In the final five minutes before halftime at Riccardo Silva Stadium in Miami on Saturday night, the UMass football team allowed Florida International to score three touchdowns. Up in the broadcast booth, UMass radio analyst Pete Brock didn’t sugarcoat what he’d witnessed. “I’ve seen a butt-kicking before and this is one of them,” said the former New England Patriot lineman. “This is sad to see the way UMass has allowed FIU to control the football game.”
Brock’s play-by-play sidekick Josh Maurer is an eternal optimist. Before the second half kickoff, he posed a good news-bad news scenario for Brock to consider.
“Gimme the bad news first,” said Brock.
“The bad news is we trail 42-21,” said Maurer.
“Ok. What’s the good news?”
“The good news,” said the bubbly Maurer, “is that there’s still 30 minutes of football!”
The former first-round pick was silent for a moment. Finally he uttered, “That’s sort of bad news too.”
Meanwhile in the FIU radio booth, broadcaster A.J. Ricketts was telling color analyst Hurlie Brown, “Look at the Minuteman bench, that’ll tell you where the momentum is going. This is a lot of fun to watch if you’re an FIU fan.”
Maybe for them, but not for UMass fans, who’ve seen enough penalties, dropped passes and missed tackles the last three games to last an entire season. “Everyone’s still shocked and processing,” Mike DeMattia said two days after FIU’s 63-24 beat down of the Minutemen.
A UMass grad and business owner from eastern Mass., DiMattia goes on the road trips, stays in the loop and knows the players behind the X’s and O’s. “I think Mark Whipple is a great mind and a great offensive football coach, but he wasn’t hired here he was anointed, and it’s sad to see.”
Whipple could’ve named his price when he came here in 2014 after the disastrous Charley Molnar era. Molnar was chosen from a long list of applicants to be the first UMass head coach to lead the Minutemen into the FBS promised land. He was abrasive and paranoid, and had two wins and 22 losses. He left town with a bundle of guaranteed money from his five-year deal and is holed up in Idaho where he’s the quarterbacks coach for the aptly named Vandals.
UMass needed Whipple as much for his likeability and popularity as his coaching skills. At his introductory press conference, promises were made that haven’t been kept. “I’m here to bring home the jewelry,” he said, flashing the I-AA championship ring he won at UMass in 1998.
After piling up a dozen wins and 36 losses his first four years, it was now or never this year for UMass to go 6-6 and get into a bowl game. Whipple had every skill player but one coming back from a team that was ranked 17th in passing yards per game last season, and this year’s schedule is composed of supposed pushovers.
What Whipple doesn’t have, it turns out, is everything else that’s needed to win. The offensive line — ballyhooed as the biggest in the FBS — is a bunch of Baby Hueys. They’ve yielded 10 sacks and allowed both quarterbacks to get hurt, while the defense has yet to record its first sack.
“He lost two of his best defensive linemen, (Ali) Ali-Musa and (Sha-Ki) Holiness, and the hardest thing to recruit at the D-1 level is defensive linemen,” said DiMattia. “The defensive line is getting eaten alive and the linebackers aren’t up to Division I standards.”
What’s most troubling is the offense. It simply hasn’t kicked into gear this season. In previous seasons, Whipple’s offensive schemes have made the games entertaining. Now it seems the game has passed him by.
The Minutemen are 10½-point favorites to beat Charlotte on Saturday but quarterbacks Andrew Ford and Ross Comis are both listed as questionable. Third-stringer Michael Curtis is better than Randall West, but no one’s calling the redshirt junior the second coming of Johnny Football.
After the FIU debacle, it appears that Whipple’s days in Amherst are numbered. “It’s not if, it’s when,” said DeMattia.
“Are you driving out for Saturday’s game?” I asked him.
“No,” he answered. “Why?”
Get out the life rafts, the diehards are jumping ship.
MINUTE NOTES: In the last three games, UMass has been outscored by a combined 79-10 in the second quarter. … Teamrankings.com lists Charlotte second among FBS teams for time of possession (37:27). They beat Fordham (34-10), lost to Appalachian State (45-9) and beat Old Dominion (28-25). … Charlotte is No. 124 of 130 teams in ESPN’s Power Rankings. … UMass is No. 112. … UMass all-purpose back Andy Isabella is fifth in FBS receiving yards with 322. … Offensive lineman Jack Driscoll left UMass for Auburn for a better shot at the NFL, not because he couldn’t enroll at the Isenberg School of Management as Mark Whipple inferred earlier this year. … Next week’s UMass opponent Ohio lost to Virginia on Saturday, 45-31. The Fighting Solich’s are nine-point underdogs this weekend at Cincinnati. .… James Ihedigbo may not yet have the coaching cred, but he’s a UMass alum, a former team captain and an NFL veteran who would put the fear of God into any UMass player who’d dare mess with the program.
BC CRACKS AP TOP 25: Boston College is in the AP Top 25 for the first time in a decade, thanks to their 3-0 start and last week’s 41-34 win at Wake Forest. … Quarterback Anthony Brown passed for five touchdowns and 300 yards, and AJ Dillon rushed 33 times for 185 yards. Dillon is 19th in FBS rushing yards with 247, and has 439 yards including the win against Holy Cross. … BC’s weak link is punting — high snaps, punts on the run and fumbled fair catches enabled the Demon Deacons to score 14 points. … The Eagles are 7½-point road favorites at noon on Saturday at winless Purdue (0-3). … Eagles cornerback Taj-Amir Torres of Amherst is “playing great, great ball for us. Great competitor,” said BC defensive coordinator Jim Reid.