The Pulse Newsletter 📣 | This is The Athletic’s daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox.Good morning! Be UMass today. Inside:
Fun: Time to rank UMass No. 1Before we get to the off-field brouhaha in my neck of the woods, I’d like to start today with some actual college football fun. Because last night, unexpectedly, was a banger, led by a team that went 0-12 last year. Quickly:
UMass — UMass! — trounced Rutgers, at Rutgers, 37-21. The Minutemen had not won a game in two years, had not beaten an FBS opponent since 2023 and their last major-conference win came in 1978. And they had Rutgers in the torture rack all night.
Rutgers paid UMass $1.55 million to play this game, and Minutemen coach Joe Harasymiak was the Scarlet Knights’ defensive coordinator for three years before taking this job two years ago. Paying your old pal seven figures to hand you an embarrassing loss. What a result.
Read the full recap here. The Athletic’s Chris Vannini, curator of our weekly ranking of all 138 FBS teams, had the Minutemen at No. 138 this week before last night’s game. He told me last night that Rutgers (79th) might have to occupy the list’s final spot next week. Wild.
