Transcript | UMass AD Ryan Bamford | 9.22.25
Everything UMass Director of Athletics Ryan Bamford told reporters during his press conference on Monday.
Getting into late September here and obviously you just talked to Joe about the non-conference piece and this is the first time in more than a decade that we've had the opportunity to then go into conference games and there's an excitement about that for our program and for this University and we're excited to kick it off with Homecoming in two weeks with Western Michigan. That gives you a shot at a second season, which we're excited about and as Joe referenced, we're hoping to catch some health here in the next couple of weeks and get into that back eight-game stretch with a more robust roster and depth, which I think will serve us well.
One of the things that I just wanted to talk through too is just sort of where the program is going and how we're getting prepared for what's next. We met during the bye week last week with Joe and a number of his personnel staff, player personnel staff and recruiting staff to talk about if the portal windows change, which Joe just referenced, and then obviously the opportunities that we have from an investment standpoint to take that next step and really getting organized now in the third week of September for what's about to hit in December, when you sign the first-year student-athletes and then in January, if we have that one portal window and being prepared to build more depth, to build more frontline talent and the ones in the twos. I told Joe, you focus on the here and now and we're going to focus on getting prepared for what's in front of us in a couple months to rebuild and to remake the roster so that we have continued growth in the program, which is what we want to see, especially going into the second year in the MAC.
How can you assure fans that there is that continued growth with that 0-3 start?
Well, one of the things that I'm focused intently on, I can't control the W & the L's right now, but certainly we can with the way that we invest in this program and when we made our move to the MAC and made a coaching change last year, we focused on three very important things.
We focused on our physical plant for this program and that's going to come by way of what we did in the locker room, two-plus million dollar project and then in December, we'll be prepared to roll out probably a three-phase approach to a complete overhaul of our stadium to try to upgrade that and that is really important to the success of this program over the long term.
The second thing was to make sure that we had the staffing resources to be competitive in this environment in FBS. I think you've seen that in the growth of our staff and in the experience of our staff under Joe. He's made some really good hires.
And then the third thing is roster management and how we're developing that roster. Joe just talked about kind of flipping it from being a transfer-heavy stage, which is what we've been the last three years to try to win quick and to really make that a complementary aspect. We're going to have to get in the portal, but we want to retain the talented kids that we have in the program now. We want to bring in ones that we can develop and so we have worked extensively on that over the last nine months with Joe and staff. What does that look like? What does that mean we're going to need to do from an aid/additional benefits/NIL standpoint. And candidly, we're going to have to overinvest to win. We've had a sort of deferred maintenance of this program for more than a decade and it means that you have to invest more than maybe some others do to get out of it. And the only way out is up. And so we're focused on making sure that we put the key investments in the right places.
I think those are three; staffing, physical plant and what we can do from an aid, additional benefits and NIL standpoint. Those are absolutely paramount to our success and that is what we're focused on. I let Joe manage the X's and O's and what he's doing right now for the next nine games, but my staff, we're keenly focused on how do we put our arms around this program to give Joe and his staff everything they need to be successful and that work does not end. We've got our head down plowing forward on that.
Is that more a theme of trying to obtain more resources or be more strategic with them?
Both. Really, the strategy's been the important part, but I haven't met a head coach or an AD that says they have enough and especially in this day and age. So my goal is to continue to grow what we're doing and I think we're really set up well for our current MAC peer group, but I think we need to be substantially beyond them to get ourselves out of this and that's what we're focused on. We had a two or three-year plan, I talked about it when we hired Joe. Candidly, I've blown that up and we're going to invest even more than we anticipated because of this and that's going out and getting resources, that's going out and making sure that the people that are important to those decisions and those investments are well-equipped to make further investments and that our strategy is sound, that we can go out and implement it because investing, if you're not doing it smartly doesn't work, right?
We feel like we've got a good plan in place, we have to make sure we can fund it accordingly, but we're not content with what the plan was even six months ago. We're going into overdrive and we're going to drive this forward. We have to pull this program out of losing and it's going to take a lot to do that and we recognize that and it's been 12-plus years of mediocrity to little success at times here in the most recent future. And again, we're going to have to oversubscribe and overinvest to get ourselves out of it. We're prepared to do that and I'm going to work diligently to that end to make sure that it happens.
What type of physical plant improvements are we talking about?
The stuff to the stadium will be, a lot of it will be around the fan experience. The first phase will be a number of fan experiential things that'll be prepared for the '26 season because a lot of these projects are hard to get done between the time that the season ends with commencement also being in May. So you'll see more of our sights and sounds, some of the things that are integral to the game day experience in Year One. The second and third phases, which will come in the second and third years, are going to be more structural. They're going to be more aesthetic. They're going to be more about what our stadium looks like, feels like, how it attracts people, what the visual is. When you come down Bernie Dallas Mall, when you go by, come onto campus and look at the stadium on your left, I want that to look different. I want the experience when people come to our venue to feel different. We're hopeful that by the 2028 year all of these projects will be completed and right now it's between a 25 to $30 million spend. We're working through that now. We just had another really long meeting last week and I'm hopeful that in December we'll be prepared to roll out what that will look like and feel like and what people can expect in the '26 season, the '27 season, the '28 season.
Again, I can't say it enough, this is deferred maintenance for us. We have to now catch ourselves up and we have to do it quickly. There's no doubt. And this building's just over 10 years old and we just put another two and a half million dollars into it and we're going to continue to spend to make sure that this building stays state-of-the-art, stays where it is. This is the strength of ours, this building, but the stadium needs improvements and needs an overhaul and we're working really, really hard in the next two months to make sure that we cross T's, dot I's and get that plan done and start executing it when the season ends.
Is that primarily private funding or are you working with the Commonwealth to try to get state funding?
It'll be a combination. There'll be some private funds. There won't be general operating funds from the state per se, but there'll be some funding models that we've created that I would say are creative through the University, with the help of our trustees and will allow us to take on some debt service that we think we can service pretty well over the next 20 to 30 years. And again, just recognizing that we have to take a big step forward to be able to get this done and to make sure that the impact of these changes is seen throughout our fan base, but also gives Joe and his staff something that they can recruit to, that our stadium, we look at it as a strength and not as a weakness.
In terms of the recruits as you mentioned, how can you get those guys to want to stay here with the losing history?
Well, I think it's the way you treat them every day. It's the experiential stuff. It's making sure that what we do from an academic standpoint, being a top public research university is important. The degree is important to a lot of these guys, to our student-athletes. I think the way that we feed them, the nutrition, the sports performance. If they feel like they're growing and developing and getting better, then they're going to stay. And then let's not mistake it, I think NIL is really important and making sure that guys feel like they have an opportunity to have success in that space as well and that we're funding it appropriately.
If a Power 4 program is targeting some of our student-athletes, it's going to be hard to keep up with those resources, but I want to make sure that we are being strategic about the guys that we keep and that we battle every time to make sure that in any offseason. The interesting thing about this new portal window if it goes through is the month of December, you can't go out and recruit and you don't have a portal opening. So you have a chance from the time your season ends through the holiday break to really spend time with your roster and say, 'Where do we get better?' But also, 'How do we double-down on the guys that are here that are going to allow us to grow as a program?' It's going to be a new environment. I actually think it's going to be a strength for us to spend more time and to make sure that we're doing the right things by the guys on our current roster before we dive into the portal in January and we're going to have the resources to keep I think the guys that are going to ultimately matter to our long-term success.
You talked about deferred maintenance for a decade. Why now? Why not three or four years ago? Why now?
Now, I think we've got a better plan. With the conference. I think we were in no man's land and when you're Independent, I got asked the question, I was independent. I'm obviously not going to crush our program while we're Independent saying, 'Oh, it's such a struggle when you're trying to recruit as an Independent.' But now that we've got a home, now that we've got a vision for what we can do to go to bowls and ultimately to win championships and to grow this program, the conference is by far the greatest growth opportunity we've had. I think the first year that I was here, it was our last year in the MAC, we were already leaving. We knew we were leaving when I took the job. I think we could all look back retroactively and say, 'Boy, if we had stayed in the MAC, would we be in the same place in 2025?' I'd objectively say probably not. We'd probably be in a much better place and the investments would've made more sense because we would've had a peer group to compare ourselves to.
So now we've got a plan and now it's a lot easier to tell the story and to try to execute on the plan, to try to ultimately get to the top of our current peer group and then go from there. We have long-term aspirations for this program that were hard to really justify and quantify in the last decade, and that's just candid. When you're talking to donors or you're talking to leadership on campus or at the state level or trustees, you don't know where you're going as an Independent. It's hard. It's a hard lot. As we've now resurfaced and back in the MAC in the last 18 months since we made that business decision, it's been easier to say, 'This is the strategy for success. We have to keep investing in this to ultimately meet our goal.' I think people can see. Even at 0-3, I think people can see that we've made an appreciable difference in some of the things that we're able to do and that we're going to be able to do and that will pay dividends. That will have benefits down the line and I'm excited for that day when it comes because it's been a long time coming, obviously
Blowing up the three-year plan and expediting it, what was the impetus of that? Is it the 0-3 start? Is it being able to see that the lack of depth or roster?
You learn every day and you learn every game, certainly. Look, I would say this and after the Iowa game, and I'll say it again to Joe after Missouri, Joe inherited this schedule. I built this schedule and I said to him after the Iowa game like, 'Hey man, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that we had to go.' These are the tests that we have to have here as we unwind our schedule from being an Independent to now going to a league, you're learning a lot. Our depth has been challenged. We've had to play a lot of guys that we didn't anticipate playing. Not an excuse. You don't hear Joe talk a lot about it. He doesn't talk a lot to me about it. It is literally Next Man Up. Nobody cares that you have depth issues except for the people that care about our program.
With the 105 guys on our roster, every single one of them has to allow us the ability to compete and to win on Saturday. Whether that's if you're on the scout team on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, getting us prepared, or you're a one or two or a three, and now we're getting into the threes, the fours and the fives. We have to upgrade the roster. Anytime you're not winning, I think that's the easy fix. But I look at every ingredient to this program that we have tried to fix and solve, there are some that we're making headway in and it may not feel that way to the people outside. I get that. I have a calm about this because I can see what's happening and I know that our fan base is frustrated by it and they're going to listen to that sound byte and they're going to say, well, Ryan's been telling us these things. Listen, I'm always going to project positivity, but there's a sense of purpose that the people in this building have and it's harder than I think even our coaches thought coming in. I would acknowledge that, but there's a calm and a purpose to what we're about to do and what we're doing now that I'm sort of excited about because I think we finally have the resources to do it. In a program that hasn't won, I know people think that you can flip a switch, it just doesn't happen overnight. We have to build that culture of winning. You have to win some close games. You have to have kids believe when stuff gets tight in the fourth quarter, you can't be looking at each other saying, 'Uh oh, here we go again.' No, we've got to cut that out and we have to make sure that that culture persists and that winning culture ultimately overtakes anything we've been in our past. It's not tangible, right? It's not like you go spend more money and the culture changes. So that's something that Joe, they're focused on that and I'm hopeful about what that's going to do.
At the same time, do you understand the fans' frustrations in terms of how long it's been? Even though you're saying you can't flip the switch, how long it's been, they seem like they've heard that before. Do you understand that?
No doubt. Understand it, appreciate it, respect it, recognize it. Look, I've been here for 10 years. I'm in my 11th. I've worked really hard to flip the script on this program and to date, it hasn't worked. I said it in Joe's press conference. Ultimately, I'm responsible for that as the leader of our department. We haven't been in the position we're in now. We haven't been resourced in a way that's allowed us, we haven't. We've been Independent. That's been a challenge. We're in a conference. I think all the variables and ingredients are coming to alignment here to allow us to have success. Ultimately, we have to go do it. You can't keep talking about it. I get that. We've been talking a lot about it. We've got to be about it now we have to do it, and I recognize that. I know people are frustrated and that's OK. That's OK. We're all big boys. We're ready to take on this challenge. We've been ready. We're doing our level best to change this environment, change this culture. There aren't a lot of people that will give it, but I'll continue to ask for a little bit of patience as we work through it and make this happen.
What kind of progress would you like to see from the team in the next eight, nine games?
Well, one, I'd like us to hopefully get healthy so we can really see what more depth might mean for us. And gosh, if we can go through a game without losing another handful of starters like we've done the first three games, that would be great. We've had to ask guys to grow up quickly and that will pay dividends down the line with guys that are having to play now. I'd love for us to be closer to full strength so we can see what this program can do, but at the end of the day, the next nine games is going to be a challenge in an SEC building this week, and then we get into the eight-game MAC schedule. I'm hopeful that we can just start to see progress. We need to build momentum going into the offseason. I think that's what every program's looking to do, but an eight-game stretch in the MAC. I think there's certainly some wins out there, and I don't ever put numbers on things, but I'd like to just continue to see progress. I see it in the way that we comport ourselves every day. Our guys are doing a really nice job in the way that they handle their business off the field, and I'd like that to mean something with some success on the field too. I think they deserve it. They've worked really hard.
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