Adversity Has Come To UMass

After a disappointing opener, the Minutemen will need to rely on each other moving forward.

(UMass Athletics/Chris Tucci)

Joe Harasymiak always knew adversity would arrive, but the first-year UMass head coach had to be hoping its arrival would be delayed.

Nope. It showed up during the first game of his tenure in Amherst.

An opportunity to secure the goodwill and optimism of an entire fan base was ripped away as Temple shellacked UMass 42-10 in Harasymiak’s debut.

Even the most pessimistic Minutemen fans were relishing reasons to believe and for more than a quarter, it looked like they might have them. Instead, the 11,565 in attendance and more watching on ESPN+ were left dejected.

There were some signs of progress, but not enough to expect fans to overlook the end result.

An offense that looked legitimately potent at times isn’t going to be the story when it finishes with just 302 total yards and 10 points.

Did Brandon Rose look like a Power-4 level talent in drives to start the second and third quarters? Absolutely.

Rose connected on 10 of 11 passes for 76 yards combined to start those drives and had another attempt wiped out by a defensive pass interference penalty that placed the ball at the Temple’s 6 yard-line. He also flashed some of the athleticism that makes him a dual-threat quarterback.

But fans can’t be expected to place a greater emphasis on the beginnings of those drives than the ends of them as each of those drives ended with Rose giving the ball to the Owls.

Fans shouldn’t be expected to place a greater emphasis on Rocko Griffin’s 41-yard run that set UMass up with 1st-and-goal from the 3 than the fact that the Minutemen failed to get any points off it. Or, to make matters worse, that they promptly allowed a 55-yard Temple run on the Owls’ first play after the goal line stop.

As a program, UMass has not yet earned that benefit of the doubt. Maybe Harasymiak isn’t to blame for that, but the fans certainly aren’t the ones to blame either.

While a reasonable person could cherrypick some bright spots on offense - namely Griffin, Jacquon Gibson and, at times, Rose - even the most optimistic UMass fan would struggle to do so on the other side of the ball.

Harasymiak acknowledged communication breakdowns due to shuffling some players around late in the week. But he didn’t use that as an excuse.

And as discouraging as those communication breakdowns were, the plays the defense let up when there didn’t appear to be any such issues were even more alarming because those may be difficult - if not impossible - to fix this year.

So, instead of a team and a fan base being able to draw excitement from each other over the next couple months, the football team is going to have to go it alone for a while.

Harasymiak understands winning is the only thing that will allow his squad to recapture the faith of supporters, which is why he didn’t waste a syllable pleading for patience or attempt to shape the outside narrative.

He didn’t have time to check the pulse of the Minutemen faithful on social media before addressing his players after the game, but he didn’t need to.

“I told them exactly what was going to happen,” Harasymiak said after the game. “People are going to tell them it's the same old UMass. They will make assumptions.”

He was spot on.

“But this is why we're all here,” he continued. “They’ve got to block out the noise and they’ve got to keep believing in each other.

“You’ve got to remember they haven't done a lot of winning. So immediately when something goes wrong, that's where their mind goes and we're trying to teach them to block that out and it's hard to overcome and we got to get it done once and then it'll start to flow.”

If the confidence of the fans wasn’t shaken, that was only because there wasn’t much to shake to begin with.

But Harasymiak’s confidence isn’t shaken at all either.

He’s hinted this summer that the turnaround may not be immediate and while he was severely disappointed with the outcome, his belief in his process remains as strong as ever.

“Adversity is a revealer,” Harasymiak reiterated after the game.

Everybody within the program is about to learn a whole lot about each other and how far away they actually are.

Two words stuck out to me during Harasymiak’s postgame press conference more than any.

You know when somebody suffers some sort of devastating loss and their friends and family are worried about them, but they’re able to convince everybody that they’re indeed OK and will be just fine?

Well, there were no friends or family in the postgame press conference, but Harasymiak might as well have been speaking to them before they even had a chance to ask how he was after the game.

“I’m good,” he said with a shocking amount of confidence.

While some of the fanbase has already deemed UMass Football - and by extension, Harasymiak’s hiring - a failure, Harasymiak has the look and sound of a guy who has the answers to a test that hasn’t really started yet.

The reality is it is far too soon to pass judgement on the future of UMass Football or Harasymiak.

I’ve been on the inside of this sport long enough to realize it could go either way. But I’ve also been close to it long enough to recognize turnarounds like the one Harasymiak has been tasked with require a leader with a plan and an unshakeable belief in that plan.

Those ingredients don’t guarantee success, but they are absolute prerequisites and the Minutemen have all of them despite the results of Game One.

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