Is UMass Doing The Right Thing By Leaving The Atlantic 10 For The Mid-American?

by John Furgele (The Realigned 228)

In college athletics, realignment talk never goes away. Earlier this week, Massachusetts decided to join the Mid-American Conference (MAC) for all sports. The Minutemen were once football only members in the MAC; they went 7-25 in conference play and 8-40 overall from 2012-2016. They remained in the Atlantic 10 for other sports until the MAC gave them an ultimatum—join for all or leave.

They left.

Back then it was understandable. The Minutemen played in a much better conference, particularly for basketball, where more than one team got an NCAA tournament bid. Why play basketball in a one-bid league when you can stay in the A10 and play football as an independent? At the time, it sounded like it could work.

My how things have changed. The football program is desperate, desperate to find a home. Being an independent works for Notre Dame, but they’re Notre Dame, a national brand. And they also benefit from a five-game scheduling alliance with the ACC.

Even Army gave in, trading independence for American Athletic Conference (football only) membership. With UMass heading to the MAC, Connecticut remains the only true independent left in college football.

Massachusetts football has struggled as an indie. In order to make things easier financially, the 2023 edition played (and were drubbed) at Auburn and Penn State. They received $3.4 million for those contests, but if you’re trying to be competitive and build a program, there has to be a better way than scheduling above your weight class and getting blown out.

This fall, UMass is playing three guarantee games—Missouri, Mississippi State, and Georgia—and will likely gross over $5 million for their time. The only guarantee of course is that all three will be bloodbaths and once again, the chance of UMass finishing with anything close to a 6-6 record is unlikely.

The athletic department was backed into a corner, most likely by their Board of Regents. The marching orders were simple; find a conference for football; drop to FCS; or drop football altogether. Many think dropping to FCS would be a great option because it would allow the university to keep football but to deemphasize it without compromising the other sports.

My guess is that the school would drop football before ever dropping to FCS. That might not make sense from a competitive standpoint, but I truly feel that school officials would be more embarrassed playing FCS football than no football at all. They left FCS to join FBS in 2012, and to go back would mean admitting it was a failure.

As they say, football drives the bus in college sports, so the Minutemen will swallow some pride and join the MAC as a full-time member. The school knows that playing eight or nine games against Buffalo, Bowling Green, the directional Michigans, Toledo, and Akron is better than playing two SEC schools, a B1G school and then looking for nine other games each year. When everybody else is in a conference and you’re not, scheduling games can be a nightmare.

Notre Dame is the exception. They get those five ACC games each year and when you throw in their annual tussles versus Southern Cal, Navy and Stanford, the Irish only need to find four games each year. And please don’t forget—schools want to play Notre Dame. Who wants to play Massachusetts?

UMass has played in the Atlantic 10 since the conference’s inception in 1977. Back then, it was the Eastern 8 and included Villanova, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, and West Virginia. Before coming together, those schools were all independents but they realized that banding together and forming a conference would be a positive and progressive step. Another conference, the Big East, would form in 1979, and the rest is history.

It’s (A 10) always been a solid basketball conference, not quite a power conference, but far better than a mid-major. This year, it’s ranked eighth of the 33 conferences, which isn’t half-bad. They’ll be joining a conference that’s truly a mid-major—the MAC is rated 24^th.

This is a not a shot at the MAC, perhaps the most stable of all conferences. With all the realignment going on, the MAC hasn’t added or lost one school. They have 12 members and all seem content. And, with three schools in Michigan, five in Ohio, and one each in New York, Indiana, and Illinois, it’s one of the few conferences remaining that makes sense geographically. Adding Massachusetts stretches them a bit, but if Stanford can travel to Miami (FL), certainly Massachusetts can travel to Muncie, IN.

I’m not sure this decision will be cause for celebration. There will be many supporters who won’t like that the basketball program is giving up 48 years of the Atlantic 10 for a lesser quality basketball conference. Those that want to see football survive realize that staying independent won’t cut it and joining the MAC is a much better option than being a defunct football program.

In 2029 (when the CFP TV deal ends), this could all change, but if you have football now, you have to try your best to keep it, because that’s where the money is and will continue to be in the future.