For select journalism scholarships, students submit the best stories that they’ve crafted as part of the application process. From dozens of strong applications for this round of scholarships, three winners emerged – Grace Chai, Ezekiel Altman and Tymothy Brown. This is Brown’s winning submission for the Robert Crowley Memorial Prize for Excellence in Collegian Column Writing, a piece about the UMass football program and its continued struggles over the last season.
For the pain and humiliation the Massachusetts football team struggled through in 2025, it does not have a single win to show for it. It instead has a first-play flea flicker fumble, celebratory snow angels helping melt away a late lead, the memory of getting walked off on its home turf against an FCS squad and a flurry of injuries.
The Minutemen’s (0-12, 0-8 Mid-American) 144th season was the worst they’ve ever had. In short, everything that could go wrong did go wrong.
For a team built in a shortened time span, implementing an entirely new coaching system and trying to build a winning culture out of loose parts, the last thing UMass needed was 30 different players missing time.