With December’s early signing period starting Wednesday, prospects looking for a cool place to chill need to cross UMass off their list. Head coach Joe Harasymiak made that clear last week after the Minutemen clinched the Bottom 25 national championship by wrapping an 0-12 season with a 45-14 loss to Bowling Green.
“Number one is we have to get people that are obsessed with football,” Harasymiak said. “This ain’t a hangout place. So we’re going to fix that.”
Harasymiak was announced as the UMass coach on the December signing date last year, arriving from his defensive coordinator post at Rutgers to replace Don Brown, who was fired after a 2-8 start to his third season. These days, two wins seems like a pipe dream for UMass, which was outscored by an average of 29.9 points in 11 games against FBS competition.
The Minutemen didn’t even beat the lone FCS opponent on their schedule, losing 27-26 against a Bryant team that finished 3-9. During their first season back in the MAC, UMass dropped seven of its eight league games by at least 18 points. Since joining the FBS ranks in 2012, the Minutemen have never won more than four games, and they’ve only done that twice. So the expectations are pretty low. But they are certainly higher than going winless.
This year’s Bottom 25 formula has been tweaked to ensure fair representation from across the sport. Each of the Power Four leagues gets an automatic bid to the Bottom 25 each week, and a total of 10 Power Four schools must be represented.
Final Bottom 25 Rankings
^ Joined Bottom 25 this week
Maryland’s impressive commitment to losing
Shoutout to Maryland for not firing Mike Locksley after going 2-16 in the Big Ten over the past two seasons. That’s a special level of stubbornness. Seriously, the Terrapins have dropped 14 consecutive conference games, including five straight double-digit losses to end the 2025 season, and they aren’t making a coaching change. Locksley has never posted a winning record in league play, but those three straight bowl wins from 2021-23 are apparently enough to overpower the obvious proof of the past two seasons that screams a change is needed.
25. South Alabama^
24. Maryland^
23. North Carolina^
22. UCLA (25)
21. Ball State^
Boston College’s bookends
If you only watched Boston College’s first and last games, you would think the Eagles took another step in Year 2 under Bill O’Brien. If you only watched the 10 games in between, you’re probably wondering why BC isn’t lower in the Bottom 25. After beating Fordham 66-10 to open the season, BC lost 10 straight before closing the year with a 34-12 win over a horrendous Syracuse squad. Don’t downplay the significance of beating the Orange: it saved BC from finishing with fewer than two wins for the first time since 1978.
20. Bowling Green (15)
19. Virginia Tech (23)
18. Colorado (20)
17. Nevada (19)
16. Boston College (9)
Rescue Fran Brown
Remember when Syracuse coach Fran Brown’s name was getting bandied about as a name to watch on this year’s coaching carousel? Perhaps we should interpret that as a bat signal from upstate New York screaming, “get me out of here.” The joy of a 10-3 debut campaign fizzled into misery after a quarterback injury derailed a 3-1 start. ‘Cuse lost eight straight — nearly all in blowout fashion — to end a season that resulted in a walk-on lacrosse player playing QB.
15. Middle Tennessee (7)
14. San Jose State (14)
13. Northern Illinois (13)
12. Arkansas (11)
11. Syracuse (16)
Shoutout to Jeff Brohm
As the years go by, we should all stand in awe of the job Jeff Brohm did at Purdue. The now-Louisville coach took the Boilermakers to four bowls in six seasons. The Boilermakers are 7-29 since he left and 3-21 over the past two seasons. Barry Odom’s debut campaign ended with Purdue being outscored 105-16 over its final two games against Washington and Indiana. Thank goodness for basketball.
10. Louisiana-Monroe (12)
9. UTEP (10)
8. Purdue (17)
7. Colorado State (8)
6. Oregon State (5)
Cowboys finish as Bottom 25 runner-up
Oklahoma State’s plummet over the past two years is truly one of the most remarkable falls in college football history. The Cowboys went from playing in the 2023 Big 12 Championship Game to going winless in conference play over the past two seasons. But give the 2025 Cowboys some credit for turning a corner over the season’s final three weeks. Sure, they kept losing, but they turned a never-ending series of blowout defeats into one-score losses against Kansas State, UCF and Iowa State.
5. Sam Houston (6)
4. Charlotte (4)
3. Georgia State (3)
2. Oklahoma State (2)
1. UMass (1)
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