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UMass drops football season finale to Buffalo

J. Anthony Roberts
Buffalo 41
UMass 21

AMHERST — Mark Whipple had yelled too much. Or maybe he had yelled too little. The University of Massachusetts coach sat slumped over at the postgame news conference, his hushed voice barely reaching the microphones and recorders inches from his ashen face.

Whipple looked defeated. He was defeated.

In his first season back on the UMass sideline, his Minutemen had started 0-6 but had been in most of those games until the bitter end. They had made some noise in the middle of the season, winning three of four. But as the schedule wound down they had managed barely a whimper, particularly in Friday's finale at McGuirk Stadium, a 41-21 defeat to Buffalo before a sparse, subdued audience announced at 13,417.

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"Thought we'd maybe turned the corner," said Whipple. "But we have a lot of work ahead of us."

UMass (3-9, 3-5 Mid-American Conference) made far too many mistakes for a team with a tiny margin for error. The high-powered offense, which had put up 35 or more points in six of its first 10 games, was shifted into low gear in its second straight game without injured quarterback Blake Frohnapfel, the MAC leader in passing yards (3,345). His backup, Austin Whipple, is a redshirt freshman (and the coach's son). He needed the offense to rally around him with efficiency. He needed the defense to clamp down.

He got neither, especially during a backbreaking stretch near the end of the first half.

Until well into the second quarter, the game was scoreless and uneventful, unless you're a Ray Guy groupie. UMass's star performer to that point was senior punter Brian McDonald, who smashed his first kick a career-best 61 yards, then outdid himself with a 67-yarder. Early in the second quarter, he hit one that — though it traveled only 44 yards, much of it rolling — was downed at the 1-yard line.

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Buffalo (5-6, 3-4) turned to its workhorse back, Anthone Taylor (36 carries, 237 yards), who entered the day third in the MAC with 1,166 yards. He was handed the ball 10 times and gained 43 yards on a drive that went the length of the field and lasted more than half the quarter. After Taylor converted a third-and-6 from the UMass 37 via a rugged 6-yard run, the Bulls broke the ice with a thing-of-beauty pass connection. Joe Licata let go of his throw a split-second before being hit by the UMass pass rush, and Devon Hughes made a full-extension dive in the end zone to pull in the 28-yard touchdown pass. It was the first of four on the day for Licata, who has 29 this season to lead the MAC.

The 17-play, 99-yard drive consumed just over eight minutes, leaving 3:10 on the clock.

That was plenty of time for Buffalo to get on the scoreboard again, thanks in part to the UMass offense, which had a costly dropped pass on third down, one of four such miscues in the half.

The Bulls took over at their 32 with 1:09 left. Licata hit Taylor for 26 yards, Hughes for 7, and Ron Willoughby for 9 before taking a sack, leaving Buffalo at the 31-yard line with 17 seconds to go. Licata's next pass was right over the middle, tantalizingly between several UMass defenders, but no one was covering Jacob Martinez, who scored with 12 seconds left.

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"Rodney Mills drops a corner route; that gives them the ball. And we blow a coverage, and it's 13-0," said a dispirited Whipple. "It takes the wind a little bit out of your sails."

Buffalo breezed the rest of the way. Licata (20 of 27, 255 yards) added two touchdown passes, and Taylor scored on a 76-yard run up the middle, untouched.

UMass got on the scoreboard midway through the third when Marken Michel took a wildcat snap and ran 50 yards. The Minutemen's two other scores came on fourth-quarter catches of 7 and 24 yards by Tajae Sharpe, who had a quiet day otherwise — the TDs accounted for half of his receptions and all but 5 of his yards.

And so it ends. And so it begins. "R-E-C-R-U-I-T," said Whipple, in a soft-spoken paraphrase of Aretha Franklin. "We certainly don't have enough talent. Not even close."