Massachusetts football coach Charley Molnar isn’t asking for much from his offensive line in 2013, but he won’t stand to see the kind of struggles he saw last season.

The Minutemen finished dead last in the Mid-American Conference in total yards last year and suffered a 1-11 record as a result. And Molnar pointed to one of the team’s biggest weaknesses as the primary reason his offense struggled so mightily: the offensive line.

Molnar spoke to ESPN3 during MAC Media Day at Ford Field in Detroit, Mich., where he was joined by quarterback Mike Wegzyn and tight end Rob Blanchflower, and addressed what needs to be done for UMass to compete with the MAC’s high-powered offenses in just its second year in the conference.

“What we have to do is we really have to improve up front,” Molnar said. “We never really gave our running game a chance to get uncorked, we never gave our quarterback a chance to look down the field to find the open guy, never gave the receivers enough time to get open and work their skills against the defensive backs because we just didn’t have enough time.”

But, Molnar isn’t asking for a complete overhaul. He said that even average play from his offensive line would be enough to improve the entire offense significantly. And he’s confident he can get that from this year’s group.

Most of all, Molnar saw depth as an issue in the trenches. A mix of injuries and inexperience made life extremely difficult for Wegzyn and the rest of the offense to succeed.

Now, Molnar believes he has the necessary depth this season. UMass added five freshmen to the line as well as fifth-year transfer David Osei from Rutgers and Josh Bruns from Glendale Community College, with the latter two also creating a greater veteran presence.

“Our offensive line was very young, we had a lot of injuries from the first game on and we never really got our feet underneath us,” Molnar said. “So right now we’ve worked really hard on building depth…And I think if we can just play average on the offensive line you’ll see a new and improved offense.”

With a better offensive line, Molnar expects to see a better Wegzyn as well.

Wegzyn started 11 games for the Minutemen last season and displayed the type of numbers one would expect from a freshman quarterback on a team in transition. He threw for 1,825 yards with a 52.6 completion percentage and threw 10 interceptions to go along with only six touchdowns.

However, after looking over the film of every play Wegzyn was involved in last season, Molnar noticed he was under constant pressure and didn’t get much help from a young receiving corps either.

Coming into spring, it appeared Wegzyn and A.J. Doyle would be battling for the top spot, but Wegzyn came in a whole new player and appears to have the No. 1 spot locked up.

“This spring he’s a completely different quarterback, he’s light years better than he was a year ago, just coming out of spring” Molnar said. “Is he going to be an All-MAC quarterback? I don’t think he will this year — he’s got some work to do. But he’ll certainly be improved. He’s good enough to win a lot of football games with.”

But these ups and downs are the kind of things Molnar has learned to expect during this transition. Last year, he said it was about the program “laying the foundation,” but now it’s time to start “putting up the framework.” As a result, he expects to see a much better team take the field on Saturday’s this fall.

“I wouldn’t wish a transition on anybody,” Molnar said. “Once you go through it you understand the difficulty of it.”

With that comes the issue of bringing in and retaining scholarship players, too. The NCAA Division 1-A player scholarship limit is 85, and Molnar said he expects the team to be “somewhere in the 70’s.”

Renovations progressing

Molnar was also asked about the state of the new performance center and McGuirk Stadium press box, both of which are currently being renovated.

While the old press box is still being taken down, and ultimately of little concern to Molnar, the performance center is “making great strides” and is “awe inspiring.” He hopes it’ll draw in fans and players alike.

“Not only will it aid in recruiting, that’s the obvious, but I also think it really helps us establish our brand in the state that UMass football has really taken the step to be a big time football program and obviously the day-to-day operations and preparations will be much, much better in this enhanced facility,” Molnar said.

Nick Canelas can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @NickCanelas.