AMHERST — Although it didn’t feel any bit like the fall, the UMass football team opened up its fall camp on Wednesday inside McGuirk Alumni Stadium. The Minutemen battled through the thick air and puddles of sweat and were all smiles as they flew around the field under the direction of first-year head coach Joe Harasymiak.
UMass opens its season at home on Aug. 30 at 3:30 p.m. against Temple, exactly one month from Wednesday. While Harasymiak admitted after practice that the Minutemen have a long way to go, he did say he loves the group of guys he’s put together for the 2025 season.
“Guys were prepared, we’ve been working all summer for this,” Harasymiak said. “But there’s a little bit of a difference between being in weight-room shape and football shape, which always that happens in day one… I’m really proud of the way they practice now. When we got here, [we were] defining how to practice and take care of each other and doing the right things around the quarterback. We came out of spring in a good way, and today they practiced hard and the right way. It’s a step in the right direction and we just have to keep getting better.”
Let’s take a dive into what stood out during practice No. 1.
Rose turns heads in first practice in Amherst
After missing the entire spring practice sessions due to a shoulder injury, Utah transfer Brandon Rose was back in action and a full participant in Wednesday’s practice. Rose made several tremendous throws, both on the run and in the pocket, that drew reactions from his teammates. Harasymiak said that Rose, a 6-foot-2, 212-pound redshirt junior, probably could’ve practiced late in the spring, but the coaching staff didn’t want to rush him back from injury.
He looked more than ready to go, and the zip he’s able to put on the ball was evident.
With three quarterbacks now in the fold, Harasymiak is rotating them often and giving them each a chance to work with the first string. They’re all getting equal reps and will continue to do so moving forward. There isn’t a set date to have a QB1 decided by, but Harasmyiak says he’ll know when the time is right — he’s had plenty of experience choosing between quarterbacks in the past.
“I don’t have one,” Harasymiak said when asked if he has a time frame for picking a starting quarterback. “When it happens, it happens. We’re splitting the reps evenly. When it happens, I’ll know. I’ve been through it before. I did it at Maine as an assistant. We had several at Minnesota and Rutgers. So when it happens, it happens. Not sure if that’ll be after a scrimmage or if someone plays lights out the first five days, but we’re going to handle that the right way.”
That said, there was a different feel with Rose — who worked closely with UMass first-year offensive coordinator Mike Bajakian in Utah — back on the practice field, according to Harasymiak.
He leads with his voice and by example. In the spring, AJ Hairston and Grant Jordan were battling with each other. But now, there’s another name in the mix, and it’s heated up the quarterback competition.
“It’s great to have him back,” Harasymiak said of Rose. “He was really ready to go at the end of spring. We had to hold him back, which he was angry about which is what you want. Certainly a guy that’s been around experience. He’s very comfortable around the pocket. I think he handles the operation extremely well… The one thing I noticed today, it was intense. It’s a little bit different feel with him in there. Instead of going through two, now there’s three of them really fighting it out.”
A full story on the UMass quarterback competition will be online Thursday afternoon.
Speed kills
Harasymiak, redshirt junior wide receiver T.Y. Harding and redshirt junior linebacker Timmy Hinspeter all mentioned one name in their time talking to the media after practice on Wednesday. That name? George Greene, UMass’ head sports performance coach.
When Harasymiak took the job as head coach, he mentioned in one of his first public addresses that he wanted to change the physical makeup of the Minutemen. In order to compete with the best, you have to be big enough, strong enough and fast enough. After just six months of workouts, UMass certainly looks the part.
“What coach Greene has done and [assistant strength coaches Ibn Foster and Jeff Stern] have done, it’s evidence,” Harasymiak said. “We used it in recruiting, the before and after pictures [of our players]. And a lot of that also comes through the nutrition changes we’ve made here. Again, credit to the administration and all those people that have allowed us to do that. They were eating on their own here, going out on campus to eat. That’s not the vision of football. Now we have two meals in here every day, and it shows you when you invest in something and you see the results.”
Most notably, it’s the speed in which the Minutemen players are now moving with that stood out to Harasymiak.
“The speeds are probably the thing that I’m impressed with the most just from the data that we get,” he said. “But ultimately what coach Greene has done over the summer has been really impressive. He’s the mechanic. Your body is the car. He’s the mechanic taking care of your body.”
Harding noted that several UMass players are now running over 20 miles per hour. Just a few months ago, that wasn’t the case.
For the first time in quite a while, speed may actually be a legitimate weapon for this Minutemen football team.
(CHRIS TUCCI/UMASS ATHLETICS)
“Coach Greene, our strength coach, has done an amazing job getting us in the best shape as possible,” Harding said. “We had a lot of guys running 21 miles per hour, just way different from the winter. You can see it right now, all the work we’ve put in is starting to show.”
Running backs find footing
UMass went from a two-headed monster in the backfield with Kay’Ron Lynch-Adams and Greg Desrosiers in 2023 to a do-it-by-committee group in 2024, with nobody truly emerging as the team’s top running back.
And while there still may not be a true workhorse back emerging just yet, there are some terrific options at Bajakian and Harasymiak’s disposal.
Rock Griffin (redshirt junior, Vanderbilt transfer) may be the favorite to start, and Harasymiak said on Wednesday that he’s probably the hardest worker of the bunch. But the Minutemen also have Brandon Hood (redshirt freshman, Colorado transfer), Juwaun Price (graduate senior, New Mexico State transfer) and Elijah Faulkner (freshman) in the fold as well as returners Cookie Desiderio (redshirt sophomore) and Da’Marion Alberic (redshirt freshman).
It may not be the one-two punch UMass had in 2023, but the Minutemen’s backfield is taking shape and looks to be in a much better position than a year ago.
“They’re three different kind of body types,” Harasymiak said of Griffin, Hood and Price. “I’m excited about the group because it’s all a little bit different… That room is probably the most changed-over room that we have.”
