Timmy Hinspeter returned an interception 49 yards for a score and Max Dowling hauled in a touchdown catch as Massachusetts dominated its Mid-American Conference opener.<\/p>\n
Sep 27, 2026<\/p>\n
at<\/p>\n
1:17 am ET<\/p>\n
\u2022<\/p>\n
1 min read<\/p>\n
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) William Watson III threw a touchdown pass and ran for two more scores to lead Massachusetts<\/a> to a 35-6 victory over Sacramento State<\/a> on Saturday night.<\/p>\n Watson was 11-of-16 passing for 101 yards and he carried the ball seven times for 72 yards for UMass in their Mid-American Conference opener. The Minutemen are 4-0 for the first time since 2007.<\/p>\n Watson capped the Minutemen’s opening drive with a 13-yard touchdown run, and his 32-yard TD run made it 14-3 early in the second quarter. Watson’s 7-yard touchdown pass to Max Dowling gave the Minutemen a 21-6 lead heading into the break.<\/p>\n Timmy Hinspeter intercepted a Jackson Sharmann pass and returned the ball 49 yards into the end zone to stretch the Minutemen’s lead to 28-6 early in the third quarter. Kezion Dia-Johnson ended the scoring with a 3-yard touchdown run.<\/p>\n Sharman was 24-of-43 passing for 221 yards for Sacramento State (1-4, 0-2).<\/p>\n UMass: Hosts Eastern Michigan on Saturday.<\/p>\n Sacramento State: At Bowling Green on Oct. 10.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Sign up for Top 25 poll alerts here. Visit the Top 25 here and see AP\u2019s full college football coverage here.<\/p>\n \n Copyright 2026 STATS LLC and Associated Press. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Associated Press is strictly prohibited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Timmy Hinspeter returned an interception 49 yards for a score and Max Dowling hauled in a touchdown catch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[1321,13686,121,123,122,17685],"class_list":["post-477591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-college-football","tag-massachusetts-minutemen","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news","tag-sacramento-state-hornets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}