Pop Watson Ends UMass’s 16-Game Nightmare as Rutgers Opens With a 37–21 Home Meltdown

Sixteen straight losses. Last FBS win buried against Army in 2023. A Thursday night opener on the road against a Big Ten program that was supposed to treat this like a dress rehearsal.

UMass walked into SHI Stadium in Piscataway and left with a 37–21 win that snapped the longest active losing streak in the FBS and turned Greg Schiano’s season opener into appointment television for all the wrong reasons.

Virginia Tech transfer William “Pop” Watson III threw for 197 yards and three touchdowns, ran for 40 more on six carries, and scattered 18 completions to seven different receivers. The Minutemen led 24–7 at half — their first halftime lead against a power-conference school since Mississippi State in 2017 — and never trailed again after the opening drive.

If you had Rutgers as a heavy favorite, Thursday night was personal.

Rutgers scored first. Then the script flipped hard.

Dylan Lonergan, the Boston College transfer opening his Scarlet Knights career, looked fine for exactly one drive. Twelve plays. Seventy-five yards. KJ Duff from four yards out. 7–0 Rutgers. Youth Sports Night. Postgame fireworks still on the schedule. Everything according to the brochure.

Then Watson went to work like a guy who grew up 90 minutes up I-91 and finally got the stage he transferred for.

Seven plays, 75 yards, Elijah Faulkner from 21. Tie game. Faulkner again from two early in the second after a patient 13-play march. Joseph Griffin Jr. with a 31-yard dagger two plays after a short field. Derek Morris from 30 as the half wound down. Suddenly it was 24–7 and the Big Ten home opener had turned into a UMass highlight package.

Watson through one half was ridiculous: 11-of-13, 144 yards, three scores. Comfortable in the shotgun. Comfortable running. Comfortable making a rebuilt Rutgers defense look like the same unit that coughed up 30-plus in eight games a year ago.

Social timelines lit up midgame for a reason. UMass hadn’t been up three scores at any point last season. Here they were on the road against a Power conference team, up three scores, and it did not feel fluky.

The middle chapters were a slow, methodical bleed

Morris from 52 in the third. Morris from 31 in the fourth after another Rutgers mistake put UMass in business. This was possession football from a MAC program that ranked last in FBS scoring last season at 11.1 points per game and somehow chewed more than 36 minutes of clock.

Rutgers’ night on defense was a nightmare. UMass piled up about 200 rushing yards and nearly 400 total. The Scarlet Knights managed roughly 30 yards on the ground. That is not a typo. Thirty. Against a team picked last in the MAC coaches’ poll.

Lonergan finished with 242 yards and two touchdown passes and four interceptions plus a lost fumble. That is how you lose to UMass even when you outgain them through the air. Duff was the entire offense that mattered: three touchdown catches, including a 78-yarder that briefly made it 30–14 and a late six-yarder from AJ Surace after Lonergan was done. Duff can cook. The rest of the building could not stay out of its own way.

Curtis Kimmons IV’s 17-yard touchdown run with 4:27 left pushed it to 37–14 and slammed the door on any polite narrative about a “learning experience.” The final was 37–21. The vibe was worse.

Stars, not just the box

Watson is the headline for a reason. Transfer from Virginia Tech. High school ball at Springfield Central. He did not play like a career backup handed the keys to a rebuilding MAC offense. He played like the answer UMass spent a lost year waiting on equally willing to throw to Faulkner in the flat, drop it over the top to Griffin, or keep it himself when the edge cracked.

Faulkner’s two first-half scores set the tone. Griffins 31-yard grab was the viral snap. Morris’s three field goals, including the 52-yarder, were the quiet glue that kept Rutgers from ever smelling a real comeback. Kimmons finished with the late dagger and led UMass on the ground.

On the other sideline, Duff was the bright spot and the reminder that talent alone does not fix a night like this. Three touchdowns. Nearly 200 receiving yards depending on the feed. And still on the losing side of a score that will live in Scarlet Knights meme folders until October.

Harmon and company made the second half a turnover clinic. Jahmad Harmon picked Dylan Lonergan twice — including one at the Rutgers one that set up Curtis Kimmons IV’s sealing 17-yard run. Isaiah Reed added another. Romando Johnson stripped Lonergan earlier. Four Rutgers turnovers. Zero for UMass. That is how a MAC team hangs 37 on a Big Ten defense in its own building.

What 37–21 actually means

For UMass, this is oxygen. First FBS win since October 2023. First win of any kind after 16 straight L’s. An offense that was historically bad a year ago just hung 37 on a Big Ten defense in its own building. Sacred Heart comes to town Sept. 12. Enjoy this one first. Tape it. Send it to every group chat that laughed at the preseason poll.

Extra spice: UMass head coach Joe Harasymiak spent 2022–24 as Rutgers’ defensive coordinator. Opening night against your old building hits different.

For Rutgers, it is a bruise with a longer shelf life. Schiano cleaned house on the defensive staff for a reason. Travis Johansens unit just got cooked by a team nobody picked to finish out of the MAC basement. The Scarlet Knights allowed at least 30 in eight of 12 games last year. Night one of the reboot looked like sequel, not reboot. Boston College on Sept. 11 does not get easier if the turnovers keep stacking and the run defense keeps inviting visitors to lean on them.

Thursday night Week 1 was supposed to be noise. UMass made it a statement. Rutgers made it a problem.

The Minutemen are 1–0. The Scarlet Knights are 01. And for one night in New Jersey, the longest losing streak in the FBS finally ran out of road.

Sources: ESPN/AP recap, ESPN box (gameId 401858423), Rutgers athletics game center, CBS Sports context.