AMHERST — The 15th and final practice of the spring took place at McGuirk Alumni Stadium on Thursday morning, as for the first time in 2025, the UMass football team practiced outside of The Bubble thanks to 50 degree and sunny weather. Head coach Joe Harasymiak met with members of the media following practice and had a mix of emotions when asked about the spring.

He first pointed out the fact that many of the Minutemen players want to listen and learn. Everybody is trying to take the correct steps to turn the UMass football program around after its 14th consecutive losing season in 2024, but there is still a long way to go to get there.

“They’re listening, which is the first step to changing something,” Harasymiak said. “[They’re] trying to be consistent with their actions, which will be the key. I think changing anything, whatever you’re a part of, consistency will be the key to that. We’re not where we need to be at all. I’m sure the roster will change in the next week or so with a lot of things going on. We just got to get better.”

Harasymiak said the next week or so will be filled with individual player meetings as the spring portal window – which opened on Wednesday and closes on April 26 – heats up. The first-year head coach admitted that UMass “definitely” needs more pieces added to certain position groups, and mentioned that players on the roster right now will have tough decisions to make on whether they’re going to embrace what they’re being asked to do or if they decide to leave and go elsewhere.

“Changing, like I said, is about consistency and getting people that believe in what you want to believe in,” Harasymiak offered. “So we're going to have to have some tough meetings, but we'll be all right.”

The offensive line was probably the best group all spring, or, at least the most consistent. O-line coach Kurt Anderson has done a terrific job re-tooling what that position group looks like, and he landed several experienced players with terrific size up front. Anderson most recently coached at Northwestern for six seasons, where he mentored NFL Draft picks Peter Skoronski and Rashawn Slater. He was also an assistant offensive line coach with the Buffalo Bills from 2013-15, so Anderson certainly has a wealth of knowledge he brings to Amherst.

On the flip side, the defensive line is an area Harasymiak will likely do some work in the portal. There’s a certain brand that comes with being a team from the Northeast. He wants UMass to fit it.

“We play in New England,” Harasymiak said. “We play in Massachusetts. We’re going to live and die by up front. That’s on both sides of the ball. So that’ll be the emphasis moving forward.”

For a good portion of practice on Thursday, UMass spent time installing its situational packages – specifically two-minute offense and running out its special teams unit for late-game kicks. The Minutemen had a handful of opportunities to close out games in the fourth quarter last fall, but something always seemed to go wrong – anything from a special teams blunder to a pointless penalty or crushing turnovers.

Almost always the most disciplined team walks away with a victory, and Harasymiak is hammering home that notion. If the Minutemen want to win more football games, step No. 1 is to stop beating themselves.

“We have to learn how to stop losing games before we can win them,” Harasymiak said. “Situational football is the number one thing. Understanding your situation, what you’re in; teaching those things. That’s the biggest thing we’ve tried to stress on. [Thursday] we did a bunch of field goal situations, we did our end-of-game install. If you look at last year’s tape, they were in a lot of games late and some things didn’t go their way. We got to teach them. [Winning] is a learned skill, and usually the team that makes less mistakes in a critical situation has a better opportunity.”

What to expect in Saturday’s spring game

Harasymiak wants Saturday to be about as close to a real game is it can be, just without tackling.

UMass survived the spring without many injury issues, something both the coaching staff and players are happy about. So to ensure that remains the case this weekend, there won’t be any tackling going on between the two teams.

There will be two teams, a maroon and a white squad, although some positions will play both sides of the ball because of a lack of depth. Like a regular game, four 15-minute quarters are to be played. Each team will have a head coach, an assistant coach picked by Harasymiak, while offensive coordinator Mike Bajakian and defensive coordinator Jared Keyte will call the plays for each team’s offense/defense from the press box.

Kickoff is at noon at McGuirk Alumni Stadium and is free of charge.

As for Harasymiak, he doesn’t want to do any coaching. His role is to simply oversee the whole operation and make sure it’s run smoothly.

“I’ll be on the field, kind of just controlling everything,” he said. “Coach [Bajakian] and Coach [Keyte] will be in the box calling the offense and defense… We’ll compete like it’s a regular game, the only difference is we won’t go to the ground.”

When asked how he evaluates the spring game, Harasymiak voiced that it doesn’t hold any more weight than the 15 practices UMass just had. He treats it like anything else.

But if specific players weren’t giving it their all during the spring, he’ll be able to tell with how they perform on Saturday. And that’ll tell him everything he needs to know.

“Everything gets evaluated,” Harasymiak said. “We’ll treat it the same. Guys will be out there ready to compete, and that’s what we’re looking for – put guys in situations where they have to step up and you’ll truly find out who they are. When the bullets are flying, you’re going to fall to the level of your mastery. So if you haven’t been working very hard, and you think you’re just coasting through, that’s not what’s going to happen. You’re not going to be here.”