Quick Thoughts: UMass is Coming Back & The MAC Ain't Dying, Baby
UMass is joining the MAC — and if it's good for the MAC, then it's good for college football.
Welcome back home, UMass.
The MAC is happy to have you back after all these years, and we can only hope this adds more excitement across college football.
No, UMass hasn’t been excellent on the football field lately. Hardly ever since it made the jump up from FCS to FBS in 2012. UMass wanted the best of both worlds: attempting to finally establish itself at the highest level of college football while also letting basketball and Olympic sports to continue to flourish in the Atlantic-10. UMass certainly established itself on the football front (wasn’t pretty) and the MAC decidedly had its boundaries set. Four years after teetering both lives, UMass wouldn’t give up its A10 prestige for the MAC full-time, so the league walked and let UMass live a life of independence.
(Independence, of course for those not named Notre Dame, required some sort of scheduling dependency from MAC teams; but an FBS independent nonetheless.)
Since the split after the 2015 season, UMass football has mustered up a 16-72 record overall. The Minutemen have been an FBS program for over a decade now and they still haven’t experienced a bowl trip.
As for UMass hoops? Its men’s team has only had two winning seasons since the split (2020 & this season). The women’s program, especially when former EMU head coach Tory Verdi was in charge from 2016-2023, got the Minutewomen to win an A10 tournament one year and win an A10 regular season title the next.
The expectation through multiple reports is that UMass will come back to the MAC full-time beginning with the 2025-2026 school year.
Some thoughts…
This is good for college football.
I don’t care if there are people out there that think that this news is nothing better than “crappy league adds crappy football team.” I’m tired of looking at ways rich puppies get better treatment in the sport and get told to think about how their benefits are what’s really good for this sport. What’s best for this sport is the added life, inspiration, excitement, and knowing brighter days are ahead for the absolute lowest levels.
Yes, the MAC is better today by reportedly adding UMass, and that’s a step in the right direction for college football.
UMass has truly hit a wall identity-wise by not having a conference to pair with.
Getting football talent through the door at the high school level is incredibly important, and I’m sure UMass wants to be more than just an Island of Misfit Toys destination by transfers.
UMass didn’t get to the FBS level by being bad at football though. It’s won 21 conference titles as a member of the Yankee, A10 and Colonial Athletic Association conferences dating back to 1960 and won a Division 1-AA/FCS national championship in 1998 with a 55-43 score over Georgia Southern - a current Sun Belt member.
UMass has a dedicated and loyal fanbase that goes back generations. This isn’t a bad sports school where nobody cares about what’s going on. People that go and went to UMass really have a passion for their sports. I used to blog with some UMass fans over a Hustle Belt, so believe me when I say that’s a fanbase that’s good for numbers on the media front — especially in this league.
Bowl games are overrated if those are all your teams are playing for, especially since a lot of teams still end up losing money by making the trips. UMass would love to one day lose money on a bowl trip because that means they finally made it to one, but bowl trips as an independent probably aren’t as fun of seasons to play through as low-level independents. Being in a conference gives that fanbase some recognizable friends and enemies to now reliably play against every year, and they get to be in a conference that’s so much more drivable than literally any other option out there.
What about the pods?
Remember, the MAC got rid of the East/West splits in football. Instead, there are four pods with three teams each. While my hope is that the MAC’s expansion is only now starting with UMass with the hopes to add other sitting FBS schools in the very near-future, I think the MAC has positioned itself well to maybe have four pods with up to four teams each.
Sure there are 13 once UMass is officially added, but a conference as large as 16 that’s largely driveable for its fanbases is a great goal to set for itself. And of course, it all has to start with adding UMass again. And with UMass in first, I think the most common-sense solution is to add it to the Buffalo/Akron/Kent State pod.
Is the door still open for Western Kentucky + Middle Tennessee?
I want Western Kentucky, and Kyle Rowland of the Toledo Blade reported that Western Kentucky also, still, wants the MAC. Middle Tennessee would be silly to be A-OK with its place in Conference-USA without its biggest rival, and think about how many new fans will be able to be introduced to the 100 Miles of Hate if were able to also call it “MACtion.”
Let’s just throw it out there. 15 isn’t an ideal number, but what does a 15-team conference look like if the MAC were able to add to that size? Doesn’t matter if it’s a short-term or long-term solution; can the MAC make itself look presentable if there are 15, not 16, schools in its league?
Yes, actually.
By re-drawing the four pods very slightly, the MAC could find itself with still four pods, three of four teams and a third with three schools. All of the four-team pods will have regionally-convenient rivals (old and new), and the conference of three is still the Michigan MAC as we know it.
My proposed, potential future-looking MAC if things go right.
Akron, Buffalo, Kent State, UMass — Includes the Wagon Wheel and Buffalo-UMass can now create a rivalry, or at least be heated divisional foes in the Northeast.
Ball State, Northern Illinois, Middle Tennesse, Western Kentucky — Includes the Bronze Stalk and 100 Miles of Hate
Bowling Green, Miami, Ohio, Toledo — Includes the Battle for the Bricks and Battle of I-75
Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Western Michigan — The Michigan MAC
MTSU balked when the opportunity came in 2021, and WKU stayed in Conference-USA alongside its rivals. Publicly, the MAC ended talks first. But WKU didn’t want to stop talking about what the MAC could’ve meant, maybe one day mean, for the Hilltoppers.
WKU AD Todd Stewart told the Bowling Green Daily News (in Kentucky) in 2021 that “It’s like riding this carousel of madness right now, in terms of just all the movement and the constant change and knowing that there will be another wave of this,” and “the MAC would’ve enabled us to get off this carousel of madness and enjoy the rest of the theme park because there’s a lot of great things about college athletics,” and “we got into the process a little bit and then all of a sudden one wasn’t interested as much, so I think that changed things from the standpoint of all of a sudden now they’re not adding an even number, they’re adding an odd number, and 14 for scheduling purposes and divisional purposes is more appealing than 13 is,” and “over the last five years, [the MAC] has performed across the board, top to bottom, better than Conference USA in football and men’s and women’s basketball.”
Well, the MAC’s structured much differently today than it was back in 2021, and adding a 13th like UMass apparently made more sense than adding WKU all by itself as a 13th three years ago.
Sure, 16 teams sounds like a clean, even number for a conference’s size, but the MAC could find itself with 15 one day and shop around for a potential 16th down the road. If there’s anything that I’ve learned about how the MAC’s going to go about adding a 16th, if at all, will be a very slow and monotonous process. Years, perhaps.
