MIAMI — Michael Curtis had a decision to make on fourth down at midfield.
UMass needed to gain just one yard to prolong the game’s opening drive Saturday night and Walt Bell dialed up a read-option with his redshirt senior quarterback. Curtis took the snap and placed the ball in the belly of running back Bilal Ally, scanning the defense to see whether or not to take it himself for the first down.
The plan when the play was called was to simply let Ally follow the blockers for a first down, but Florida International defensive back Olin Cushion blitzed from Curtis’ right as soon as he took the snap. Sensing Cushion was about to hit Ally for a loss, Curtis yanked the ball away and tried to run for it himself.
Cushion changed directions appropriately and punched the ball away from Curtis then fell on top of it. The UMass offense spiraled downhill quickly from there, running just four plays inside FIU territory in a 44-0 thumping by the Panthers.
“It was a situation where going into it, I knew it’s fourth-and-1 and I’m thinking ‘give it to my guy and get a first down,’” Curtis said. “Kind of last second, the blitzer and I felt like he jumped the snap really well and in my mind, he’s firing up, he’s going to try and blow it up. I didn’t do a good enough job staying patient and reading it out, I should have given the ball to Bilal right there and we could have kept the drive going.”
The lack of offensive success boiled down to an offensive line that was overwhelmed by the size and strength of the FIU defensive line. The Panthers weren’t stopping runs in the backfield, but they were preventing Ally or Cam Roberson from finding any holes to run through. The Minutemen ran 24 times for 38 yards with the longest run coming on the third play of the game when Curtis ran for 9 yards on a draw play.
UMass (1-5) was effectively bottled up without a running game and faced long distances on third down. It wasn’t a surprise that the Minutemen converted just one of their 13 attempts with an average distance of nearly 10 yards.
“The two most disappointing things for us – it’s time-tested and as long as the game’s been around – it’s always been about blocking and tackling,” Bell said. “We did not block them very well and we did not get off blocks very well.”
The closest UMass came to scoring after the fumble came when the Minutemen sent almost everyone on FIU’s first punt of the game early in the third quarter. Samuel Emilus was credited with the block as several Minutemen were able to deflect the kick to spin it out of bounds near midfield.
The Minutemen were in FIU territory on an Ally run on the first play of the drive. They advanced even further with a second Ally run – the two of which accounted for 14 of his 24 yards on the day. On the ensuing third down, Curtis was chased from the pocket, but was able to settle down and fire a pass toward Jessie Britt beyond the markers.
But the pass was underthrown and Rishard Dames intercepted it to stop any momentum UMass was building.
“Personally, I had success last week doing different things,” Curtis said. “I’m in this role to make decisions, make reads, make throws and make runs and I need to do better on my part in the future weeks.”
Curtis had a rough day at the helm of the offense, completing just 5 of 19 attempts with a pair of interceptions and the fumble. He was replaced for the final three drives by Randall West, who performed no better with a trio of three-and-outs.
It culminated in the Minutemen’s first shutout loss since Nov. 23, 2013 at Central Michigan and one of the worst offensive performances in program history. UMass gained just 115 yards on 48 plays.
“That was as poor of an offensive performance I may have been around,” Bell said. “We didn’t pitch and catch, we didn’t win very many of our one-on-ones. There was way too much errors on very routine things and things I would have thought, going into game day, that we would have had success with.”
UMass was chasing for almost the entire game despite holding the Panthers (2-3) to a field goal after Curtis’ fumble. Yet after protecting the end zone on its first drive, the UMass defense didn’t show as much backbone in the subsequent drives.
The Panthers pushed the Minutemen around at their will, opening up large holes for their running backs and then having those running backs bowl over the UMass defenders. On FIU’s first touchdown, Anthony Jones was met at the 3-yard line by a UMass defender, but simply pushed the would-be tackler into the end zone with him for a 6-yard score.
The success on the ground made things much easier for FIU quarterback James Morgan. The signal caller completed 16 of 27 attempts for 228 yards and two touchdowns by picking apart the holes in the UMass defense. Morgan was allowed to sit back and wait for his receiver to sit in the soft spot of the defense, and Morgan was precise in hitting his receivers.
His first touchdown pass was a 30-yard toss to Tony Gaither, who simply ran past the entire coverage and was standing alone with no Minuteman within 5 yards. The second came at the end of the first half as FIU methodically moved the ball down the field in the two-minute drill. Morgan picked up 18 yards on third-and-10 with a toss to Maurice Alexander in the middle of the field. On the next play, he dropped a perfect pass to Austin Maloney between a pair of UMass defenders for a 30-yard score with just five seconds left in the half.
“(Next week we just need to) go back to work,” Bell said. “We’ll be out there Sunday, we’ll be Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday ready to go back to work and try to figure out how to win a ball game.