By KEVIN NOONAN

Massachusetts has a long and proud history in football.  The Minutemen are usually contenders for a conference championship and sometimes a national championship – They won it all in 1998 and almost won in 2006, when they finished second to Appalachian State.

And this year wouldn’t be any different, except that it’s a very different year.  UMass is 4-2 overall after upsetting Delaware 21-10 on Saturday and just moved into the Top 25 ( #22).  Under normal circumstances, the Minutemen would be 2-1 in the conference and in position for a second-half charge to the CAA title and postseason glory.

These, however, are not normal circumstances.  Massachusetts is leaving the CAA next year to join the Mid-American Conference, as a FBS school.  And because UMass is leaving, the CAA ruled the Minutemen can’t win the conference championship even if they have the most wins in the conference, and they can’t compete for a national championship even if they have the best team in the nation (a result of increasing the number of scholarships in preparation for the move to an FBS football program).

Making this an even more awkward arrangement, games against UMass count in the CAA standings for the rest of the conference teams, but no matter what they do in those games the Minutemen’s CAA record will be the same – 0-0.

That here-but-not-here status is hardest on the seniors, who have built the program.  UMass starts seven seniors, including six on offense, and they can’t go to the FCS playoffs this year and they can’t play in the MAC next year.

Welcome to limbo.

So, how do the Minutemen motivate themselves when they know there is no pot of playoff gold at the end of the rainbow?  How do they push themselves in practice every day knowing that no matter how hard they work, their season will end on Nov. 19 when they play James Madison in their final game of the season and their final CAA game ever?

“Everybody in our locker room plays football because they love the game,’’ senior tight end Emil Igwenagu said. “Obviously, that’s one motivation.  We just play for each other at this point.”

Minutemen Coach Kevin Morris has kept his team motivated despite only playing for pride.

Motivation is always part of a coach’s job and he has to get his team ready to play mentally and emotionally as well as physically.  UMass coach Kevin Morris can’t stand in front of his team and give a Knute Rockne speech about winning a CAA title or going to the playoffs, so he’s had to take a different tack and make it as simple an approach as possible.

“I just tell our kids that every game is a playoff game for us,’’ Morris said.  “We treat every individual game as a playoff game that we have to win to go to the next round.  That’s our mentality.”

That’s easy to say in the middle of October.  But when the middle of November rolls around and the Minutemen are, say, 5-2 and just a game out of first place, or have climbed high enough in the national rankings to merit a possible at-large berth, then that limbo status will be tougher to swallow.

And UMass has the players to make a late run. Sophomore QB Kellen Pagel is improving every week – he passed for 245 yards and a TD vs. a good Delaware defense on Saturday.  And UMass has one of the best running backs in the conference, senior Jonathan Hernandez, as well as three playmaking wide receivers, all seniors – Tom Gibson, Julian Talley and Jesse Julmiste – and perhaps the best tight end in the CAA in Igwenagu.  On the other side of the ball, UMass has the player voted as the CAA preseason defensive player of the year, LB Tyler Holmes.

So the Minutemen have everything they need, except an opportunity.

“Our attitude is positive, regardless of whether we can make the playoffs,’’ Holmes said.

That positive attitude starts with Holmes and the rest of the seniors, even though they won’t be around when UMass takes the field against bigger and supposedly better teams next season.

“Right now, we’re thinking about the young players on the team, to set them up for the future,’’ Igwenagu said.  “So we’ll just enjoy it while it lasts and just go out and play.’’