UMass-Buffalo | The Good, Bad & Ugly
UMass found a new way to lose in Saturday's 28-21 defeat to Buffalo.
AMHERST, Mass. - There was plenty of good, still too much bad and a little bit of ugly during UMass’ 28-21 loss to Buffalo here at McGuirk Alumni Stadium on Saturday.
THE GOOD
***The First Half
***Brandon Hood.
The Colorado transfer got the start at running back with Rocko Griffin still sidelined. Hood flashed the ability to bring some juice to the Minutemen out of the backfield. He showed that on UMass’ first touchdown drive, ripping off runs of 25 and 16 yards and helping set up the playaction on Hairston’s touchdown pass to Kez Dia-Johnson.
Hood’s biggest play of the game came when he ripped off a 90-yard touchdown run late in the second quarter that put UMass up 14-3.
He finished with 180 yards on 25 carries and the score.
With Jacquon Gibson still sidelined with an injury, Hood has emerged as UMass’ clear go-to playmaker.
***After being plagued by penalties all season, UMass played a relatively clean first half on Saturday.
The Minutemen were flagged for just two penalties for 9 total yards in the first half. And, one of those actually helped them.
***Harasymiak elected to go for it on 4th & 1 from UMass’ own 33-yard-line with nine minutes to play, leading by one. Running back Juwaun Price picked it up on his second effort.
***UMass’ defense came out with energy and solid tackling. Even if they were far from dominant, they limited explosive plays and were able to keep Buffalo out of the end zone until late in the second quarter.
The Bend-But-Don’t-Break approach provided the best 30+ minutes of defense UMass has played all season.
Buffalo quarterback Ta’Quan Roberson completed all six of his passing attempts on his opening drive, but the Minutemen kept every one in front of them and eventually stopped the Bulls in short-yardage to force a turnover on downs.
The Minutemen defense stiffened after allowing Buffalo to drive all the way into the red zone on the Bulls’ second drive, ultimately forcing a short Bulls field goal. UMass forced punts on Buffalo’s next three drives thanks to more solid tackling and a great pass breakup by Brennan Bailey on a deep ball in the second quarter.
Bailey had another key pass breakup on third down early in the fourth.
Not surprisingly, Buffalo finally managed to get in the end zone on the drive when the Bulls recorded their first explosive play, a 37-yard completion late in the second quarter previewed a 23-yard touchdown pass from Roberson to Victor Snow.
***Hairston’s pocket presence jump-started UMass’ first touchdown drive. He hung in the pocket and side-stepped a defender before running 21 yards to pick up a first down on 3rd and 13 from UMass’ own 10-yard-line.
Hairston is not a dual-threat quarterback, but if he can continue to slide away from pressure to extend plays, he’ll have the chance to do damage through the air and with his legs occasionally since defenses won’t be committing a defender to spying him.
But, more times than not, he’ll have chances at gamebreaking plays through the air in scramble mode like the one he made to Max Dowling that turned into a 77-yard touchdown pass.
Nothing was open, fans were shouting for him to run, but understanding he was unlikely to pick up the 12 yards needed for the first down, Hairston remained patient and hit Dowling as soon as he got open.
Credit to Dowling as well for staying and bounds and getting into the end zone, as even goal-to-go situations have proved troubling for the Minutemen this season.
***Marques White. The former Dartmouth and McNeese edge rusher has come up with big plays over the past couple weeks and did so again on Saturday.
***Special teams may not have made any truly special plays, but they were consistent. Keegan Andrews provided his usual deep boots and this time, the coverage team provided sure tackling.
***The crowd in the fourth quarter came alive and actually may have been responsible
THE BAD
***The Second Half.
***UMass’ pass defense continues to struggle as it can’t seem to marry up a pass rush with coverage consistently enough. When there is one, the other is often lacking and too many times, there is neither. The pass rush - and the coverage for that matter - was much better than it’s been and overall, it wasn’t terrible, but the pass defense continues to be the greatest weakness of a team that has plenty.
UMass having its best tackling day of the season limited big plays, but Buffalo was still able to move the chains consistently and when it mattered most, the Bulls completed three straight passes of 14, 20 and 16 yards to score the winning touchdown in the final seconds.
***UMass’ offense remains inconsistent - and if they do anything consistently, it’s failing to provide much threat.
The totality of UMass’ first-half offense came from two drives and really just five plays; Hairston’s scramble before Hood’s two runs, the playaction pass to Dia-Johnson and of course, Hood’s 90-yarder.
But outside of those two drives, UMass gained a total of 32 yards on 18 plays in the first half. Each of the Minutemen’s other five first-half drives, resulted in punts, which are better than turnovers, but four three-and-outs in 30 minutes is not ideal.
The totality of UMass’ second-half offense came on the play from Hairston to Dowling.
***Zeraun Daniel had a chance at a pick-6 early in the fourth quarter, but the pass was too hot to handle and Buffalo retained possession. Jeremiah McGill had a chance to get a pick with less than three minutes to play, but couldn’t come up with it keeping Buffalo’s drive alive.
THE UGLY
***The Fourth Quarter
***UMass’ time management in the fourth quarter couldn’t have been much worse.
UMass using tempo on offense midway through the fourth quarter was puzzling. Leading by one late, the Minutemen consistently snapped the ball with several seconds remaining on the play clock for no obvious reason.
The Minutemen preserved at least an extra minute of game time for Buffalo despite burning 7:52 off during the 15-play drive. Buffalo took over at UMass’ 36-yard line with 3:06 to play.
***An unsportsmanlike conduct penalty following McGill’s interception in the final minute was unnecessary and cost UMass 10 yards.
***An unnecessary pass interference penalty by Zeraun Daniel turned what would have been a 3rd & goal from the 4 into a 1st & goal from the 2, helping Buffalo take the lead for the first time midway through the third quarter.
Malcolm Greene’s pass interference in the third quarter was necessary as he was beaten badly on a double-move and it didn’t prove costly.
A holding penalty on center Benjamin Roy in the third quarter did prove costly as it wiped out a third-down conversion from Hairston to Donnie Gray. UMass would have to punt from its own end zone and instead of having a first down around midfield, Buffalo took over around midfield.
***UMass had to waste a timeout in the first quarter when the Minutemen attempted to send in a late substitution with Buffalo inside the UMass 10-yard-line. Harasymiak was unhappy about having to burn a timeout for the mix-up.
***A false start actually saved UMass from having a punt blocked in the first quarter.
In the third quarter, a false start on a punt wiped out what looked like it was going to be an unsuccessful fake punt.
***UMass got lucky when Roberson overthrew a wide open Victor Snow in the end zone for what should have been a 34-yard touchdown. The Minutemen didn’t have a defender anywhere near Snow.
The Minutemen were bailed out by a Buffalo holding penalty in the fourth quarter that wiped out what would have been a 55-yard touchdown pass. But the UMass secondary blew the coverage badly.
***Late in the second quarter, the ball was snapped before Hairston was ready, preventing UMass from having a chance to convert on third down and forcing them to punt the ball back to the Bulls with two minutes to play in the half. Andrews and the defense bailed the Minutemen out.
***Despite the beautiful weather and the promotion of a budding rivalry against Buffalo, the student section was sparse.
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