There was a personal angle running through the whole thing. UMass coach Joe Harasymiak was Rutgers' defensive coordinator from 2022 through 2024 before taking the Minutemen job, and Thursday was his first shot at the program he helped build. Greg Schiano came in chasing career win No. 100. He didn't get it, and it wasn't particularly close by the end.
The game was tied 7-7 after the first quarter, and that's the last time it looked competitive. UMass scored 30 unanswered points across the second and third quarters, with quarterback William Watson III throwing 3 touchdown passes and KJ Duff Jr. hauling in 9 catches for close to 200 yards and 3 scores. Rutgers' Dylan Lonergan finished 16-of-30 for 242 yards with 2 touchdowns — both to Duff — but threw 3 interceptions and lost a fumble, and by the time Rutgers scored twice in the fourth quarter the game was already decided.
The 37 points are the most UMass has scored in a game since 2024, and the final margin is the program's biggest win over an FBS opponent since 2018. For Rutgers, it's being talked about as one of the worst losses of the Schiano era — a Big Ten program with fresh NIL investment behind it getting run off its own field by a team that hadn't won since 2024.
For UMass, this is the signature win the program has been trying to find for over a decade — proof the rebuild under Harasymiak has a floor higher than 0-12. For Rutgers, the questions start immediately: a defense that couldn't get off the field for two and a half quarters and a quarterback who turned the ball over 4 times against a team most of the sport had never heard of before Thursday night.