Alright, let me tell you about the little adventure I had trying to track down the UMass football depth chart the other day. It wasn’t exactly rocket science, but it took a bit more poking around than I initially thought.
So, the first thing I did, naturally, was just open up my browser. I typed in something simple like “UMass football depth chart”. You know, the obvious stuff. Got a whole slew of results back, like usual. Some were old news articles talking about previous seasons, others were links to stats sites that didn’t really have the official two-deep I was looking for.
Okay, plan B. I figured the official UMass Athletics website had to be the source of truth, right? So I headed over there. Navigated to the football section. Looked around for links like ‘Roster’, ‘News’, ‘Game Notes’, that sort of thing. Sometimes they bury the depth chart in the weekly game notes PDF, you know? I clicked through a few pages. Found the roster, sure, but not the clear breakdown of starters and backups by position.
I spent a good few minutes clicking around the official site. Checked the news releases again, thinking maybe they announced it leading up to the last game or something. Found some good info, game previews and recaps, but still no dedicated depth chart page readily visible, at least not where I was looking.
Then I thought, maybe I should check social media? Sometimes the official team account on Twitter, or whatever they call it now, posts graphics or updates. Beat writers who cover the team are also a good bet. So I did a quick search there too. Scrolled through recent posts from the team and a couple of reporters I know follow UMass closely. Saw some injury updates and practice snippets, but again, not the full chart laid out cleanly.
At this point, I went back to my web search but tried getting more specific. Added the current year, sometimes adding terms like “official” or “pre-game” helps filter out the older junk. I think I tried “UMass football depth chart 2023 vs [Last Opponent]” or something similar.
Finally, I stumbled upon it. It wasn’t a shiny webpage, but I think it was linked within a game preview article on the official athletics site, or maybe it was a PDF linked in a news post I’d initially skimmed over. It was listed position by position, showing the first string, second string, sometimes third. Exactly what I was trying to find.
So yeah, that was the process. A bit of searching, checking the official source carefully, looking at related news and notes, and maybe tweaking the search terms. Wasn’t super hidden, but didn’t jump right out at me either. Just took a little persistence. Got the info I needed in the end, which is what matters!
