UMass ends nation's longest losing streak with stunning upset of Rutgers

UMass, a program that lost every game it played last season, walked into SHI Stadium as a 28.5-point underdog on Thursday night and left with a 37-21 win over Rutgers, ending a 16-game losing streak that had stood as the longest in major college football. The result, recorded in the official game center maintained by Rutgers University Athletics, ranks among the more lopsided upsets of the betting era and cost coach Greg Schiano a winless start to a season his program had built around Big Ten ambitions.

The Minutemen, playing their first game under second-year coach Joe Harasymiak, scored on each of their first three possessions and led 24-7 at halftime before holding off a Rutgers rally led by wide receiver KJ Duff. Quarterback William "Pop" Watson III, a Virginia Tech transfer making his first start for UMass, completed 19 of 22 passes for 197 yards and three touchdowns without an interception, according to the official box score published by ESPN.

The numbers

Rutgers had been favored by 28.5 points, a line that reflected the gap between a Big Ten program picked to contend for a bowl bid and a Massachusetts team that finished 0-12 in 2025 while averaging 11.1 points per game. CBS Sports reported that FBS favorites of 29 or more points had gone 213-0 against the spread since 2024 before Thursday, and that Rutgers' 16-point loss ranks among the largest defeats absorbed by a favorite of 25 or more points since 2000.

UMass finished with 397 yards of offense to Rutgers' 349 and did not turn the ball over, while forcing four Rutgers turnovers, including three interceptions thrown by quarterback Dylan Lonergan and a fumble on a strip sack. The Scarlet Knights converted just 3 of 11 third-down attempts and managed roughly a yard and a half per carry on the ground for most of the night. Duff, Rutgers' leading receiver, caught all three of the team's touchdown passes and finished with close to 200 receiving yards, offering little consolation in a game the Scarlet Knights lost by 16.

How UMass got here

The losing streak UMass carried into Piscataway dated to Oct. 26, 2024, a win over Wagner, and spanned all of last season's 0-12 campaign in the Minutemen's return to the Mid-American Conference. It had grown into the longest active skid against FBS competition in the country, a streak of 677 days entering Thursday. Beating a Big Ten program did something UMass had not done in nearly half a century: according to reporting from Yahoo Sports, it marked the program's first win over a current power-conference opponent since 1978, and its first since moving up to the FBS level in 2012.

Harasymiak, in his second season leading the Minutemen, spent three years as Rutgers' defensive coordinator before UMass hired him in December 2024, a background detailed on his university athletics staff page. He grew up roughly an hour from Piscataway, and Thursday's game returned him to the stadium where he had coached for three seasons, this time on the opposing sideline. Watson, the game's central figure, is a Springfield, Massachusetts, native who transferred to UMass in January after three years at Virginia Tech, where he appeared in 11 games and made two starts without ever securing a permanent grip on the starting job. Thursday marked his first start in a Minutemen uniform.

Rutgers, meanwhile, had won six straight season openers and entered the year with a roster overhaul under Schiano aimed at building on modest progress. The matchup itself existed because of the economics of major college scheduling: multiple outlets reported that Rutgers paid UMass a guarantee in the neighborhood of $1.55 million to travel to New Jersey for what the Scarlet Knights expected to be a routine, confidence-building win.

Reaction

Schiano did not equivocate afterward about what had gone wrong. "We got out-licked, out-played and out-coached," he told reporters after the game. "There is no other way to say it. I didn't have them ready." He added that he had "never saw it coming" after what he described as a strong training camp, a rare admission of surprise from a coach in his second stint leading the program.

"I've been part of some really tough ones," Schiano said. "It's easy to talk about 'chop' when things are going well and it's a great little picture for people, but chop is now. Chop is in adversity, and we're smack dab in the middle of it as a team and a staff, and I fully believe that they will and I will chop our way right out of this."

Harasymiak's postgame comments centered on family rather than vindication over his former employer. "I think probably the most special part about it is my mom, my dad are here in Piscataway, and my two brothers," he said. "I just FaceTimed my wife and my kids, they're at home. So certainly, growing up here, an hour away, working here for coach Schiano, it means a lot, but I'm just really proud about our team and what we did." He was careful to note he did not offer his former boss congratulations lightly, calling Schiano's program a serious one regardless of the outcome.

What happens next

The loss immediately intensifies scrutiny on Schiano's program, which had been expected to build toward bowl eligibility this fall. Rutgers travels to face Boston College on Sept. 11 at Alumni Stadium, according to the team's official 2026 schedule, needing a response before Big Ten play resumes. For UMass, the win offers a rare moment of validation for a rebuild that produced no victories at all a year ago; the Minutemen return home to host Sacred Heart on Sept. 12, per their published athletics schedule, before conference play begins later in the month. Whether Thursday marks a turning point for either program or an isolated aberration will not be clear for weeks, but for one night in Piscataway, the matchup upended every expectation that had been set for it.