AMHERST — The UMass football team is coming out of a much-needed off week following seven consecutive games to start its season, the most recent a 45-3 defeat at the hands of nationally ranked Missouri in front of over 16,000 fans at McGuirk Alumni Stadium.

Bye weeks provide the opportunity for a variety of activities to get done, and Minutemen head coach Don Brown took full advantage of UMass’ first of two this year.

The main emphasis on his end? Hammering home the basics – which are typically glossed over when playing a game every week. Most of the focus is on the upcoming opponent, but with no game last Saturday, Brown had plenty of time to go through the motions with his defense.

“You’re trying to get better at techniques and fundamentals,” Brown said during Monday’s media availability. “Sometimes, that’s a good thing – just being able to work on things that are important. I’m a big techniques and utilization of the hands. Sometimes that gets pushed to the background, whereas being able to play off blocks is a big deal. Simple things like tackling position, your posture, all the little things that you just don’t get the chance to do on a day-to-day basis, those become critical things to work on.”

This year, every team in FBS has two weeks off throughout the season. UMass (1-6) was one of the last programs in the country to have its first bye, as a grueling seven-game stretch began its season. Four of the Minutemen’s first six contests came on the road, including two stretches of back-to-back games away from Amherst.

Brown said some of his players used the days off he gave them last week to travel and see family, while others simply enjoyed their free time on campus. Either way, the Minutemen seem refreshed and rejuvenated as they begin a full practice week on Monday to prepare for this weekend’s home matchup with FCS foe Wagner (3:30 p.m., Saturday).

“[There’s] never anything wrong with rest,” Brown said. “We had good juice last week at the practices, I feel real good about our preparation and now we’re back into game week… Our guys have been good, and they’re definitely eager to get back at it. We’ll get into meetings [Monday]. Last week, Tuesday and Wednesday were more technique, fundamentals, get after it, compete. And then Thursday was really our first Wagner day, so obviously we got a good jump on things there, and continue on this week in our preparation for this coming weekend.”

The third-year UMass coach in his second stint also took time to challenge his roster from top to bottom, in each position group. The Minutemen may have had several close calls, and they may feel as if they’ve deserved to win a few more games, but, plainly put, they need to be better.

Brown knows that, and his players do, too.

“I wanna see virtually every position group [be better],” Brown said. “I mean guys, we’ve won one game. We’ve gotta be better than that. Being close is not good enough. Everybody’s got their jobs to accelerate, everybody’s got their techniques and fundamentals to work on, and that’s what we’re gonna do.”

“Getting the mental execution piece is big for us,” UMass center Josh Atwood added. “Physically, we’re up to par and playing as we do, I just think mentally we need to get that up to speed the same as the physical part.”

With bowl eligibility all but out of the window for UMass, the Minutemen are now focused on improving game in and game out. Their schedule still holds road bouts against Mississippi State and Georgia as well as home games with Liberty and UConn, so aside from the Wagner game this Saturday, they won’t be favored to win another game this fall.

The goal moving forward is simply to improve every day, and given their effort on the practice field, Brown said the Minutemen seem to be doing just that.

“Let’s just focus on playing one game at a time and playing as hard and as tough as you can, compete for 60 minutes, and let’s see where we’re at,” Brown said. “That’s really the message. Let’s get better, let’s keep staying together… You come out and watch us practice, we take a backseat to nobody on the practice field. Now you’ve just gotta transition it to the game field and finish.”

Elsewhere, Brown and some of his staff hit the road last Friday and Saturday – two days the Minutemen had off from practice – to watch high school football and get some recruiting done.

UMass representatives were littered across the country, with Brown staying put in the northeast.

“We got out on the road recruiting on Friday and Saturday, me included,” Brown said. “It was nice to get out on the road. I spent the majority of my time in New England. We kind of had guys all over the place, but we feel like we got some good, solid recruiting work done that needs to be done on a week-to-week basis as we move forward.”