What will it take in 2026?

[ZooMass84]

Looking forward to moving forward positively for success in 2026. What it will take is dedication, commitment, planning, financing and implementation. Ignore the quitters, the dividers and the nattering naybobs of negativity. Support all of our student athletes and coaches to represent our amazing University - the best public University in New England !!! Go UMass !!! Let's move forward in unity.

How much was KLA getting paid??? also, watching Red Zone yesterday and I heard Josh Wallace (remember him?) being mentioned. He's in the secondary for the Rams.

[Steve81]

I going to submit these two questions.

Regarding the split of U script donations for football. Can you say anything general and specifically. (Open ended and you can respond anyway but was curious about annual giving and the endowment portions.) Curious what the current ratio is between Annual Scholarship Gift and Athletic Scholarship Endowment. Who managers the Endowment investments, is it mutual funds, ETF funds and other instrument balances etc. and the goals.

Second question is regarding administrations of NIL. We know Jason Bermant was hired in this role a year ago and heard nothing from him or how he approaches his role. Think the Basketball and football 2025 NIL Transfer portal players were disappointing and like to know what is being done. I assume that the coaching staff have a major role, but don't know and again how the back-and-forth conversations and communications are functioning. The results are not stella.

*Whoops submitted 'down' instead of 'done' and 2024 Basketball Transfers. Could be first year getting use to pains. Will see what they have to say.

[Juice Stand]

...Think the Basketball and football 2025 NIL Transfer portal players were disappointing...

Not to get off track, but do you mean 2024 basketball transfers last season? Because the 2025 transfers have been pretty darned good (Banks, Bettiol, and to a lesser extent Parker).

Sorry, not trying to sidetrack the discussion away from football. Also...

The results are not stella.

Stella!!!

[69MG]

^ We are all searching for that Streetcar named "Desire", which in this case means a few wins!

[Steve81]

...Think the Basketball and football 2025 NIL Transfer portal players were disappointing...

Not to get off track, but do you mean 2024 basketball transfers last season? Because the 2025 transfers have been pretty darned good (Banks, Bettiol, and to a lesser extent Parker).

Sorry, not trying to sidetrack the discussion away from football. Also...

The results are not stella.

Stella!!!

Ya, was thinking the prior year was bad. Do like this years team and hopeful for a win Wednesday. There are enough people wanting to know what we are doing today to make things immediately better and address long term issues.

I love the idea of the endowment so it can grow. \ as 20 years ago the universities endowment seemed to be small but has been growing and like to see that for athletics. IMHO is that we need to grow the endowment to support annual giving and someday surpass annual NIL Gift support.

During UMass Gives end of April, only saw giving to general or specific sport, but NOT and option between annual Gift or Endowment.

PS. Seemed DHS played better at the end of the last game as a 5, but understand his need to develop as a 4 and shooting out to the elbow. First, FREE Throws!

[Steve81]

The link
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89992388539?p ... 20#success

[InnervisionsUMASS]

Not a lot of warm and fuzzies out of that Zoom tonight, unfortunately.

[Steve81]

Only grabbed a few screen shots, but out to pool. Showed how pathetic we spent on football, while in the MAc. 750k for entire football staff in 2012, which grew to 1.43M by 2015 and still in the bottom 7 of FBS football.

Good slides on how our HS and transfer numbers compared to MAC teams. Very low on HS recruits the NIL money this year on the 21 freshmen and money left for transfers, which will be higher than the goal number of transfers.

The green space, pavers and trees made the front stadium like a park with benches.

Not sure if the link worked for folks.

[InnervisionsUMASS]

There seems to be some argument on Twitter about those 2012 and 2015 coaching salary figures.

[minutefanjsf]

Only grabbed a few screen shots, but out to pool. Showed how pathetic we spent on football, while in the MAc. 750k for entire football staff in 2012, which grew to 1.43M by 2015 and still in the bottom 7 of FBS football.

Good slides on how our HS and transfer numbers compared to MAC teams. Very low on HS recruits the NIL money this year on the 21 freshmen and money left for transfers, which will be higher than the goal number of transfers.

The green space, pavers and trees made the front stadium like a park with benches.

Not sure if the link worked for folks.

The numbers were not accurate. 750k was for assistant pool. Conflation of assistant pool and blatant misstating of rankings that are easily found online is atrocious work. In 2012, bottom 7 of FBS. Weirdly, third highest paid HC and second highest paid assistant in Elmassian. All of these misstated facts were used to excuse away Bamford’s failures. To go public with such blatant mistakes is the final straw. Fireable.

[jjmc85]

I’m surprised to hear the slides weren’t accurate. I’m not on Twitter anymore. Are there sources saying they are wrong and if so could someone share?

I think the interesting things I remember include Bamford passing off a question on scheduling to Thorr because that’s one of Thorr’s responsibilities now. I was not aware of that. That seems like it should be a major responsibility of the athletic director at an FBS institution.

The renderings shares of McGuirk were interesting. I hope they are shared publicly.

I sent in 8 questions before the event and added two others during. I would say one of them was answered sort of- about playing Delaware and JMU in the future. Didn’t seem like there were firm plans but there is interest. They brought up JMU as part of the presentation and had a quote where when JMU was still FCS they were spending like a G5 school because JMU was “dressing for the job they wanted.” I’m curious what “job” UMass is currently dressing for and sent that question. That didn’t get answered. I also asked during the presentation what should be prioritized- grid iron club or script U. Also unanswered.

The other questions I asked were related to the program moving forward. What is the ceiling? What is the floor? What expectations in terms of wins should we have in 2026? What measurable goals are there for 2026 and what happens if they aren’t met? How close is UMass to being .500 in conference? Bowl eligibility? MAC CG? I also asked why UMass wasn’t as successful as Delaware and JMU and what was being done to fix that. I also asked about old traditions returning.

UMass hasn’t had a lot that I know of unfortunately but I remember that the team reserved monochrome uniforms for post season games only under Whipple and Brown the first go arounds. I was disappointed when the team wore monochrome uniforms during the regular season with Whipple in the FBS stint. I also remember hearing but don’t know for sure that the number 5 was reserved for great running backs. I know Shipp and Baylark both wore that. I’d like it if those were brought back assuming my understanding of the number 5 is correct. Part of the cool thing about college sports are traditions and UMass doesn’t really have any right now.

I suppose that the reason why UMass isnt as successful as others from A-10/CAA football was addressed in the presentation.

[Steve81]

My late night take away was that Coach H has a solid plan and the NIL money worked in contributed to keeping most of the freshmen recruits, despite our record. Coach H said that losing 2 players to a G6 team hurt. The recruiting goals were clearly laid out, but this year we still need to go heavier in the portal than his goals, because a lot of past portal players have no eligibility left. Personally glad with the freshman and he showed the limited freshman players getting time playing this year.

To me, this was the best piece and most satisfying to hear. He also said we need everything, but highlighted 4 needs; QB, Offensive and Defensive lines and the Secondary. Hard to argue about that. Do think we can start turning in the right direction as believe in coach H. The former player stuff maybe posted since their is an opportunity for former players to donate 2k for their name on a locker if I understood the donation correctly. But regular folks as us, including the AD, who donated have to pay 2.5k. Thorr being a former player has donated 2k for a locker.

[inthescoop]

You're glad with how the freshman played? Why? How?

You need to build a team in the trenches, that I do agree with. Go all-in on o-line and d-line and good things will start to happen.

[inthescoop]

I’m surprised to hear the slides weren’t accurate. I’m not on Twitter anymore. Are there sources saying they are wrong and if so could someone share?

I think the interesting things I remember include Bamford passing off a question on scheduling to Thorr because that’s one of Thorr’s responsibilities now. I was not aware of that. That seems like it should be a major responsibility of the athletic director at an FBS institution.

The renderings shares of McGuirk were interesting. I hope they are shared publicly.

I sent in 8 questions before the event and added two others during. I would say one of them was answered sort of- about playing Delaware and JMU in the future. Didn’t seem like there were firm plans but there is interest. They brought up JMU as part of the presentation and had a quote where when JMU was still FCS they were spending like a G5 school because JMU was “dressing for the job they wanted.” I’m curious what “job” UMass is currently dressing for and sent that question. That didn’t get answered. I also asked during the presentation what should be prioritized- grid iron club or script U. Also unanswered.

The other questions I asked were related to the program moving forward. What is the ceiling? What is the floor? What expectations in terms of wins should we have in 2026? What measurable goals are there for 2026 and what happens if they aren’t met? How close is UMass to being .500 in conference? Bowl eligibility? MAC CG? I also asked why UMass wasn’t as successful as Delaware and JMU and what was being done to fix that. I also asked about old traditions returning.

UMass hasn’t had a lot that I know of unfortunately but I remember that the team reserved monochrome uniforms for post season games only under Whipple and Brown the first go arounds. I was disappointed when the team wore monochrome uniforms during the regular season with Whipple in the FBS stint. I also remember hearing but don’t know for sure that the number 5 was reserved for great running backs. I know Shipp and Baylark both wore that. I’d like it if those were brought back assuming my understanding of the number 5 is correct. Part of the cool thing about college sports are traditions and UMass doesn’t really have any right now.

I suppose that the reason why UMass isnt as successful as others from A-10/CAA football was addressed in the presentation.

I said that right when Thorr was hired. Bamford hired Thorr for one primary reason, Thorr knows what it takes to get a new renovated stadium budget approved and completed, and that is an area where Bamford has been stuck for years and keeps pulling some bullshit to pretend like the project is "in the works".

[Juice Stand]

Super bummed to hear that the meeting was a bust, but not surprised I guess. Does anybody know if press was invited? My guess is no, especially if Bamford was making factually incorrect statements that were easily debunked. The less people know about the plans, the easier it is to not follow through with them. He knows what he's doing.