Massachusetts football coach Charley Molnar sat up night after night with haunting visions of empty blue seats at Gillette Stadium flashing through his nightmares.
Students and Amherst residents chose against the 10-hour commitment on Saturdays to view UMass through its competitive – well, sort of – inaugural season in the Football Bowl Subdivision.
But Friday night, Molnar had finally had enough. Move over, Gillette; the Minutemen finally have a home that should have no problem drawing support from the students.
UMass agreed to a 10-year contract Sunday to make the quad-lot in the Townehouse Apartment Complex the home field for the Minutemen for the foreseeable future.
“We just had to ask ourselves what the best way was to get people to watch this team,” UMass Athletic Director John McCutcheon said. “And after hearing of the news of the ‘Blarney Blowout’ weekend gathering and the great turnout it received from the students, it seemed like a no-brainer.”
Police estimated that March 9’s gathering packed 2,000 students into the yard, which led to multiple arrests. Despite the arrests and throwing of beer bottles, Molnar felt the opportunity to have a packed and rowdy student section was too integral of a part of a successful football program to pass up.
“What more could you ask for?” Molnar said. “We have the best fans in the world, but they just weren’t aware where we were playing, which obviously was the reason we had such a low turnout for our home games. It definitely had nothing to do with the two-hour commute or the fact that we finished 1-11.
“It’s really a win-win for both sides.”
The new field will also bring an end to the planned remodeling of McGuirk Stadium, which will save the program valuable money that will be put towards a free-alcohol station that will be located at every corner of the field.
That will make students happy, as they won’t have to plot how to sneak alcohol into games or bring their fake IDs.
But there’s still no guarantee that students will show up. After all, they didn’t make the short commute from the tailgate outside of McGuirk Stadium to file into the stadium to watch the games when the Minutemen played on campus in 2011.
Some students still are learning of UMass’ new FBS-status.
“Wait, are you serious? They’re in the big-boy league now? How’d they do?” said one student who wished to be kept anonymous after he or she was embarrassed for not knowing anything about their school’s football team.
This might be hopeless after all.
Herbie Husker can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @IDoNotTweet.
