Central Michigan ready for real successes, not moral ones after lopsided loss to Michigan

Ann Arbor — There’s no denying the ugliness of being on the wrong side of a 63-3 loss, as Central Michigan found itself on Saturday afternoon. 

And there’s no denying just how bad it was, as the Chippewas gave up 616 yards, nine touchdowns, 35 first downs and managed to score a lone field goal on 139 net yards while producing eight first downs. Central Michigan went 6-for-15 on third downs and failed on both fourth down attempts. Each quarterback who played Saturday turned it over once in the second half. 

Quite simply, Central Michigan got whipped. And coming out of his locker room after the whipping, head coach Matt Drinkall acknowledged he and his team are ready to graduate from being a new coaching staff doing some exciting things to an out-and-out good football team that’s hard to beat. 

“The thing I really like about this team is they're over moral victories,” Drinkall said in the visitors' press conference room at Michigan Stadium. “They're kind of over that phase at this point. We're always trying to be glass half full, trying to take positives away from something. But I was talking about it in there, there's not a whole lot of — they're ready to start making some results.”

The easiest path to understanding the on-field result Saturday between Central Michigan and Michigan lies in the 247Sports Team Talent Composite. 

A ranking of each college football team’s roster based on the star ranking of each of the players as high school recruits, it gives an approximation of the amount of elite, blue chip talent a team has. 

Michigan ranks No. 11 in the 2025 team talent composite. Central Michigan ranks No. 121. 

And when those two teams got together on the football field, it went quickly sideways for the less-talented team. 

“We learned the hard way if you are not consistent against a very consistent and talented team, they will make you pay for it right away,” Drinkall said. “I really thought that Michigan were the aggressors the entire game in all three phases as far as fast off the ball, fast closing space and confident.”

The Chippewas were victim of some bad circumstances, too, as the three-quarterback rotation that CMU plays with dwindled to two quarterbacks pregame on Saturday, as redshirt freshman Jadyn Glasser missed the game with a knee injury. It altered the snap counts and plan for using Joe Labas and Angel Flores, and how much the quarterback would be run. 

But that, along with missteps in short yardage, negative plays and failed conversions likely didn’t matter as much as the bigger circumstance: Michigan has a lot more really good football players. 

“And they just executed to a T,” defensive back Elijah Gordon said. “Obviously they are extremely talented and I thought that we did what we could. I thought effort was good. I thought communication was good, defensively. Obviously you're going to get the missing assignments and critical errors that you want back to get this game closer than it was. But yeah, they're extremely talented and running the football is what they do and that's what they did.”

The question now, and what matters for Central Michigan, is how the team responds and builds on the improvements that have happened during a 1-2 start with two blowout losses to Power 4 opponents. 

And even on Saturday, despite the final result, there was some good. 

The run game operation — not the results itself — but how the offensive line handled its work, how the backs and tight ends complemented them and ran, improved, Drinkall said. The defense made it three games in a row to start the season with a takeaway, as Brandon Deasfernandes intercepted Bryce Underwood in the second quarter. The Chippewas finished Saturday with one penalty, a 1st and goal defensive pass interference in the end zone that cost six yards. 

After losing to Pitt in Week 2, Drinkall shouldered the blame for a number of missed assignments and procedural issues, along with presnap penalties. Drinkall apologized to his locker room for not preparing them better, and vowed to do better this week. 

And the Chippewas feel like they got prepped for the environment well, and the clean nature of the offensive and defensive operation reflected that. 

But the operation before and after the snap, the ability to make gains on the margins, only matters so much when the other team has endless talent and depth that overwhelm each play. 

“It's been very good for us to see, when you play against — obviously our goal is to become a very, very good program and for us, the last two weeks, to see really good programs in the flesh that are well coached, talented, good culture, good tradition, it shows,” Drinkall said. “It's smelling salts for our guys. Like, dude, they're giving you a blueprint for what we need to fix to be able to compete at that level. To me, that's a cool part of college football right now if you understand how to use it, where these games are great to compete in but the reality is, these first three games don't count towards our conference and it was a chance, and it's a chance for us as a staff to figure out who we are, to get all on the same page, catch all of our problems and issues, too. So, there are a lot of positives to take away from today.”

And while Central Michigan’s schedule eases up significantly in the coming weeks and none of their future opponents will be anywhere as talented as the Wolverines, the Chippewas are ready to move on from moral victories to real ones.