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UMass Football Cancels, Then Revives, Senior Day Festivities Amid Backlash

The Minutemen have 54 graduating players.

Mike Kadlick

UMass reportedly was ready to cancel Senior Day for their 54 graduating players.
UMass reportedly was ready to cancel Senior Day for their 54 graduating players. / Matt Bush-Imagn Images
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It's been an interesting week for the UMass Minutemen football team—to say the least.

On Monday, they fired head coach Don Brown after a 6-28 stint with the team, and on Tuesday, his wife took to social media to complain about the program's lack of NIL money—just a $36,000 collective for their student-athletes.

On Thursday and Friday? More drama.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday evening, senior tight end Dominick Mazotti wrote that apparently, the University decided to cancel the team's Senior Day festivities scheduled for Nov. 30 against UConn.

"I know that I’ve only been here a year so maybe I don’t deserve a senior day here," Mazotti wrote. "But for the department to take away honoring individuals who have given their all to this great university, is asinine. Guys have been here for years and they deserve to be recognized before UConn."

He continued: "For more context, they decided that there are too many people graduating so they just cancelled the pre game celebration of each individual. No announcement of players will be done before the game against UConn."

According to Maroon Musket, a UMass athletics fan page, the team received the following message about the cancellation:

"UConn is our Senior Day. The athletic department has decided they will not be individually recognizing players or holding a traditional ceremony due to the number of players who are completing their eligibility and graduating from school. In lieu of the ceremony the athletic department is offering your families the opportunity to be on the field for pre-game warmups and will have a photographer available to take pictures with you. If you plan to have family members attend please text/email/ teamworks message me who will be attending so we can get them passes for pre-game warmups. Please pass this information along to your family members."

The university's decision saw significant backlash across social media from students, fans, and media members alike—so much so, that they turned heel:

"We regret the miscommunication with our team regarding the Senior Day activities planned for next Saturday," the team wrote on X. "To be clear, the Senior Day ceremony was NEVER cancelled, instead we planned to amend the pre-game ceremony due to the large number of 'seniors' (54 total) this year. We will be meeting with that group today to further discuss the logistics of Senior Day and finalize a plan that meets everyone's desired outcome."

Mazotti has since confirmed that Senior Day is, in fact, back on for the Minutemen:

"Senior day is back on!" he wrote. "Thank you all for the amount of support to the team we received. I hope to see some of you at our senior day next weekend but for now, we play Georgia tomorrow."

UMass is headed to Athens, Ga., on Saturday to take on the No. 8 Bulldogs. They'll then return home for a proper Senior Day at Amherst's McGuirk Stadium against the UConn Huskies.

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Mike Kadlick
MIKE KADLICK

Mike Kadlick is a breaking/trending news writer at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI, he covered the New England Patriots for WEEI sports radio in Boston and continues to do so for CLNS Media. He graduated from Boston University with his Master's in 2021. Mike is also an avid runner and a proud lover of all things pizza.

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