Missouri played a college football game on the road at UMass on Saturday. The abnormal matchup between two programs on two polar opposite trajectories created some truly bizarre optics that we may never get to see again.
It is unclear as to how this game even got scheduled in the first place!
On one end of the spectrum, the Minutemen have not won more than four FBS games in a single season since 1904. They are 25-117 since 2012. Their lone win so far in 2024 was against an FCS program by only four points.
On the other side of the field, the Tigers are on the heels of an 11-win season. They are 4-1 this year with legitimate College Football Playoff hopes as a top-25 program.
For UMass to play Missouri at this point of the season is not that unusual. However, the location of the game is what makes it unique. They are playing in Amherst, not Columbia.
McGuirk Alumni Stadium was built in 1965. It is one of— if not the worst stadium in the entire country.
It is also one of the six smallest stadiums in college football with a capacity of only 17,000.
Even though the stadium in Massachusetts is absolutely terrible, the Tigers are for some reason playing the Minutemen on their home field instead of the other way around. The No. 21-ranked team in the country is playing on the road against a team that would rank no better than 128th out of 134.
Their arrival to the stadium made it seem as though they are playing at a high school field. Actually, there are a lot of high school programs with far better facilities than the ones in Amherst.
This is truly incredible.
— Connor O'Gara (@cjogara) October 12, 2024
A top-25 team from the SEC looks like it’s entering a middle school locker room for today’s game at UMass. pic.twitter.com/8fCfUPegAV
This quite literally may never happen again. An unranked, independent UMass program is hosting a top-25 team at the worst stadium in the country. Weird.