By Ryan Barry
NEFJ Staff

When UMass lost their season opener to Eastern Michigan this year I came home fairly despondent after a long day in Amherst.

I put all my things away, grabbed some leftovers, and sat with my wife while she watched television.

“Long day?,” she said.

“Yeah, they lost 28-14 and never really had a chance, everyone was pretty surprised, I thought it’d be different this year,” I responded.

Her football acumen is pretty sparse to say the least, but as a UMass alumni herself and supporter of my NEFJ writing gig, she’s all too familiar with the trials and tribulations of the program.

The next thing she said made me genuinely laugh out loud, and almost made me feel a little embarrassed.

“You know, if UMass football were a friend of yours, I wouldn’t want you to hang out with them anymore,” she said. “They’re like a toxic friend you have a few good moments with every now and then, but it’s mostly just unpleasant hangouts where you leave feeling not great about yourself.”

As off-handed as the joke sounded, was she really that wrong? The more I thought about it the more I realized she’s right, I definitely would’ve moved on from a friend like that. It wouldn’t make sense to keep hanging around with someone who constantly lets you down and does little to make you feel valued.

I spent five incredible years at UMass where I earned an undergrad and graduate degree, enjoying a four year run as a member of the marching band, and even a brief stint as Sam the Minuteman for a part time job while finishing up my masters.

I attended every home game from 2012 through 2017, and after I graduated purchased a season ticket where I continued to attend numerous games every season.

Long before I became the UMass beat guy in 2021 for the New England Football Journal, I knew everything there was to know about FBS football in Amherst. I got to UMass at the start of this mess, and know little of any glories of yesteryear when the program was a regular contender at the FCS level and produced the likes of Marcel Shipp, Liam Coen, and Victor Cruz.

I share my background not to say that my stake in the game is anymore important than someone else’s, but rather to highlight why this is so personal to me, and why moments like yesterday are just as maddening as they are heartbreaking at the same time.

Supporting UMass isn’t like supporting a team like the Patriots, where even amidst a few bad seasons fans will always back them. This is a relatively small dedicated fanbase that cares year in and year out about a product that most couldn’t give a damn about.

So when once again this program is the laughing stock of college football it’s hard not to erupt and come to a genuine moment of reflection: like spending time with a bad friend, is this really worth it anymore?

They say “comedy is tragedy plus time,” but how much more of the joke can we laugh at?

One of the best things my dad ever taught me is to have a sense of humor, but this truthfully is no laughing matter anymore, this is an injustice that can longer stand.

Don Brown was practically begged to come back to Amherst by athletic director Ryan Bamford to try and save the program in 2021. He left a cushy defensive coordinator job at Arizona with rising star Jedd Fisch, who has since taken a promotion to lead Washington in the Big Ten where Brown absolutely would’ve joined him.

He had offers after each season to leave and coach defense at major power five programs with far more security, money, and resources, yet he chose to stay and remain loyal to the school that put him on the map.

Rather than letting him walk out by his own choice, something his years of service and loyalty have absolutely granted him, he’s shown the door before the season ends? And for what? To get a jump on the head coach hiring pool?

If this truly is the case, it’s beyond laughable to think that getting out ahead of this would somehow look better to prospective candidates who in all honesty, were already NOT lining up to come here because of the known career-killing reputation.

Does not waiting two weeks REALLY allow you to hire someone you just can’t miss out on? As if someone like New Hampshire’s Ricky Santos, a very talented coach of a great Wildcats program in the FCS, is going to see the way things have been going the last 13 years and want to sign on the dotted line for a program that just canned a man beloved by alumni, players, coaches, and fans like.

There have been plenty of times that UMass have had moments that made fans and rivals alike laugh at our expense, but yesterday? That was just mean. Seeing Boston College, UConn, and even Liberty fans come to the defense of Don and say “man, what the hell was that,” is a look that you really can’t fathom how UMass administrators thought would go over well.

Look, it certainly didn’t work out like we’d hoped with Don. He made some decisions along the way that ultimately made things harder on himself both on and off the field.

His offensive recruits didn’t hit like many had hoped, injuries stacked up at the wrong time, an independent schedule with several buy-games made it hard to get momentum, there were coaching moments on the field that left many curious, and putting faith in friends to fill out his staff ended up hurting some positions.

Amidst all of that though, you can flip the other side of the coin and point to how systematically he was set up to fail from the get go. The changing landscape of college football and the emergence of NIL have made things harder on schools like UMass. Just look at the departure of Kay’Ron Lynch-Adams and the debacle of him leaving this offseason as one of many reasons why.

Yet in spite of all of this, Don was beloved by his players, fans, and alumni. To see how many active players were coming out in support of him yesterday was something you don’t typically see when a coach is axed.

The fact that a 69 year old man in the later stages of his career was able to get so many young athletes to buy-in and believe in him is something that can’t be understated. It’s easy for coaches as they get older to be out of touch and miss things that used to come easy to them when building relationships with younger players, yet that wasn’t the case at all with Brown.

Had he been let go after the UConn game on November 30th I think things would’ve been slightly quieter. Fans would’ve been able to understand it a little more given the move to the MAC next year and performance of the team this year.

However, to do Brown this way goes beyond anything rotten we’ve seen with this program since 2012, and that’s saying something.

It can’t be forgotten too that it was Brown who saved Bamford’s job back in 2021 by returning to Amherst after the debacle that was former coach Walt Bell, a Bamford hire.

I used to give a lot of grace to Bamford for having to run a difficult department. He did his best against the challenging tasks he’s had to face, and made some excellent hires in hockey coach Greg Carvel and other successful olympic sports. His ability to network and his move the MAC also helped earn him a little leeway as to why his name was never first on the chopping block.

Now? All credibility he had with fans is gone. Any last shrivel of hope or understanding for how tough his role is has left the building. Change for the sake of change didn’t sit well with me in replacing him, now all bets are off.

It’s a tough pill to swallow seeing where we go from here. I’m really at a loss. On one hand I want to check out, not renew my season ticket, have someone else take the UMass beat, and stick it to athletics to prove a point we’re all pissed off.

Then again, I think about the kids on this team who bust their ass, and about whoever is hired next walking into a nightmare and wanting to support them since they’re joining at about as low a moment as you can find.

And of course personally for me, it’s about the band, the 400 member “Power and Class of New England” who show up every week and put on the best show in the nation despite having to endure four quarters of usually soul crushing football. I want them to have a crowd and be able to showcase their talents, it’s not their fault either.

I think back to what I’d do if UMass football was actually a person and long standing friend of mine. Would I leave them and say good luck? Or would I recognize they’re only acting this way because of the compounding things that’ve happened to them, and it’s really just years of generational trauma causing them to act out and not be their best self?

My empathic brain chooses the latter, for better or for worse. If anything, it’s time to stop being reactive and get proactive, using my voice and standing with fellow alums and say enough is enough.

And how are we going to exactly do that you ask? Well, that’s for another column, and for turning into the New England College Football show Wednesday nights!