AMHERST, Mass. - UMass head coach Joe Harasymiak met with the media after the Minutemen’s 31-30 overtime win over Ball State on Wednesday night at McGuirk Alumni Stadium.
Harasymiak called it an awesome college football game and credited Ball State, then kept coming back to how proud he was that his players kept fighting, through the Cardinals’ tying two-minute drill late in regulation and again after Ball State scored first in overtime. He called the game a turning point for the program and said everybody has to get involved in taking it to the next level.
He said he did think about taking one shot at the end of regulation with three timeouts left, but with the ball inside his own 20 after a miscommunication on the kickoff return, he did not want to risk a turnover and preferred to have his players fresh for overtime.
Most of the praise went to Pop Watson.
Harasymiak said the explosive plays were huge, throwing and running, and that the offense hit the shots it thought it could get behind the defense, including the 64-yard touchdown to Jabari Lewis late in the first half. On Watson taking over with his legs in the second half, he said when you cut a player like that loose, you let him be who he is, and he is glad Watson is his quarterback. He also singled out Watson’s leadership, from getting the offense going on the sideline in the third quarter to picking up T.Y. Harding after his second fumble, saying that is what quarterbacks and leaders have to do.
Defensively, Harasymiak said the unit has done a great job all year, kept UMass in games and won games, but he was blunt that the Minutemen are now 0-2 in the exact late-game situation Ball State scored on and have to get better at it, starting with the eye control and missed assignments from the first drive. He said the game was waiting for one team to go up two scores, and UMass has to start putting games away on both sides of the ball.
Despite the fumbles, the missed field goal and the dropped passes, Harasymiak said the response told him about the culture.
“I would say that this is a completely different culture than what we’ve had,” Harasymiak said.
He said the team practiced all week like one that had not lost four straight, that five wins is the most UMass has had at the FBS level, and that the job now is to go get six, seven and eight.
On injuries, Harasymiak said Isaiah Reed went out with what he believed was a head-related issue and Joe Griffin did not finish the game after coming up limp. He also addressed the week’s distractions, Dallas Elliott among them, saying the team’s connection is what carries it through, and that his message to the players the night before was that there was no choice. They had to go out and do it, and they did.
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