The winless streak is over.
After it went 0-12 last season, Massachusetts opened the 2026 campaign with a bang, defeating Rutgers 37-21 to snap the nation's longest losing streak while achieving program history in the process.
And the Minutemen did it in dominant fashion.
After Rutgers went down the field for 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 shutdown the Scarlet Knights the rest of the way for the victory.
UMass entered the day as 29.5-point underdogs, according to BetMGM.
UMass has been the worst teams in FBS since it moved up in 2012,
with a 28-142 (19.7%) record in that timeframe. Yet 2025 was arguably the toughest, when it was last in points per game (11.1) and scoring defense (38.6) in the winless season.
How much did Rutgers pay UMass?
Rutgers paid UMass $1.55 million for its Week 1 buy game.
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 losing 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 its scored since 2024, and the 16-point win is the Minutemen's biggest one 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 it was an independent).
Despite being a consistent loser for over a decade, there was optimism things would change 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 a win in the books, UMass sets it sights on more 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
