For 29 minutes and 59 seconds last Saturday, it looked like the Massachusetts football team was on its way to win No. 1 of the 2001 season.

Up 17-0 with 35 ticks lingering in the first half, the Minutemen defense primed itself at New Hampshire’s 35-yard line for the Wildcats’ closing offensive cracks.

And when New Hampshire’s Michael Hurley was tackled at the UNH 49-yard line with no time visibly left on McGuirk Stadium’s scoreboard, UMass’ half-concluding safeguard seemed to be complete.

The Massachusetts band even began to march its way onto the field.

But the compilation of steel and brass was soon pushed back to the sidelines when a referee signaled that Hurley had called a timeout with one second remaining.

On the ensuing play, Wildcat Stephan Lewis caught a 49-yard Hail Mary hurl – after it ricocheted off a pack of Minutemen – to solidify six points for New Hampshire and enact the momentum it needed to outscore UMass 29-7 in the second half and cruise to the 35-24 victory.

“We have to learn how to finish,” said UMass Head Coach Mark Whipple, recalling the play that ultimately sent his Minutemen to their fifth straight loss. “That’s the big thing – learning how to finish a half; learning how to finish a game.

It has been a rough start. UMass is 0-5 (0-3 Atlantic 10).

In those five losses, it has scored just 67 points. And in that same stretch, its opponents have tallied 186.

Still, somewhere in his stomach, Whipple somehow senses hope for the near future.

“I don’t know why, in my gut, I feel better than I have all year,” said Whipple, whose Minutemen will host A-10 foe James Madison Saturday at 1 p.m. “And obviously I’m crazy.

“At yesterday’s practice we had three NFL scouts come over and say, ‘Coach, you guys haven’t won a game?’ I said ‘I don’t know, you figure it out.'”

Figuring this team out is definitely a tricky venture. Sure, there are some positives (most notably on offense), and it is nice to indulge in them – when it is all you have – but the Minutemen remain winless. And it will be hard to take Whipple’s revelations seriously until UMass does, finally, come out on top.

However, this week, if any, is the right week to be making such statements of audacity. Like the Minutemen, James Madison (1-5, 0-5 A-10) has also lost five straight football games. And even though the combined scores of those games compute to only 95-120, the Dukes’ confidence cannot be too lofty at the moment. Their last victory came in their opener versus Elon, a 42-21 conquest on Sept. 1.

James Madison is led by quarterback Matt Lezotte. The 6-foot-2, 190 pound redshirt freshman turned some heads in his team’s 44-45 double overtime loss going 34-for-58 for 376 yards with three touchdowns. But in the Dukes’ latest loss to Richmond (17-20) Lezotte went 15-for-28 for only 117 yards and was picked off three times.

Lezotte will go head-to-head with UMass’ version of the redshirt freshman signal caller, Matt Guice. Coming off his best game thus far for the Maroon and White, the 6-foot-2, 207-pounder broke the school records Saturday for total offensive yards (416), total offensive attempts (79), passing yards (403) and passing attempts (63).

“I went to Matt Guice last Monday and I said ‘I’ll tell you where we’re at. I’m putting this thing on your shoulders,'” said Whipple, with the knowledge that power runner Omari Howard wouldn’t be playing, and scat back Kevin Quinlan was questionable. “‘We are going to throw the football and you’re going to get it done – somehow, some way – and you’re going to come of age.’ That’s a lot to put on a redshirt freshman’s shoulders in a program of our magnitude and I think he came through very, very well.”

The Minutemen and Dukes are similar teams in similar situations. Both are young, both are feeling the hurt of several wounded company, and both are desperately in need of a win. The last time these two matched up, it ended in a 28-26 UMass victory. Look for Saturday’s score to be as close, with quite possibly the same result.

Last week, the Minutemen tasted triumph for a short while. And thoughts of a winless season are not the most comfortable emotions. To save this season, UMass must put something together this Saturday.

“I think our guys, from Saturday’s game, know they can win,” Whipple said. “Before the game, I don’t think they knew that.”