Dave Portnoy went into Week 1 of college football feeling good. Really good. He didn't just take Rutgers -29.5 against UMass, he took Rutgers to win by 40-plus, calling it possibly his best play of the entire year before a snap was played.
I made my 1st bet of college football season and it may be my strongest play of the year. Rutgers -29.5 to beat umass by 40 plus
For about a quarter, it looked fine. Rutgers scored first, and TJ Hitchings was out there hyping a KJ Duff touchdown as Biletnikoff-worthy while the Scarlet Knights led 6-0 in Piscataway.
KJ Duff for Biletnikoff
Then it fell apart. UMass, which went 0-12 in 2025 and hadn't beaten a power-conference opponent since November of 1978, scored 30 unanswered points behind quarterback William "Pop" Watson III and rolled to a 37-21 win, snapping a 16-game losing streak in the process. It's the largest FBS upset since Kansas beat Texas as 31-point underdogs in 2021 — and Rutgers reportedly paid UMass $1.55 million to come play the game. Portnoy watched it happen live, tweeting that Rutgers was "totally asleep" and that UMass was "kicking the ever living shit" out of his side before the final horn even sounded.
By the fourth quarter, with UMass pulling away and postgame fireworks already looming over an empty SHI Stadium bowl, the collapse was total. Barstool's own account caught a Rutgers staffer getting knocked over on the sideline during a UMass score, with the board reading 27-7 in the process.
The first big hit of the college football season
That's when Portnoy did what Portnoy does — he got on camera. In a direct-to-camera video, he apologized to everyone who followed his pick, called himself a "moron," refused to blame Greg Schiano or the Rutgers program, and promised to earn his followers' trust back, tagging it #rutgerssucks.
I apologize to everybody who followed me on the Rutgers pick. I’m not gonna point the finger at Greg Schiano or Rutgers for the most pathetic effort Ive ever seen. The buck stops with me. I will work to earn your trust back #rutgerssucks
It didn't stop there. As the final score settled at 37-21, Portnoy escalated from apology to full teardown, saying Rutgers should be kicked out of the Big Ten and that the program should be disbanded outright — the kind of freezing-cold take that even he admitted came fast, saying it took him "3 minutes into the college football season" to get roasted. Schiano, for his part, reportedly told reporters afterward he'd "never saw it coming." For Portnoy, the damage isn't really about the money lost on the bet — it's about torching credibility on the very first pick of the year, with a full season of #rutgerssucks receipts now on the record.