The UMass football program parted ways with head coach Don Brown midway through his third season on the sidelines. Through 34 games, his team amassed a 6-28 overall record.
After going 1-11 in Year 1, his squad showed improvement in 2023 by going 3-9. Unfortunately, progress wasn't seen in Year 3 with the Minutemen sitting at 2-8 through 10 contests. UMass opted to pull the plug despite Brown's noted college football resume.
He's previously held defensive coordinator positions at Michigan, Arizona, Maryland, UConn, and Boston College. He also led the Minutemen from 2004-2008, compiling a program best 43-19 mark across five seasons.
That included a 2007 campaign which saw the team finish No. 2 in the FCS rankings. Brown won A10 Coach of the Year honors after posting a spotless 8-0 conference record. He wouldn't see the same success following UMass's transition to the FBS.
Brown went 0-8 this year against FBS competition with his only two wins coming against Wagner and Central Connecticut State. He was let go following a 35-34 loss to Liberty.
UMass is one of the toughest head coaching gigs in college football. As an independent, they've played a schedule largely consisting of MAC opponents with buy games against SEC powers sprinkled in.
Don Brown was competitive in a number of matchups, including a 20-3 loss to Texas A&M in 2022. He picked up wins over Army and New Mexico State last year. Close calls and the occasional victory weren't enough to allow him to keep his job - though his wife believes they should've been!
Deborah Brown took to social media to voice frustrations with the firing after the fact. She blamed a lack of NIL support for the program's struggles.
Essentially, she called UMass poor! There's either a lack of funding or a lack of athletic department commitment to the program's success. Her husband wasn't given a fair shake!
Minutemen athletic director Ryan Bamford spoke on that disadvantage in a 2020 interview. "In football, it's different. We're at the low end of FBS football, from an investment standpoint. We're not spending as much as some of our peers... That doesn't mean that we can't be successful. We're going to outwork people. We're going to try to do more with less. That's kind of the mentality you have to have. When we do generate some success, we're going to translate that success into more revenue and invest that back into the program... Ultimately, it comes down to wins and losses."
Don Brown didn't attain enough success according to UMass brass, though that's even harder to do in a college football world reliant on NIL and the transfer portal. Brown's wife doesn't think the Minutemen had justification in their firing given the school's money situation.