With one week remaining in the college football regular season, the Massachusetts football team is set to play its annual rivalry game against the UConn Huskies. It’s been tough going for the Minutemen (2-9) in this matchup recently, with the Huskies (7-4) winning the last two matchups between the institutions.
UMass is arguably coming off its best offensive performance of the season at now No. 6 Georgia, putting up 21 points in the loss. While giving up 59 points, this was the closest that the Minutemen had played against a team with that level of talent. When UMass faced then-No. 21 Missouri in October, it managed a paltry three points.
“I was really proud of the team, it was a daunting task, especially Week 11 to go into a place like that,” interim head coach Shane Montgomery said. “… [We] gave ourselves a chance to stay in the game through most of three quarters, [Georgia] kind of wore us down there at the end … it was a tough week, not only for our players … but our coaching staff too, there’s a lot of uncertainty.”
It was a similar situation at quarterback against Georgia as it was against Liberty, with freshmen Ahmad Haston and AJ Hairston both taking snaps as the signal caller. Both games had similar final statistics, with Hairston doing most of the passing while Haston worked his magic on the ground. Haston rushed for 50 yards on three attempts and Hairston finished 7-16 in the air for 121 yards and a touchdown.
This two-quarterback system is something that will continue through the final game of the season. Since this system has been implemented after the injury to captain Taisun Phommachanh, the Massachusetts offense is averaging 27.5 points per game, while beforehand it averaged 19.22 points. On the other side of things, UConn is averaging 31 points per game in 2024.
Coupled with the fact that two of the games before the quarterback duo was introduced were against FCS teams, it’s clear that the Minutemen’s offense is more efficient at this point of the season than it was earlier.
“We’ll continue to use the two-quarterback system, as much as we need to, like we’ve done the last couple weeks,” Montgomery said. “We just [got to] continue to do the things that we’ve been successful with on offense over the last number of weeks …”
What’s been the Huskies bread and butter this season has been their run defense. Their pass defense isn’t too shabby either, as they allow opponents 225.36 yards in the air per game. But their run defense allows just over 130 yards per game on the ground. All season, the ability of UMass’ rushers and front seven have gelled together to the tune of 161.6 rushing yards per game.
Running the ball, or more specifically, linemen and receivers blocking for the rusher are of utmost importance to Montgomery. Getting into the red zone will also be key, although UConn doesn’t allow many touchdowns within its own 20-yard line. Opponents have scored 30 out of 37 times when entering the Huskies’ red zone, though just 14 of the scores were touchdowns. The “bend don’t break” mantra has paid dividends for UConn this season.
“[UConn] is pretty stout,” Montgomery said. “They’ve done a really good job in the red zone. I think they’ve got one of the top red zone defenses in the country for giving up touchdowns …”
The Huskies’ likely signal caller on Saturday will be Joe Fagnano, who has managed a solid season despite missing a chunk of action. He has a ratio of 15 touchdowns to five interceptions and has thrown for 1,299 yards total. Nick Evers is the other quarterback who could see action, though the Wisconsin transfer has struggled this season. In his eight games, he’s thrown five touchdowns and interceptions a piece.
UConn’s running back room is a bit like UMass’, with three running backs over 500 yards for the season and averaging over 50 yards per game on the ground. The leading rusher is Durrell Robinson, averaging 6.8 yards per carry to the tune of 58.91 rushing yards per game. He also leads the team in rushing touchdowns with seven.
“We’ve had a number of injuries on defense throughout the year, we lost a few more throughout [the Georgia] game,” Montgomery said. “… With coach [Keith] Dudzinski taking over and adding some things … I think you’ll see a much better and improved defense this week, with a little more confidence too.”
Kickoff is scheduled for 12 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 30 at McGuirk Alumni Stadium. Temperatures will be the lowest they’ve been all season for the Minutemen, as a high of 39 for the day correlates with kickoff.
“I obviously wasn’t here last year, I know that offensively we made some mistakes early, had some turnovers that got us behind last year,” Montgomery said. “Whatever they throw at us out there, we [got to] do a better job of taking care of the ball this year.”
Johnny Depin can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter/X @Jdepin101.
