Harasymiak Believes Upgraded Roster Will Lead To Results For UMass In 2026
UMass head coach Joe Harasymiak spoke to reporters following the first practice of the spring on Tuesday.
Joe Harasymiak isn’t overcomplicating what went wrong at UMass in 2025 or what he expects to change in 2026.
For the second-year head coach, it starts with a simple reality.
It’s not about scheme. It’s about players.
Or as has often been said about college football, it’s about the Jimmy’s and the Joe’s more than the X’s and the O’s.
After going 0-12 his first season in Amherst, Harasymiak spent the offseason reshaping the roster, leaning heavily on the transfer portal and a revamped recruiting approach in an effort to raise the program’s baseline talent.
“When you recruit good enough, you get better players and you keep going,” Harasymiak said during a press conference following the first day of spring practice on Tuesday.
“Since we’ve been FBS, we just probably haven’t recruited well enough.”
There was room for new players to come into the program by virtue of old players departing and Harasymiak provided statistics to illustrate why he expects this season’s roster to be greatly improved over last year’s.
“Not counting graduation, I think we had 68 guys leave this program,” he said. “Six of them play FBS football. Six.”
The majority of the rest transferred down to FCS, Division-II or Division-III and the rest quit the sport.
Harasymiak believes that accounted for much of the injury issues the Minutemen dealt with in 2025 as well.
“You’ve got to figure out what happened, why did it happen and you have to change,” he said. “We have four people in recruiting now. There was one spot when I got here. That matters. There are front offices in college sports now. We’re getting there. And all I care about is the MAC. I don’t care what Power Four has, I don’t care what Memphis has. I care about the MAC. It’ll come down to those eight games.
“I think we have a higher quality player. A lot of times in my history, when you’re not strong enough and you might not be an FBS player, you’re going to get hurt a little bit more. So I think we fixed that hopefully.”
The implication was clear.
UMass didn’t just need tweaks. It needed a talent overhaul.
That overhaul has largely come through the portal, where Harasymiak pointed to quarterback, offensive line and defensive line as the biggest needs.
The quarterback position was addressed with the additions of Pop Watson and RJ Johnson while the Minutemen added three offensive linemen and seven defensive linemen.
Harasymiak pointed to Watson’s family, especially his parents, for instilling strong values in him.
“People can change, but when they have a foundation that has been there and you’re the son of a coach, it brings a lot to the table,” Harasymiak said, referring to the fact that Watson’s father, Bill, is the head football and basketball coach at Central High School in Springfield.
Harasymiak also pointed to Watson’s natural leadership qualities.
“Everybody gravitates toward him,” the coach said. “He wants to be front and center, which I think for a quarterback we lacked last year. We kind of said we wanted to, but we didn’t.
“He’s a leader. He’s extremely competitive in everything he does”
Size and speed were also priorities in the portal.
“We needed some size,” said Harasymiak. “We got pushed around a little bit.”
Still, the evaluation process went beyond measurables.
“We paid more attention to who the person was,” Harasymiak said. “Wanting to be here, challenging them that it’s going to take a special type of person to do what we need to do.”
The result is a roster that looks dramatically different from the one that took the field a year ago and beyond.
“84 percent of this roster’s ours,” Harasymiak said, referring to the fact that only 11 scholarship players remain from the roster he inherited when he was hired in December of 2024.
With the new group in place, Harasymiak believes the foundation is stronger, but he’s not suggesting that alone guarantees immediate results.
Instead, the focus this spring will be on building an identity that matches the upgraded talent.
“We’ve got to get tougher, we’ve got to get stronger,” he said. “We’ve got to build a better identity. Our thing in the spring is about earning everything.”
That mindset has also showed up in how the program structured its offseason.
UMass went through six straight weeks of grueling strength work before opening spring practice, a deliberate decision aimed at changing both the physical and mental makeup of the team.
“We grinded them for six weeks,” Harasymiak said. “Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday.
“We’ve got to get back to the qualities that I believe this place had in the past when they were successful.”
That approach will continue through the spring and the summer.
“We are going to grind you into the earth,” Harasymiak said. “And when you think you’re going to quit, we’re going to keep going.”
While the roster has been rebuilt and the approach adjusted, Harasymiak understands that none of it matters without results.
“We need to win,” he said. “That’s what we need to do. That’s why I’m here.”
At the same time, he acknowledged that turning around a program with UMass’ history at the FBS level will not happen overnight.
Still, there is an urgency across the roster, particularly with a group of players plucked from the portal looking to prove something.
“These guys have been selected to come here and take on a great challenge,” he said.
For a program that has struggled to find traction at the FBS level, Harasymiak believes that combination of improved talent, clearer identity and relentless approach is the path forward.
Whether it translates immediately in the win column remains to be seen.
But in his mind, it is the only way.
“We’ve got to win. That’s what this is about and that’s what’s going to fix everything.”
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