UMass officially joins the MAC after nine years as a football independent.
Renowned American author Ernest Hemingway is attributed the quote, “I regarded home as a place I left behind in order to come back to it afterward.”
And on July 1, 2025, that quote applies to the UMass Minutemen, which will transform their former temporary home into a permanent settlement.
After spending a brief 4-year stretch in the Mid-American Conference as a football-only member from 2012-15, UMass is now officially back full-time. The Minutemen spent the last nine years navigating the difficult waters of the independent life in football, but now they are welcomed back by the MAC — not only in football, but in all varsity sports across the board.
The MAC has been as stable as any FBS conference amidst this chaotic time of conference realignment, as all 12 teams from the 2024 season have held continuous membership since the 90s. While the addition of UMass imbalances the conference at 13 teams in 2025, the league will subsequently move back to 12 when Northern Illinois joins the Mountain West as a football-only member on July 1, 2026.
UMass enters the MAC with a blank slate. The Minutemen hired Joe Harasymiak on Dec. 4 to become the program’s fifth head coach since joining the FBS in 2012. Harasymiak, who played college football at a small institution in Massachusetts, arrives from Rutgers where he operated as the defensive coordinator from 2022-24. This is his second head coaching gig, as he also held the role at Maine from 2016-18, guiding a 10-4 campaign and an FCS Playoffs appearance in 2018.
The coach is new, the players are different, but the UMass the MAC got to know in the mid-2010s is still around. Warren McGuirk Alumni Stadium in Amherst, MA remains the home base of the Minutemen, and the team is still decked in maroon and white, and represented by Sam the Minuteman as the mascot.
But what UMass hopes changes are the results. The Minutemen posted an 8-40 overall record and a 7-25 conference standing during its four years in the MAC from 2012-15. UMass still awaits its first bowl game since rising to the FBS level 13 years ago, and it hopes to come out of the gate swinging coming off the heels of a 2-10 season. The Minutemen open with back-to-back home games against Temple and Bryant of the FCS before road trips to Iowa and Missouri. Then on Oct. 4, UMass partakes in its first conference game since 2015 when Western Michigan strolls into the New England region.
And it will feel like old times all over again. UMass has found its home by traveling back to its roots, and now it can settle in and familiarize itself with its friends of yesteryear once again.