For decades, the state university administrators contemplated a bold move in the athletic department.
There was an undercurrent of support to upgrade the football program to Division I-A, but something always deterred the shift. If it wasn't the lack of a stadium, it was the inability to secure funding or the absence of a conference affiliation.
Finally, the old Yankee Conference program took the plunge.
A decade ago, that was UConn's story. On Thursday night, the Huskies' neighbors to the north will begin following the same path.
UMass, long a candidate for big-time college football, will play its first game as a Football Bowl Subdivision program when it visits UConn at Rentschler Field. Administrators in Amherst talked for years about expanding football, but it never quite worked until now.
"The moon and sun kind of aligned," said UMass athletic director John McCutcheon.
There was an opportunity to join the Mid-American Conference and the school got funding for upgrades to on-campus facilities, but the most significant development was the sudden availability of a stadium.
The Kraft Group offered Gillette Stadium as a rent-free home, providing UMass with an NFL facility. Without Gillette Stadium, the program would not be making the shift because the cost of constructing a stadium would have been prohibitive.
And that's where the comparison to UConn's story ends.
"Their situation was a bit different," McCutcheon said. "UConn had a fairly significant influx of capital dollars for a facility that we obviously didn't have. So there are some things that look similar, but some important things that are quite a bit different."
Still, there is much to learn from UConn's journey. McCutcheon said he consulted with former UConn AD Lew Perkins, learning what to do and what not to do.
UMass officials learned from UConn that an on-campus facility was important for operating the program and as a recruiting tool, so office space and a training venue are being constructed and will be ready in 2014. They also learned about widening a recruiting base, following Randy Edsall's approach of starting local and spreading year after year.
Beyond the details, though, UConn provides inspiration for UMass.
"I think everybody looks at UConn and said, 'If they can do it, why can't we?'" UMass coach Charley Molnar said. "And I think that's a fair assessment, I think that's a fair statement."
Gillette Stadium in Foxborough is about 95 miles from the UMass campus, so the plan is to bus students to home games and ultimately change the culture of the student body. UConn faced the same challenge on a significantly smaller scale, building Rentschler Field about 25 miles from the Storrs campus.
"The opportunity at Gillette has a great many positives, but it does present some unique challenges as well," McCutcheon said. "We'll have to build [the student following] a little bit. They're used to coming out of the dorms and walking 200 yards to a game. It's going to be a little different, but we think that if we can develop that culture and if it's more of an event, it will be a little bit of a different deal for them and they'll want to go."
UMass has played New Hampshire at Gillette Stadium for the past few years and the school sent 26 busloads of students to the games. McCutcheon also says that more than 100,000 UMass alumni live within a 30-mile drive to Foxborough, so there is a potential fan base in eastern Massachusetts. The Worcester area also is loaded with UMass alumni.
And even though Greater Boston is historically a region that cares only about professional sports, McCutcheon said that UMass football can draw interest.
"We think we have a great product that's going to be affordable in a world-class venue, with free parking, that will be attractive to your average sports fan or a family that just wants to have great entertainment value," he said.
Part of the challenge is to raise awareness throughout the region, and that's where Molnar is important. He has been in the community, selling his program to anyone who will listen.
The New Jersey native was Notre Dame's offensive coordinator under Brian Kelly when the UMass job became available after former coach Kevin Morris was fired last year. It's Molnar's first head coaching job after 28 years as an assistant, including six under Kelly at Central Michigan, Cincinnati and Notre Dame.
"It's been a long time coming," Molnar said. "I've wanted to be a head coach for a long time. I bided my time and waited for the right situation. There's no doubt about it, this is the right place for me at this time."
Molnar, 51, might not be from New England, but he grew up in the world of Eastern football and believes that the region is ripe for a college football revival. So he talks about nurturing rivalries with Boston College and UConn, an old Yankee Conference foe.
"He's got a fantastic background with his experience," McCutcheon said. "The other thing that factored into [hiring him] for me is that he expressed a passion for Eastern football and he wanted to be part of being able to build a Division I-A level football program in the East and be part of that and put his mark on that."
Just as Edsall helped shepherd UConn into Division I-A as a first-time head coach, Molnar will debut as a head man with a program in transition. UConn was 5-17 in its first two seasons in Division I-A, so UMass (5-6 last season) could be facing a climb. Its nonconference schedule includes Michigan, Vanderbilt and UConn.
But the players, Molnar says, are undaunted.
"It's like waking up in July and coming downstairs and finding out that it's Christmas," Molnar said. "One day these guys were I-AA players playing in a 17,000-seat stadium. The next day they wake up, they're I-A players and they're playing in Gillette Stadium [with], you know, 68,000. Things have really improved for these guys in a short period of time. I think that they've really embraced the transition."
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