How Chris Creighton, Eastern Michigan fell in love with the Maccoon

Ypsilanti — You wouldn’t survive one quarter here. 

Or so goes the old saying, er, internet comment. Left on a YouTube video by user @teaking701, with four subscribers and no videos, the diatribe revels in the dichotomy between the perceived haves and have nots in the world of college football. 

After dressing down power five programs for being cushy, the screed on the glory of the MAC references slim crowds, foul weather and a raccoon in the stands as @teaking701’s poetry crescendos to a firm conclusion: You wouldn’t survive one quarter in Ypsilanti. 

And those in Ypsilanti seem to agree.

In a matter of weeks, what began in a YouTube comment section as a treatise on the glories and anthropologic functions of MAC football and its trademark late-season, mid-week MACtion quickly blew up on the college football corners of the internet. Fueled by the Sickos Committee, a collection of self-proclaimed college football “sickos” — the concept lifted from this editorial cartoon from The Onion — that covers the weird, wacky and occasionally unfathomable happenings that can only be born from college football, this comment took on a new life and found its way all the way to the Eastern Michigan football facilities, where some staffers decided to take the bit even further, acquiring their own “Maccoon.” 

And though the Eastern Michigan players were still a bit confused by the whole thing, the coaches and staffers around Ypsilanti have been quick to rally around this impromptu mascot. 

“I mean we love the quote,” Creighton said. “‘You couldn't survive a quarter in Ypsilanti,’ you know what I mean? It's awesome. So yeah, we'll see where it goes. But it's been fun.”

The comment first came to broader attention when it was shared on social media by Jefferson Donovan, a meteorologist working in the Yakima, Washington, area. Donovan tagged, among others, the Sickos Committee, as he called it “the greatest YouTube comment I’ve ever seen.”

The comment, left on a compilation of MAC football highlights reads, in full: 

Congrats on your 5-star recruits and $100M facilities, SEC fans. Meanwhile, the MAC is out here playing real football in front of 14 people and a raccoon on a Tuesday night during a blizzard. You ever seen a punter throw a touchdown to a long snapper while the scoreboard's on fire? Didn't think so. 

While y all are busy arguing over which frat-funded dynasty is slightly less fraudulent, Toledo's cooking up a triple-reverse flea flicker in a game that ends 43-42 after six missed PATs and a goalpost gets stolen. That's not football. That's MACtion. You wouldn't survive one quarter in Ypsilanti.

The Sickos Committee latched on to this comment and quickly fired up the merchandising machine to produce T-shirts, cups, mugs, coasters and lots of other things with a “Maccoon” logo. 

The dark green raccoon appears peering out over text that says “You wouldn’t survive a quarter in Ypsilanti.”

All the while, Eastern Michigan director of on-campus recruiting and operations Brock Humbert and creative coordinator Pranay Vittal took notice. Soon a care package of T-shirts with the Maccoon logo arrived in Ypsilanti. 

And what was originally going to be T-shirts to pass out to the staff on a lark became something more. 

The duo had shown head coach Chris Creighton the original YouTube comment, to his amusement, and when the T-shirts showed up, the head coach made sure his coaching staff each donned one for a practice. 

The players, however, did not know what was going on.

“I saw one of my coaches that I had and I was like, 'cute shirt' or something,” graduate linebacker Zach Mowchan said. "And then I kept seeing the rest of 'em wearing 'em like, ‘Oh, this was planned.’ So yeah, it kind of ended up being a pretty cool thing that they all did.”

And this practice was beloved by the Sickos Committee, who discussed it on their podcast, noting that Creighton himself appeared like a stern Santa Claus in the shirt, as he sports a thick, white beard. Creighton had gotten the Santa Claus comparison before, he said, from his children. 

As much as Creighton loves the Maccoon, there’s one person in his family who might love it even more: his wife, Heather. 

“I mean, shoot, my wife just ordered, or we just got in the mail four coffee mugs with the Maccoon on there,” Creighton said. 

But the Maccoon itself was still to make an appearance in Ypsilanti. 

Then, at 8:35 p.m. on Aug. 16, the Eastern Michigan X/Twitter account posted a dark photo with a thin light outline showing a raccoon, a plush one ordered off Amazon (or from the stork, according to EMU football general manager Jeff Collett.)

This was also the work of Humbert and Vittal. 

“So I think they started the shenanigans with our own Maccoon,” Creighton said.

The following day the Maccoon made a full debut, exploring the grey turf, goal posts and brick wall on the field at Rynearson Stadium. 

“A quarter in Ypsi,” the caption reads.

Some social media posts are not likely to be the end of the Maccoon, either. There are hopes for a stuffed raccoon to be carried into the stadium by an eagle (Eastern Michigan’s official mascot) for a home game.

And however unlikely, discussions about having a live raccoon on hand for home games have occurred. Michigan law does allow for pet raccoons, but the hang up is in procurement: Where does one acquire a raccoon? The best bet might be the nearby baseball stadium, where Eastern Michigan athletic communications staff have noted seeing raccoons live under the bleachers. 

Real raccoon or not, the Maccoon, and what it represents, could quickly morph into something that Eastern Michigan rallies around. 

Because as much as the Maccoon has been a vessel to have some fun and lighten up the dog days of fall camp, the kernel at the core of it — the pride schools like Eastern Michigan have in their programs — rings true. 

Eastern Michigan might not be a fearsome college football playoff contender or even picked to win the MAC, but overlook them at your peril. 

They might not have six-figure seat stadiums or rafts of future NFL players, but they’re confident in one thing: You wouldn’t survive a quarter here.