UMass athletic director Ryan Bamford made a rare media appearance on Monday afternoon to discuss the current shape of the football program and what the future may hold. Bamford made lofty promises of overinvestment into the team’s roster, staff and facilities.

Following another 0-3 start to the season with a matchup against No. 20 Missouri looming, it’s likely that the Minutemen are headed back to another losing season. Since joining FBS in 2012, UMass has compiled a 28-133 record, good for a win percentage of just over 17 percent. After years of continued mediocrity and losing, Bamford made his vision to finally flip the program on its head clear.

“Candidly, we’re going to have to overinvest to win,” Bamford said. “We’ve had sort of deferred maintenance of this program for more than a decade, and it means that you have to invest more maybe than some others do to get out of it. And, the only way out is up. So, we’re focused on making sure we put the key investments in the right places.”

The athletic director attributes the “deferred maintenance” of catching the program up with the current times to not being in a conference since 2015. He said that rejoining the Mid-American Conference is igniting the supposed revitalization process that the team has required for so long. To him, it was difficult to quantify and justify the long-term aspirations of the program while the Minutemen were an independent team.

Bamford announced an upcoming three-phase approach to revamp McGuirk Alumni Stadium, set to begin in December. The first phase will focus on improving the fan experience ahead of the 2026 season. Phases two and three will include physical and structural improvements to the 17,000-seat stadium, which is known for being one of the least impressive home fields in the FBS. He hopes that the projects, which are estimated to cost $25 to $30 million, will be completed by 2028.

“[Phases two and three] are going to be more about what our stadium looks like, feels like, how it attracts people, what the visual is,” Bamford said. “When you come down Bernie Dallas Mall, when you come onto campus and look at the stadium to your left, I want that to look different … We have to now catch ourselves up, and we have to do it quickly. There’s no doubt.”

The funding for the proposed improvements will consist of a combination of private funds and creative funding models through the University and the help of its trustees. This would include the program taking on some debt that decision-makers believe they can service well within the next 20-30 years. As of now, general operating funds from the state of Massachusetts would not be used.

A new-look stadium also serves as a major recruiting tool for head coach Joe Harasymiak and his staff. Bamford wants to put an emphasis on recruiting and retaining players that have built a connection to the program — a sentiment Harasymiak echoes. UMass brought in a plethora of transfers ahead of the 2025 season, but its head coach expressed Monday that he’s always been more selective in the portal due to questions over how connected players are to a new school after leaving their old one.

In the growing NIL landscape of college sports, Bamford is well aware of the importance of compensating student-athletes as well. He knows that keeping up with the resources of Power Four schools will be difficult, but he wants to ensure that the Minutemen are doing everything they can to retain players year-to-year.

An early theme this season has been the lack of depth on UMass’ roster. The Minutemen have dealt with an unthinkable amount of injuries to starters and backups alike, forcing third, fourth and even fifth-stringers in various position groups to play much larger roles than expected. Bamford shared his goal of giving the roster a massive upgrade, not just in the starting positions, but across the entirety of the depth chart.

“With the 105 guys on our roster, every single one of them has to allow us the ability to compete and to win on Saturday,” Bamford said. “Whether that’s if you’re on the scout team on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday getting us prepared, or you’re a one, a two or a three … We have to upgrade the roster. Anytime you’re not winning, I think that’s the easy fix.”

Bamford says he understands and appreciates the gripes of UMass fans after years of losing, and he also takes full accountability for the lack of a shift to winning ways after over a decade at the helm of the athletic department.

“Look, I’ve been here for 10 years, I’m in my 11th, I’ve worked really hard to flip the script on this program and to date, it hasn’t worked,” Bamford said. “Ultimately, I’m responsible for that as the leader of our department.”

However, he insisted that Minutemen football has never seen resources like it has in 2025. Money itself does not establish a winning culture, but it sure helps to have large financial investments across multiple avenues when it comes to building a winning team from the top down. He believes that a flip of the switch is imminent.

“We haven’t been in the position we’re in now,” Bamford said. “We haven’t been resourced in a way that’s allowed us [success], we’ve been independent, that’s been a challenge … I think all the variables and ingredients are [aligning] here to allow us to have success. Ultimately, we have to go do it. You can’t keep talking about it, I get that … We got to be about it now.”

The yearly records speak for themselves. Coaching changes and roster changes have amounted to no level of noticeable progress in terms of on-field performance. Fans have been demanding a monumental shift program-wide for seasons on end. Now, Bamford is assuring that the program’s long-awaited transformation is finally on the horizon, although UMass fans have heard similar promises before.

Cameron Pellegrino can be reached at [email protected] and can be followed on X @cam_pellegrino.