UMass snaps longest college football losing streak with rout of Rutgers
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The winless streak is over.
After it went 0-12 last season, Massachusetts opened the 2026 campaign with a bang, defeating Rutgers37-21 to snap the nation's longest losing streak while also achieving program history.
The Minutemen did it in dominant fashion.
After Rutgers scored a touchdown on its opening drive, UMass responded with a touchdown and didn't look back. It scored 30 unanswered points to take control into the fourth quarter and nearly shut down the Scarlet Knights the rest of the way.
UMass entered the game as 29½-point underdogs, according to BetMGM.
UMass has been among the worst teams in FBS since joining college football's top division in 2012, managing just a 28-142 (19.7%) record. Yet the 2025 season was arguably its toughest, finishing last in points per game (11.1) and scoring defense (38.6) in the winless season.
How much did Rutgers pay UMass for game?
Rutgers paid UMass $1.55 million for its Week 1 buy game, according to FBSchedules.
How long was UMass losing streak?
The win snaps UMass' 16-game losing streak, the longest in FBS. It last won a game on Oct. 26, 2024 against Wagner 677 days ago.
Not only that, it snaps the 23-game skid against FBS teams, the last victory against Army on Oct. 28, 2023, the same season it last started the year 1-0.
The 37 points is the most Mass has scored since 2024, and the 16-point win is the Minutemen's most decisive against an FBS team since 2018.
More importantly, it's the first time UMass has beaten a power conference team in its FBS history (it beat BYU in 2017 when the Cougars were an independent).
Despite its history, there was optimism for UMass under second-year coach Joe Harasymiak. He and athletic director Ryan Bamford told USA TODAY Sports there has been significant investment into the program that should yield results.
"It's everything that we have to do in order to put this right," Harasymiak said.
That's why winning just one game wasn't the goal, and why quarterback William “Pop” Watson III, who threw for 189 yards and three touchdowns in his UMass debut, made an expletive-loaded statement during the team's spring game.
“We're not thinking about ‘How do you win a handful, three, four, five games?’ We're thinking about winning as many games on our 12-game schedule as you can,” Bamford said. “Nobody's running from the idea."
With the streak gone, UMass can set it sights on another program first: making its first conference title game and the postseason, as its the only FBS program yet to play in a bowl game (excluding newcomers North Dakota State and Sacramento State).
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: UMass snaps longest college football losing streak with rout of Rutgers
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