In CFB’s monied, player movement moment, Matt Drinkall believes Central Michigan is a destination
The Chippewas are far from the upper rungs of the sport, but the head coach is confident he's got a winning pitch.
Mt. Pleasant — It wasn’t until relatively recently that Matt Drinkall felt he really had his feet under him and he could take a beat to appreciate where he was.
Attending Central Michigan’s annual toilet paper toss home basketball game on Jan. 31, Drinkall felt, in a sense, at home. He’d been around Mt. Pleasant for more than a calendar year and the whirlwind few months of the job after arriving in December 2024 just kept spinning until the 2025 season and 2026 transfer period wrapped up. And along with all that comes from coaching at the Division I level for the first time, Drinkall and his wife Kim bought a house and welcomed their first child during the 2025 season. The onslaught didn’t subside until mid-January.
So at McGuirk Arena on a January Saturday night, Drinkall realized he’d become a recognizable figure, something that was not readily the case a year prior when he attended the toilet paper toss game. He recognized plenty of people, too. It was a manifestation of what Drinkall has been saying about Central Michigan since he took the job.
“I'm at Central, we're at Central right now, we're really lucky that it's a place that all the things I talk about in recruiting are genuine,” Drinkall said in an interview with Mitten Football. “It's all real. It's the stuff I evaluated during the process where I'm like, 'Man, this place is a gold mine of a job.' It's a strong tradition, it's a great place to live, it's got an unbelievable recruiting area in your backyard, the community's a big deal to the campus, the campus is a big deal to the community. It's that perfect blend.”
Where Central Michigan fits in the modern paradigm of college football is not a question with a simple answer, nor is Drinkall offering one. But the CMU head coach, entering his second season on the job after pulling off a 7-6 debut campaign, is thorough and realistic in his perception of how the Chippewas fit into the sport as it currently stands. The program is not and probably won’t be a monied power like Michigan or Michigan State, stocking NIL and revenue share warchests to help assemble the best roster. And its pathways to compete for championships beyond the MAC are slim-to-none. But Drinkall is bullish on selling Central Michigan and all it has to offer, as a football program, school and place to be.
Because while Central Michigan might not be the pinnacle of college football, its current head coach fully believes it’s a destination he can sell.
“We have a finite product that you would want to come be a part of,” Drinkall said.
It starts by selling recruits on the same things that sold Drinkall on the job, himself.
