The 1998 UMass Minutemen football team represented the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, it ...

in the 1998 NCAA Division I-AA football season as a member of the

Atlantic 10 Conference The Atlantic 10 Conference (A-10) is a collegiate athletic conference whose schools compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) Division I. The A-10's member schools are located in states mostly on the United States Eastern ...

. The team was coached by

Mark Whipple Mark John Whipple (born April 1, 1957) is an American football coach, who most recently served as offensive coordinator at Nebraska in 2022. Whipple was the head football coach at University of New Haven from 1988 to 1993, Brown University from 1 ...

and played its home games at

Warren McGuirk Alumni Stadium Warren McGuirk Alumni Stadium is a 17,000-seat multi-purpose stadium in Hadley, Massachusetts, on the campus of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. It has been the Massachusetts Minutemen football team's home stadium since 1965, with the e ...

Hadley, Massachusetts Hadley (, ) is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 5,325 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The area around the Hampshire and Mountain Farms Ma ...

. 1998 was the most successful season in Minutemen history, as UMass won their first National Championship in the NCAA DI-AA playoffs in Whipple's first year with the team. UMass entered the postseason as champions of the A-10, but were not expected to make a serious run for the title. They reached the final game ranked 12th in the nation, and were matched up with perennial powerhouse

Georgia Southern Georgia Southern University (GS or Georgia Southern) is a public research university in the U.S. state of Georgia. The flagship campus is in Statesboro, and other locations include the Armstrong Campus in Savannah and the Liberty Campus in Hin ...

, the top ranked team in the country. The Minutemen rushed out of the gates, scoring three touchdowns in the opening quarter, and won the shootout by a final score of 55–43. UMass finished the season with a record of 12–3 overall and 6–2 in conference play.

Schedule

References

UMass UMass Minutemen football seasons NCAA Division I Football Champions

UMass Minutemen football The UMass Minutemen football team represents the University of Massachusetts in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). Massachusetts is the fourth oldest program in FBS. The Minutemen compete as an FBS independent. Since 1965, th ...

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