5.) R.J. Cobbs intercepts an Anton Clarkson pass late in the fourth quarter and races 43 yards for a touchdown to seal a 40-30 UMass win over Hofstra on Senior Day.
Clinging to a three point lead with just under three minutes remaining in the game, UMass was faced with the daunting task of stopping Hofstra - the Atlantic 10's best offensive team - from tying the score or taking the lead late in the final contest of 2004.
With the ball spotted at his own 40 yard line Clarkson, the Pride's first-year quarterback, came to the line of scrimmage on first down with an array of wide receivers to either side. After checking the play and scanning the defense, he took the snap and fired a quick pass out in the flats to his right, where he hoped to have receiver Charles Sullivan waiting for it.
Instead, Cobbs, a former Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year who has shown a flare for both the electrifying and the dramatic, jumped the route, swooped in and stole the ball. Bobbling it as he began to race down the home sideline, he finally gained control and scampered into the end zone untouched, assuring the Maroon and White its third consecutive winning season.
Afterwards, Cobbs made sure the McGuirk faithful got a kick out of UMass' only defensive touchdown of the season, punting the game ball out of the stadium and equaling a collegiate record for most flags received on one play, with seven.
4.) Richmond quarterback Stacey Tutt completes a Hail Mary pass to wide receiver Harry Wilson on the final play of the first half, staking the Spiders to a 21-14 lead they would not relinquish in handing the Minutemen their first loss of 2004.
It was a play that many of those in and around the Massachusetts football program will look back on as the major turning point of the 2004 season. After starting out 2-0 in impressive fashion, it was the first clap of thunder in a storm that brought about four straight losses and knocked UMass from Division I-AA playoff contention.
With the Pioneer Valley having been pelted by rain overnight and well into game day, the Minutemen appeared waterlogged as well in putting together a lackluster first half performance against Richmond. Content to cut their losses and head into halftime even, the Minutemen fell asleep at the wheel during the half's final snap.
Using six defensive backs in a situation where only a heave towards the end zone could produce pay dirt, strong safety James Ihedigbo, among others, got crossed up in assignments. After rolling out to his left, something Brown had been stressing that UMass not allow the Spiders quarterback to do, Tutt lofted a long bomb towards the back half of the end zone for a wide open Wilson. Standing alone, with no maroon jerseys within seven feet of him, Wilson patiently watched the ball into his hands and caught it for the touchdown, stealing the lead and the momentum in a game UMass would never climb back into.
3.) First-year head coach Don Brown receives a Gatorade shower courtesy of his new team after the Minutemen down his former employer, Northeastern University, 26-22 in Brookline.
Dubbed as the "Bitter Bowl" by the Boston media, it was clear from the day he took over at UMass that Don Brown's return to Parsons Field would be about far more than football. Yet on this day, football was all the former Huskies boss needed to soothe nearly a calendar year's worth of hard feelings.
Behind inspiring, gritty performances from his charges, namely senior captain Rob Kane, who battled tooth and nail with All-American middle linebacker Liam Ekeziel from whistle to whistle, and tailback Steve Baylark, who physically wore the Huskies down in the second half, Brown was finally able to exact revenge on the team, the school and the athletic department that intentionally embarrassed and publicly defamed him.
Nonetheless, in a show of ultimate class that proves how much a football coach truly means to his past and present players, and vice-versa, it was Brown who made himself available to any and all of his former players who wished to visit with him after the game. Standing there, soaking wet from a victory shower, Brown took the final step towards closure in this most difficult of episodes, and fully stepped into the UMass chapter of his head coaching career as a victor.
2.) Ola Sanusi and L.A. Love block an extra-point attempt from Maine's Mike Mellow in overtime, preserving a 35-34 Homecoming Day win for UMass.
Things had already gone terribly wrong for the Minutemen by the time rival Maine arrived in Western Massachusetts for a rain-drenched Homecoming battle. Having lost four games in a row and five-of-six, UMass was coming off of a devastating final-minute loss to Rhode Island, and was just trying to salvage some semblance of respectability within its tumultuous season. Yet by the time this wild game was complete, the Minutemen had put themselves on the fast track to a complete turnaround.
Capping a nine play, 80 yard drive with a nine yard touchdown run just before the two minute mark of the fourth quarter, former Amherst Regional High School star tailback Marcus Williams sent the game to overtime, where he answered a Baylark touchdown on the first possession with a 25 yard scoring burst of his own on Maine's first play in the extra frame.
Facing the prospect of a second overtime against one of the A-10's most talented teams - the same team that stunned SEC foe Mississippi State earlier in the season - the Minutemen reached into their bag of tricks and pulled out the kind of moment you expect to see from this team at least once a year; the type of moment seasons are made, and remade, out of.
After the snap from center was on the money, defensive lineman Ola Sanusi broke through the middle of the line with a hand outstretched and behind him was Love, vaulting high over the mass of bodies with a hand reaching similarly to the sky.
When Maine kicker Mike Mellow eventually got his foot into the ball, the kick came off a little low, and Love and Sanusi successfully smothered the kick. From there, all hell broke loose as the UMass sideline erupted in victory and spilled onto the field in a sea of maroon. From that point forward, the Minutemen did not lose another game in 2004.
1.) On a warm, late summer evening in September, the Minutemen take the field under the lights at McGuirk Alumni Stadium for just the second time ever, and gain revenge on No. 4 Colgate 30-20 before a near-capacity crowd of 16,405 - the largest to watch a football game in Amherst in 30 years.
It was a game, or rather a series of moments, that reinforced the potential and possibilities of Massachusetts football, because for one fleeting football Saturday in the Valley, everything went perfectly.
From the hoards of tailgaters and football fans that filled the surrounding parking lot upwards of three hours prior to kickoff and spilled into the stadium for the first near-capacity crowd at McGuirk in three decades, to the Minutemen, clad in all-maroon for the first time since the 1999 playoffs and looking to build on the success of a championship season in 2003, there was an incredible aura of positive energy surrounding the artificially-lit stadium - the type of positive energy that creates a legitimate Division I football atmosphere.
In the end, the result of the much-anticipated rematch with hated Colgate was much like the night as a whole - perfect. With two Baylark touchdown runs, two Jason Peebler touchdown catches and the most amazing kickoff return you will ever see turned in by the aforementioned Mr. Spectacular R.J. Cobbs, the students jumped and chanted, the alums stood and cheered and those who knew what the win over the Red Raiders truly meant to this team sat, smiled and just soaked it all in.
It was the past, present and future of the UMass gridiron in full effect, and it was a tremendous success - a sign of the things to come.
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