Earlier this season, new Massachusetts football coach Don Brown talked about his team’s week two game with Colgate as one that he wanted to win for his players. After last season’s Division I-AA first round playoff debacle, Brown knew when he took over the Minutemen that there was an extremely bitter taste in his team’s mouth over the 19-7 loss, a taste he wanted to cleanse by coaching his team into the best possible position to beat the Red Raiders under the lights on Sept. 11.

Despite being relegated to the press box as part of the fallout from his well-publicized legal battle with Northeastern University, Brown laid out a winning game plan and led UMass to a rousing 30-20 victory. In what has evolved into an up-and-down season, it was certainly one of the emotional high points of 2004.

Now, nearly two months later, it’s time for the members of the Massachusetts football team to return the favor to their coach. On the eve of their battle with NU, Brown’s former employer, it’s time for the Minutemen to come together emotionally in support of a cause like they did against Colgate, and continue to play like they have over each of the last three weeks. It’s what their first-year coach clearly deserves.

There has been no secret made of the love lost between Brown and Northeastern, but as most football coaches do, he refuses to let himself become the spotlight. As far as he is concerned, football is always about players and never about coaches, an outlook that will not change for any opponent.

Nonetheless, this is a game that any living, breathing coach in his position wants to have at any cost. Yes, it is a late-season conference game crucial to UMass’ quest for a winning season, but there is no hiding the underlying personal nature and true ramifications of this contest.

What Northeastern did in successfully negotiating for Brown’s three-game suspension was shameful, tasteless and unprofessional in the opinion of this writer. The lawsuit and suspension deliberately embarrassed a proud man and a good football coach, and effectively tarnished what should have been an exciting time for Brown and his family. After revamping a traditionally pitiful football program and bringing in some of the best players to ever play for the Huskies, it was not what Brown deserved – not what any man deserved, regardless of the situation.

With that being said, if there isn’t a reason for the Minutemen to be at their best on Saturday, then good luck finding one. Football is an emotional roller coaster played out over a long, grueling season by a family of men, and reciprocation often helps keeps teams together. Brown had the backs of the Jason Peeblers and the Shannon James when it was Colgate that needed to be beaten, and now it is up to those same leaders of this team to see that Brown has that same effort coming back his way.

Brown continues to stress that his team will approach Saturday’s game as if it were any other, but vengeance is not something one can ask for, it is simply carried out. As the weeks pass, Brown continues to watch his first UMass team fight from whistle to whistle, come together and become closer as a group than they have all season – that must not change on Saturday.

There is a lot more at stake than just an intra-state football game when the Minutemen and Huskies square off. Very simply, these two schools no longer like each other for a myriad of obvious reasons, and an intense, vicious and bitter rivalry has been born. The Minutemen know they smell blood, and for the right reasons. So in the name of the coach, sophomore wide receiver Brandon London referred to as a “father figure” earlier this week, they must go for the jugular, and go hard.

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