I was 24 when UMass made its Chattanooga run in 1998 and I hung out with the Collegian and WMUA reporters on road trips. One of my favorite off the field memories from that season was at the championship game. The WMUA crew was forced to broadcast from inside the main press box instead of a normal booth so everyone could hear their broadcast throughout. During the pregame, Brett Mauser, WMUA's play-by-play voice, was rattling through the list of things he thought UMass needed to do to win the game.

Standing near me were two reporters that covered Georgia Southern. All week these guys had been homers, arrograntly talking about how great Georgia Southern was, being very condescending to the rest of us like being from the northeast meant we didn't know anything about football. One turned to the other and said something like "This isn't the Atlantic 10, there's no way you guys can win," he said mocking Mauser.

At the end of the game when it became clear that UMass was going to win, Mauser was going appropriately crazy. Those same two reporters walked behind me again whining about how they shouldn't let student media in the press box as they sulked out.

Why am I telling you all this? Because I'm letting Mauser guestblog his memories of that season as part of the blog's season long look back at that season.

By Brett Mauser

Out of left field? Only if that ballpark’s in Guam, the Arctic Circle, Neptune. Really, the Minutemen’s 1998 run to the title made Cinderella’s rise to royalty comparatively predictable. If I had bet on whether UMass would have won a national championship that year, I’d be out one farm.

As a staff writer for the Massachusetts Daily Collegian and broadcaster for WMUA, I was fortunate enough to catch all but one of the ’98 games, that being James Madison. Because of it, it’s the season against which all other improbable runs will be measured.

With Whipple in place, the fullback dive of the Mike Hodges era was replaced by an offense that could seemingly score at will. The teams wore the same jerseys, and many of the numbers stayed the same, but they really looked like they were from different planets, or at least a different era. One was a Model-T; the other was a Maserati. By season’s end, Todd Bankhead threw for three times as many yards as the 1997 quarterbacks. Marcel Shipp turned his freshman-record 756 yards into a UMass record 2,542 as a sophomore. Jimmy Moore and Adrian Zullo gave Bankhead options downfield and Kerry Taylor plenty of space up the seam or underneath. It was awesome. They went from dull to dangerous overnight.

In August, a national championship was inconceivable, but belief in that team really took but a few games to materialize. The Delaware loss got our attention, especially mine. I’d told the Blue Hens student radio team that their high school team could beat us. Whoooa, was I wrong. That Taylor flat-out dropped the pass in the end zone with less than a minute to go was inconsequential to our perception of that team. That they’d almost beaten Delaware was about as good as actually beating them.

What people might forget about is how close UMass was to missing the playoffs altogether. Forget the playoff thrillers in Louisiana or the goal-line stand against Lehigh. If Adrian Zullo doesn’t validate Whipple’s lack of confidence with his kicking game with a sliding touchdown catch to beat Hofstra, UMass finishes 7-4 and misses the playoffs. If James Madison ties the game with a two-point conversion and wins in OT, it’s over. If the field goal by UNH’s Shawn MacLean splits the uprights rather than sails juuuuust left, they’re out. Richmond, URI, we easily could have dropped those too. Or, like today, if UMass scheduled a I-A juggernaut and dropped a fourth game because of it, Tennessee’s a no-go. Yes, they should have beaten UConn at least once and if Taylor catches the pass in Newark, a 2-9 team from the previous year could have run the table even. Take out the ugly Buffalo, Maine and Villanova wins, and every game that season, win or lose, drastically curbed my efforts to reverse a lifelong affinity for fingernail consumption. It was one big cliffhanger.

The charge to Chattanooga culminated with me performing radio play-by-play duties for the showdown with Georgia Southern. Boy, did the UMass defense show up that day. Sure, it surrendered 43 points, but the seven turnovers were massive. None were bigger than when Kole Ayi seemingly intercepted an option pitch to Adrian Peterson and waltzed into the end zone. Because the stadium’s broadcast booths were all occupied by pros, myself and Justin Rudd were relegated to the main press area. Our account was heard loudly and clearly by the dozens of media members, including the entirely disgruntled Georgia Southern press corps. They were plenty confident going in, and let that be known. Their glum looks let it be known that they were plenty displeased afterward. I’d love to hear a tape of that game, of the Ayi return, the what-in-the-world Holston-to-Zullo touchdown, the countdown to the title. As media members, we’re supposed to be objective, but there’s a decent chance I failed in that endeavor.

I’m sad that many of the details have grown fuzzy; some surely remain. Among them, I remember the certifiably awesome Jimmy Moore, he of the greatest catch I’ve ever seen live (one-hander near the north end zone at McGuirk against I forget who). I remember Kevin Quinlan coming out of nowhere to rush for 147 yards in the place of Shipp against McNeese State. I remember Ayi, Brian Smith and Khari Samuel flying to the ball, with the latter saving the day against Rhode Island with a huge pick late. The whole season was like the ultimate Choose Your Own Adventure book. The route UMass chose was complete with near pitfalls left and right but in the end, the tightrope act brought maximum satisfaction for a sports fan, both then and now. Without a doubt, the 1998 championship season was amazing. I wish everyone could have experienced it.

...14 days til the election...