AMHERST -- The UMass football team can enter Saturday's home matchup with Appalachian State their heads held a little higher. After all, the Minutemen are no longer winless after their 55-20 win over Georgia Southern last week.
"I think it was kind of that momentum that we needed going into the second half of the year," UMass tight end Adam Breneman said. "It just gave us a lot of confidence. We know how close we have been basically every single game."
Through seven games on the season, the UMass football team has lost six times. But even so, their point differential is just at minus-8. The Minutemen have not lost by more than 10 points on the year, and pulled off a 35-point victory last week.
With that in mind, the Minutemen will look to make it two wins in a row on Saturday, though they have a tall task in front of them. Appalachian State is 5-2 on the season, only having lost to No. 15 Georgia and Wake Forest on a blocked field goal. They're 4-0 in the Sun Belt Conference, and beat Coastal Carolina earlier in the year -- a team UMass lost to.
"They just know how to win," UMass head coach Mark Whipple said. "They have a lot of pride."
Perhaps Appalachian State's most memorable win in program history came with Armanti Edwards at quarterback in 2007, when they upset Michigan as a Division I-AA school. Since then, they have moved up into the FBS and had plenty of success in the Sun Belt conference.
"We were joking in the locker room, 'I think everyone knows them from beating Michigan back in 2007,'" Breneman said. "But they're really well coached, they're disciplined, they're big and fast, they recruit well -- they're going to be a good challenge for us."
Perhaps the biggest challenge the Mountaineers present is quarterback Taylor Lamb, who passed Edwards as the Appalachian State all-time passing touchdown leader with 78. This season, he is up to 1,624 passing yards, 13 touchdowns and three interceptions. His quarterback rating is up to 144.8.
"Taylor Lamb is a really good quarterback," Whipple said. "They have all the confidence in the world in him. ... He just makes plays and they have great skill around him. They have a scheme that they understand that they've been in for a while and it's been effective."
Appalachian State can run the ball too. It has three players with over 250 yards on the ground this year, and four runners with multiple touchdowns.
Defensively, Appalachian State has a 3-4 scheme, which is something UMass has not faced this season. The Minutemen will likely rely on running backs Bilal Ally and Marquis Young a lot when going up against this front.
Ally had his best game of the season in last week's win, running the ball 16 times for 116 yards and three touchdowns in the contest. Young leads UMass in carries this season though, however, and is up to 458 yards and five touchdowns on the year. Whipple is happy to have to running backs he can rely on this season.
"I've always tried to have two guys, no matter where I've been," Whipple said. "We just haven't been able to get into the situation where we were last week."
At this point of the year, UMass would have to go undefeated to finish the year .500. Still, Breneman says the team has plenty to prove.
"I think for me and for some of the seniors and the guys that have been here for a while ... we are just trying to leave this place a little bit better than it was when we got here," Breneman said. "Helping to change the perception of UMass football. I think we have a chance to do that these last five games and put some wins on paper. Coach Whipple said it to us before the Georgia Southern game -- 'It's not how you start, everyone remembers how you finish.'"