University of Massachusets Athletics
Football to Open NCAA Playoffs at Furman
November 21, 1999 | Football
Nov. 21, 1999
AMHERST, Mass. - The University of Massachusetts football team has earned a bid to the NCAA I-AA football tournament for the second consecutive year. The Minutemen, 1999 Atlantic 10 Co-Champions, are seeded 10th and will play the seventh-seeded Furman University Paladins next Saturday at 1:00 p.m. in Greenville, S.C.
The game will mark the first ever meeting between the two schools. Furman finished the season 9-2 and tied with Georgia Southern (the No. 2 seed) and Appalachian State (the No. 4 seed) for the Southern Conference title. Furman earned the league?s automatic bid on the basis of a blind draw by the conference?s commissioner. Overall, UMass is 1-0 all-time against the Southern Conference, the lone win coming over Georgia Southern in last year?s national championship game in Chattanooga, Tenn., 55-43.
?We?re excited to be going south,? said UMass head coach Mark Whipple. ?It?s like a bowl game, and that will be good because it will get us focused. We?ll go anywhere and we?ll play anybody. We?re playing well, we won big yesterday, and we?ve won our last seven games.
?We?re going to go on the road, and we?re going to play in front of some good fans and a big crowd. You can tell from our kids that they?re excited.?
UMass will be making its fifth appearance in the NCAA I-AA playoffs. The Minutemen have an all-time record of 5-3 in I-AA playoff games, and have made two championship game appearances (1978, and 1998), winning the title last year.
The winner of the UMass-Furman game will meet the winner of No. 2 Georgia Southern and No. 15 Northern Arizona at the campus site of the highest remaining seed.
