First reaction: UMass to the MAC

[Rolling Ridge]

The thing that i get upset about with Bamford stating that he is now going to invest more into the programs, is that if he only did this during Mark Whipple's return to coach football at Umass , we would not be in this big mess and losing so many games. Yes, Bamford stepped up to pay Whipple to come, but did not give him the money he needed to hire a good staff to support him...

I agree the resources were inadequate during Whipple's tenure, and even past that. The question in my mind is whether that was Bamford's fault. You don't think if he'd been offered and endless pot of money he'd have taken it? What if he proposed a much larger budget and others in the administration trimmed it down, so he did the best he could with what he had? Knowing what I know about how UMass works, that seems much more likely than Bamford deliberately trying to do something on the cheap.

[jjmc85]

The thing that i get upset about with Bamford stating that he is now going to invest more into the programs, is that if he only did this during Mark Whipple's return to coach football at Umass , we would not be in this big mess and losing so many games. Yes, Bamford stepped up to pay Whipple to come, but did not give him the money he needed to hire a good staff to support him.
If you remember Whipple had to take on both the head coaching position and head offense coordinator positions to save money. On top of that, he had to cheap out on hiring his assistants with little to no experience including x players.
In other words, the extra money they paid him to come was just taken away out of the assistant coaches fund.
Whipple would have had this program in the right direction if he was allowed to spend money on quality assistants and I can guarantee you that our team would be putting up a lot more points on the score board !

Bamford does not deserves credit for stepping up to pay Whipple to come, nor does he deserve blame for not giving him money to hire a good staff. Whipple became head coach for the 2014 season. Bamford wasn’t the AD until 2015. Both those decisions were made before Bamford.

[pk77]

thanks for the correction, so Whipple was hired for the 2014 season and then left in 2018. So Bamford was there during for 3 of the four years Whipple was and he didn't step up to the plate to give him the funding he needed for assistant coaches.

[Steve81]

thanks for the correction, so Whipple was hired for the 2014 season and then left in 2018. So Bamford was there during for 3 of the four years Whipple was and he didn't step up to the plate to give him the funding he needed for assistant coaches.

Whipple was out of work for a year. He came here to get his pension for 10 years and to set himself up for a Power Conference OC. Whipple got what he wanted and we had him. The fact remains that Whip did very little towards complementary football ball. I t was mostly offense and he did not recruit a bit his last year.

Also believe that 2018 was the last year or two of 3 bid A10. Yes, then Bamford made a bad hire, but past is the past. What he is doing in the past 2 years counts, with the Frank Martin and Don Brown hires and a new commitment to athletics.

[InnervisionsUMASS]

There's a laundry list of reasons we are where we are now. The Bamford-Whipple stuff is very low on that list.

[runner_bric]

Alright, I am going to try to look on this in a more positive light!
My biggest concern was money from the conference, and e_parade corrected me- I think we could get as much as $1 million more before the new MAC TV contract, which I would imagine would be better. It's all about money, unfortunately, and currently football is where the money is. Watched a video today that pointed out that Idaho lost a lot money/donors and name recognition when they dropped to FCS.

If SteveMaz is right, and in 5 years we are in the ACC or some sort of Big East, I would be ecstatic.
I always worry about men's XC/TF (the MAC currently only has 4 Men's Indoor TF teams and 5 Men's outdoor), but hopefully the renovation of the cage helps with that (sorry to everyone sad about it not being a basketball facility, I get it)

For basketball- we still have this year and next year in the A10 and Frank is definitely building something. Maybe an easier road through the conference tournament is not a bad thing if recruiting stays good. Again, if we are in the ACC in 5 years that would be pretty amazing.

Considering the recent demise of the PAC12, it's important to be pro-active, and Umass is doing that. SteveMaz is probably right- staying in the A10 is probably not an option for survival and the MAC is better than CUSA I think. At least we aren't getting downgraded out of a power 5 conference like OSU or WSU! (Although if they end up in the MWC, they will not be completely dead, but the lost of $18 million a year plus of TV money is brutal).

Update on the money front-
https://www.espn.com/college-football/s ... ayoff-deal
With this new deal, group of 5 schools annual payment from the CFP is $1.8 million- up from $1.5 million
Conversely, WSU and OSU, since they are technically independents now since the PAC is dead, will only get $360,000

I am assuming that is all Umass would have gotten, too.
Based on that, Umass would probably have gotten about $1 million from the A10 and CFP deals. The CFP money alone gets us $800K more, before MAC money, if I am reading everything correctly.

[MakeMullinsGreatAgain]

maybe I'm just trying to convince myself - but watching this MAC game on CBS and these kids can play. I think this years UMass team most likely goes 16-2 in this league and wins the tourney easily but this is pretty damn good basketball.

[NDR18]

We took one step forward in football by moving back to the MAC, but we are setting ourselves way back in basketball. It is hard to be excited by this move. Maybe the athletic director knows what he’s doing and has a vision, one all of us are having a hard time seeing at the moment. We all want relevancy, but moving into the MAC, will seem to do just the opposite of helping the basketball program to achieve that goal. When I was at Umass we were all blessed with the rise of our men’s.basketball program, getting to sweet sixteens, elite eights, final fours, consistent top 25 rankings, a top tier coach and recruits, drama and excitement, fan support and conference championships. This blessing has also been a curse because as we are all yearning for a taste of this again, but unfortunately it has not worked out for this program. I didn’t realize how meaningful and special those years were and it’s quite possible it will never happen again in my lifetime. I hope Umass can have more opportunities in the future to become more relevant, but the move to MAC, NIL and portal have definitely not helped facilitate this.

[Steve81]

We took one step forward in football by moving back to the MAC, but we are setting ourselves way back in basketball. It is hard to be excited by this move. Maybe the athletic director knows what he’s doing and has a vision, one all of us are having a hard time seeing at the moment. We all want relevancy, but moving into the MAC, will seem to do just the opposite of helping the basketball program to achieve that goal. When I was at Umass we were all blessed with the rise of our men’s.basketball program, getting to sweet sixteens, elite eights, final fours, consistent top 25 rankings, a top tier coach and recruits, drama and excitement, fan support and conference championships. This blessing has also been a curse because as we are all yearning for a taste of this again, but unfortunately it has not worked out for this program. I didn’t realize how meaningful and special those years were and it’s quite possible it will never happen again in my lifetime. I hope Umass can have more opportunities in the future to become more relevant, but the move to MAC, NIL and portal have definitely not helped facilitate this.

Agree with some of this and the MAC will not be as strong as the A10, fact. Unrealistic expectations from the 90's run, yes. Can we enjoy some good basketball in the MAC, yes. Will some sports be better and a few not in the MAC, yes. The women BB bids and WNITs this year looks close to the A10. Let's dominate the MAC. Fans like winning! We had a few good attendance games with the $5 kids tickets at the end of Christmas and February vacation, good team and winning season.

This move was about alignment and access, but revenue is very important. There will be 1.3M more revenue with football and believe for the rest of the sports as well. The current MAC contract is twice the size of the past A10 contract and will be renewed shortly after or for our entry into the MAC. All teams will benefit with the additional revenue!

NDR18, think about my positive suggestion idea in the transfer portal thread.

[eldonabe]

Let's put Football and Basketball aside for a minute:

What about the rest of the sports? I do not have the time to research, so I can only make a general assumption, but isn't this a step back in everything else too .... Baseball, Softball, Soccer, Lax et

The only thing not touched by this is Hockey - right?

[Quann]

^^^^
Baseball: no, program is already on life support being in the A10, don’t see how this makes it any worse. Baseball in New England is a tough go regardless of conference affiliation.

Softball: Yes, this may hurt the program but it’s not at the elite level it was five years ago anyhow

Soccer: maybe but I don’t follow either men’s or women’s soccer very closely.

Lax: I don’t think this hurts us at all. MAC does not have lax so we either stay A-10, go back to CAA or end up somewhere else like the big east. Lax is the one sport where conferences seem to take schools from anywhere. Denver is in the big east for lax. We still have the Long Island/nj pipeline doubt that goes away

[Steve81]

Let's put Football and Basketball aside for a minute:

What about the rest of the sports? I do not have the time to research, so I can only make a general assumption, but isn't this a step back in everything else too .... Baseball, Softball, Soccer, Lax et

The only thing not touched by this is Hockey - right?

On average a lot are close with a nod to the A10.
Women's BB a bit weaker and men's a lot weaker at present. Women's lacrosse is much weaker. Softball MAC is stronger. The MAC is way better for football. (Took field hockey out. You move us to the MAC, it was to hard to judge which was stronger.)

https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/fieldhock ... hockey-rpi.
Take the field hockey link. Go to the blue NCAA top line and select sport. Then go down 1 to the white line and select Ranking. Then change the box to RPI from coaches, etc. Finally, click the conference column to sort by conference.

Men's lacrosse and women's rowing we have applied to stay in the A10. Men's soccer has Akron in the BE and the 3 others, in MVC.

[e_parade]

Bamford apparently said there's potential for MAC to start soccer back up, and a couple of the MAC schools have very good programs there (especially Akron).

[69MG]

If anyone thinks this is a permanent move, you are not in the real world. First, in 5 years the conference landscape will look nothing like it looks today. Second, this has always been a steppingstone move, hoping that success in BB and FB leads to a better invite. Success in BB is 20+ wins and in the title game at least 50% of the time. Football just needs to be respectable (6 wins?).

So I'm not going to fret over this, even though I am much more of a BB guy than FB.

[inthescoop]

Bamford apparently said there's potential for MAC to start soccer back up, and a couple of the MAC schools have very good programs there (especially Akron).

I remember growing up and Akron was creme de le creme in college soccer - had no idea they moved to the Big East for soccer, or the MAC dismissed soccer altogether.