AMHERST — During UMass football’s game with Central Connecticut State on Saturday, Minutemen wide receiver Anthony Simpson not only didn’t play — which wouldn’t have been questioned considering he left their Week 2 game against Toledo with an injury and sat out for Week 3 — he wasn’t even on the sideline.

A day later, UMass announced in an email that Simpson “is no longer a member of the Massachusetts football program.”

During head coach Don Brown’s weekly media availability on Monday afternoon, the Gazette asked him for details on the situation. Brown didn’t have any to offer.

“I’m not gonna talk about any situation with a young man not here anymore on the football team,” Brown said.

Last fall, Simpson had a breakout year with UMass catching 57 passes for 792 yards and three touchdowns. He developed a strong connection with starting quarterback Taisun Phommachanh, and the two were excited to showcase it in 2024.

But Simpson only caught two passes for 11 yards in the Minutemen’s season opener, and added just one catch for five yards in game No. 2 before exiting with an injury.

It’s safe to say Simpson didn’t get off to the start he and Phommachanh had hoped for, and because he didn’t participate in four games, the benchmark amount that counts as a full season, Simpson will still have one more year of eligibility.

“Our chemistry this year has been better,” Simpson said of him and Phommachanh during August camp. “We’ve been getting extra passes after practice in and things that I feel like are going to pay off on Saturdays.”

Just a month ago Simpson talked about how he was the veteran in the wide receiving room, and his leadership would be necessary for a group that hadn’t spent a lot of time together.

“It’s definitely my room,” Simpson said back in August. “My boys come behind me and they go as I go. That’s why I make sure I come out here every single day and give all I got. Even when I don’t got it, they make sure that I have it because they just expect highly of me.”

There is no word on whether Simpson left the program on his own or was told to, but what is known is that Phommachanh will continue to feed the hot hands on the roster, including Jakobie Keeney-James, who is fresh off a five-catch, 95-yard and one score performance against CCSU.

Jaquon Gibson hauled in three catches for 43 yards and T.Y. Harding grabbed his first career touchdown on a 57-yard strike from Phommachanh. Even without Simpson, the redshirt senior has plenty of weapons at his disposal.

“Jakobie has been a guy I can count on since he first got in here,” Phommachanh said on Monday. “We first hit it off back in the springtime, and we’ve just been building and growing our connection each day… We just gotta keep the ball rolling.”