With just over an hour to go before the kickoff of their first round game in the 2003 Division I-AA football playoffs, the Colgate Red Raiders, undefeated champion of the Patriot League, were alone on their home field.

Why? Because the Massachusetts team bus very nearly plunged off the side of a mountain road while attempting to forge its way through the weather that prompted coach Mark Whipple to phone his wife and children and tell them to remain at the hotel, “rather than risking their lives” traveling to the game. By the time the Minutemen arrived, they barely had enough time to put on their uniforms, let alone prepare for the biggest game of the season.

Meanwhile, Andy Kerr Stadium – not to be confused with an actual stadium, but rather more like the school’s back yard where they also happen to play football – was beyond repair. Frozen clods of mud and wind-whipped heaps of snow replaced white-lined green grass. It was to the point that spotting the football became more of a wild guess then an exact science.

For a pair of teams coming off spectacular seasons, there could not have been a worse setting to play a make-or-break game.

By the time the ‘Gate had escaped the first round with a 19-7 win over UMass, the joke had long since been on the Massachusetts football team. The 2003 Minutemen had gone 10-2 during a record-setting romp through its regular season schedule, losing only to I-A Kansas State and eventual I-AA Champion Delaware, and were deserving of a home game in the Division I-AA Playoffs. Instead they were sent spiraling into one of the worst travesties in school history.

Call it crying, excuse-making or sour grapes; this journalist could care less, because what happened on Nov. 29, 2003 was just plain wrong. On that afternoon, the Minutemen had more total offense, rushing yards and first downs. They had five fewer punts, a better third-down conversion rating and fewer penalties. They held Walter Payton Award winner Jamaal Branch to just 59 yards on 25 carries and while ‘Gate fans blame that on the conditions, UMass’ Steve Baylark was able to gain 84 yards on five fewer carries in the same stuff. Go figure.

UMass was the better team that afternoon. The team was victimized by a sequence of circumstances unprecedented in collegiate athletics. Circumstances that were only vindicated when Delaware, just three weeks removed from slipping past UMass in triple overtime, went a long way in reinforcing the injustice with a 40-0 romp over Colgate in the I-AA title game.

Nonetheless, it’s a new year and the time for redemption is here. On Saturday night, before a season opening crowd, band director George Parks’ drum line will march into McGuirk Alumni Stadium, and the fun will begin. The new Maroon and White will have their crack at the Raiders on a fair and even playing surface, and the better team will ultimately prevail, once and for all.

There will be no travel, no snow and no wind. The ball won’t slip out of the hands of Minutemen four separate times. Michael Torres won’t narrowly miss breaking his leg on a field goal attempt, and an official blinded by 25 feet of blustery snow won’t throw a flag on a third-and-long he didn’t even see.

No, there won’t be a thing going wrong for UMass on this night. With new coach Don Brown watching from the press box, the 2004 Minutemen will prove that revenge is actually a dish best served warm, on a late summer night, under the lights.

From the moment they arrive in the Pioneer Valley this weekend, Dick Biddle’s Red Raiders will not stand a chance because this UMass team is out for the blood they smelled 10 months ago and when it’s all said and done, they will earn the victory they so rightfully deserve. That’s a guarantee.

Mike Marzelli is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].