AMHERST — In the wake of UMass Director of Athletics Ryan Bamford’s firing of former head football coach Don Brown on Monday, interim head coach Shane Montgomery gave the Minutemen players the day off from practice to give them time to digest the news. Montgomery and the rest of the coaching staff still held their weekly Monday meetings and addressed some of the miscues they saw from last Saturday’s game against Liberty, but he didn’t feel it was right to make the team practice given the circumstances.

Montgomery opened his first press conference Tuesday as interim head coach by praising Brown and his commitment to the Minutemen program since taking over in Nov. 2021.

“As you can imagine, it was a tough day [Monday] around here,” Montgomery said. “I want to publicly thank coach Don Brown for what he's done for this university and this football program. His three stints here, he poured everything he had into it. I'm very fortunate he brought me in here back in February to be the offensive coordinator. Even though the wins aren't what you want it to be, I enjoyed every single day. I think we owe a lot of gratitude to him for what he poured in this program, and we wish him and his family well as he moves on.

“We had our meetings and cleaned up the Liberty game, but we decided not to go out and practice [Monday],” Montgomery added. “Just kind of gave them some room to breathe and to realize everything that was going on. So we'll go back out there today, we'll make up for it [in the] next few days. We'll have three good days of practice going into Georgia.”

Montgomery said he understands that he’s been put in a difficult position, having to somehow get his players fired up to play against top-10 Georgia (Saturday, 12:45 p.m.) after they lost their head coach – who was more likely than not the reason they wound up in Amherst in the first place. Montgomery does have experience as a head coach, leading future MAC foe Miami (Ohio) to a 17-31 record from 2005-08.

The former North Carolina State quarterback was transparent throughout Tuesday’s presser, and admitted he and the rest of coaching staff have already thought about what’s next for them now that the man who hired them no longer has his job. After coaching for over 30 years, losing a head coach during the season isn’t new to Montgomery, but it doesn’t make the situation any easier.

“It's tough, because the biggest thing is there's just uncertainty,” Montgomery said. “When you're married, or you're engaged and you've got kids and you've got a family, the uncertainty of what's it going to be like in a month, I mean, that's the biggest thing. But when you get into this profession, you realize this could happen… I've been on both ends – head coach lost his job and I lost the job, or I was kept on. Ryan addressed the staff when he made the change [Monday], and let them know what was going on. But all we can do right now is just keep going. I told the [staff on Monday]… We can really worry about it, let it affect us, or we can do our job the way we've been doing it.”

Based on the disappointment shown throughout UMass players’ reactions to Brown’s firing, it’s plenty fair to wonder what the level of motivation in the locker room will be for the Minutemen’s final two games – starting with this weekend down in Athens, Ga.

And for UMass players who have been in Amherst for four-plus years, this is the second in-season firing they’ve been a part of. Now, Montgomery is tasked with reeling his players in and keeping them focused as the season comes to a close over the next two weeks.

“Unfortunately, some of these older kids, this is the second time they've gone through this,” Montgomery said. “Being in the profession as long as I have, I've been through it before. I actually went through it as a player early in my career back at NC State. So it's never an easy time, and you never know how [players are] going to react. I think first is they're in a shock, and then there's probably some anger. Then you just got to try to reel them in and try to get this thing going back and getting ready for Saturday.

“There’s hurt feelings, that’s just normal,” Montgomery added. “That’s going to happen anytime change occurs, whether it’s an employment area or sports. Whatever it is, there’s going to be some people that it affects differently than other people… But [this week], we gotta go out and practice, and hopefully the energy that we bring as coaches and the way that we practice, the tempo that we go through practice with, will get their minds off of it and get them back to playing football.”

At this point in the season, there certainly isn’t enough time for Montgomery to reinvent the wheel. He didn’t ask much from those on UMass’ roster. All he wants from them is to leave everything they’ve got on the field against Georgia and UConn.

“Really, I just asked them to do a few things,” Montgomery said. “We got two games left. They've done everything we've asked them to do over the last year since I've been here. [I asked them] just to finish strong on the field, academically off the field, just do the things that would make this university proud. And we have two games left, two big games. We still got a lot to play for.”