Minutemen, and it’s safe to say at least a few spectators moved around work and holiday obligations just to watch their team lose by 31. Hey, on the bright side, maybe they made it home in time to watch the Dancing With The Stars finale. 10: is one-third of UMass’ negative scoring margin this season. The Minutemen lost games by an average of 27. 5 points, three points below any other team nationally in the stat. Obviously, some of these lopsided scorelines were expected (47-7 loss vs. Iowa, 42-6 vs. Missouri), but teams that were seen as close matches in the preseason similarly blew the Minutemen’s doors off. Kent State was looking to end a 26-game FBS losing streak when it faced off with UMass on Oct. 11. The Minutemen were expected to at minimum compete with the Golden Flashes, but instead lost 42-6, letting Kent State have its best offensive showing in three years. Nine: losses went on the Bryant Bulldogs’ record this season, but their game against UMass was not one of them. In the one game that the Minutemen were favored in, they took a 26-24 lead early in the fourth quarter off a then-school record 53-yard Derek Morris field goal. The laws of FBS vs. FCS games state that when this situation occurs, the FBS team should keep its opponent at bay for the remainder of the contest. Instead, the UMass defense gave up 78 yards within 105 seconds, punctuated by a 25-yard Bryant field goal attempt that went in with zeroes on the clock. Bryant 27, Minutemen 26. Eight: opponents ran the ball for over 200 yards on UMass this season. The team’s run defense was a major weak point that got worse as the year went on, and by the start of November, giving up 200 yards on the ground was second nature for the Minutemen. We knew Ohio’s Sieh Bangura would be a problem to contain, but we didn’t expect him to put up 196 yards on his own. Even backup backs like the Golden Flashes’ Gavin Garcia were gifted plenty of good game film courtesy of UMass. On Tuesday, the Falcons put in one last impressive showing on the ground, racking up 273 yards. “We didn’t play physical enough [against Bowling Green],” Harasymiak said. “We didn’t have a great pad level and we didn’t tackle. I mean, the tackling was really bad.” Seven: penalty yards were accumulated by UMass on Tuesday, giving the team a great day discipline-wise. Overall, the Minutemen averaged just 41 penalty yards per game this season, an impressive number that puts them in the upper-half nationally. The circumstances surrounding certain penalties are where issues arose for UMass. The most notable flag came in the most nail-biting game for the Minutemen, an Oct. 18 home clash against Buffalo. Up one with under a minute to play, Jeremiah McGill intercepted a Bulls pass and his team immediately went into celebration mode. A 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty was then called on Craig, which pushed his team’s offense back to its own 10-yard line. With three timeouts in hand, it only took Buffalo 35 seconds to both get the ball back and drive down for a Victor Snow touchdown. Buffalo 28, UMass 21. Six: sections of McGuirk Alumni Stadium on Tuesday were sparse enough to where I could count the number of fans on two hands. You can include all the reasons you want for poor attendance: midday kickoff, winless team, depressing weather. The myriad of explanations created a cozy crowd that only shrunk as the rain came in and the game went on. The listed attendance for Tuesday came in at 6, 043, but the odds of that being true are similar to this school getting a Southeastern Conference invite in December. By the time the game had concluded, an estimated 750 people were in the bleachers, all of them witnesses to an infamous moment. Five: of UMass’ opponents are already bowl-eligible heading into the final week of college football’s regular season. In those five games, the Minutemen lost by an average of 29 points, right in line with their season average. Amazingly, some of UMass’ worst losses came against some of its worst opposition. I’ve already mentioned Kent State, but how about a 44-10 loss to neighboring school Akron to kick off MACtion? The Zips ran for 237 yards and forced three turnovers, putting the game away by the third quarter. Four: MACtion games were played by UMass this season, tied for most in the conference. Those midweek clashes are known to be anybody’s ballgame, especially in the parity-rich MAC, but a debilitated Minutemen team comfortably lost in all four meetings. The aura around the Northern Illinois game on Nov. 12 was one of cautious optimism. Hey, UMass has obviously struggled, but the Huskies are 2-7 with a banged-up quarterback room. Maybe lightning strikes under the lights and the Minutemen capture that elusive win. Instead, reserve signal caller Jalen Macon looked like the second coming of Michael Vick, and the junior put up four touchdowns in Northern Illinois’ 45-3 demolition at McGuirk. Three: quarterbacks were in a tight preseason battle for the starting job in Amherst, but one never separated above the rest. After five games of experimentation, AJ Hairston was finally given the keys to the offense pre-Kent State, but freshman mistakes and a lackluster supporting cast hurt his production. During his fourth consecutive start against Akron, Hairston got benched and Grant Jordan who hadn’t played since September came in. Next week, Hairston and Brandon Rose were both given shots, and neither put in games to remember. By the end of the season, all three quarterbacks had played in at least 50% of games, and while the redshirt freshman had the longest leash, I still feel UMass’ quarterback situation in 2025 was a perpetual question mark. Two: million dollars in NIL money went to Minutemen football players this season, according to ESPN’s Pete Thamel. The number made UMass one of the top spenders in the MAC, above some of the conference’s premier programs. Much of the team’s preseason hype stemmed from that number and the transfers brought in as a result. What transpired on the field is a case study on how NIL money doesn’t buy you success. Whether it was poor talent evaluation, poor team chemistry or both, all that financial commitment drove this team further down into the basement. Now, even more money has to be spent to get the Minutemen out, as their recruiting targets won’t take a discount to sign on. One: win was unattainable for the Minutemen this season. Before 2025, the program had never played this many games in a year without picking up a victory. Now, that dubious honor has materialized through all the factors I’ve mentioned and more. Farewell 2025 UMass football: as much as others will attempt to forget you, your memories can, and will, last a lifetime.
https://dailycollegian.com/2025/11/wendel-a-dreadful-umass-season-by-the-numbers/