‘Makes everything better’: The good vibes fueling Matt Drinkall’s Central Michigan

Mt. Pleasant — Matt Drinkall needed to stop practice, because the defense needed to learn a lesson. 

With a Friday practice about half done on a sunny August morning, redshirt-senior linebacker Dakota Cochran ran back a pick-6 in an 11-on-11 setting. But Drinkall noticed a shortcoming in the moment. So after a shriek of his whistle he halted practice and ran over to address the defense, ordering them to sprint to the end zone, where Cochran awaited. 

“Go celebrate with your teammate!” Drinkall said. 

As the defense celebrated, Drinkall pivoted to the offensive unit that just turned it over and admonished them for putting the ball in jeopardy, barking about plays like that preventing wins. And just as fast as he stopped practice, Drinkall gave another shriek of the whistle and reps resumed. 

It was a brief but encapsulating moment of Drinkall’s approach in his first year as Central Michigan’s head coach, building a team with no shortage of intensity and a willingness to savor the fun of football. Fall camp is about getting better and molding the identity of the 2025 Chippewas on the field, firstly, but Drinkall doesn’t want the weeks Central Michigan spends on the practice field to become monotonous. 

“A big thing for us is we want our kids to feel like they're in a space, in an environment where they can be challenged and rewarded at the highest level,” Drinkall said.

The Chippewas have to get better as a team, but there’s no reason they can’t enjoy the work they’re putting in.

“We're always talking about be serious when you've gotta be serious, be detailed when you've gotta be detailed, but have fun doing that,” redshirt junior offensive lineman Brady Ploucha said. “Like if you're out here just grinding and grinding and you don't make fun of it, you may fall out of habit here, or there. But if you're having fun, loving what you're doing, playing with your guys, it just makes everything better. Even on hot days, you can just stand it a little bit more.” 

After getting hired on Dec. 9, 2024, Drinkall and his staff came in and didn’t get concerned with immediate results. 

Drinkall called the eight-week period at the beginning a “cultural install,” where process mattered far more than results. And though he knows ideas around culture in football are hackneyed, Drinkall distilled it to its essential components: The accumulation of habits and behaviors. 

The staff made expectations clear and focused on building good habits in the early days, Drinkall said, and waited to worry about results. 

“He's great at making sure the offense, the defense and the special teams, we're all on the same standard and that's going to be huge for us,” transfer running back Trey Cornist said. “We're all on the same page and all know what we're all trying to accomplish.”

After the “cultural install” wrapped up, Drinkall and Co. shifted almost purely to installing schemes and teaching football. And come fall camp, they’re merging both together.

“We thought if we paved a good road first, then we can put machines on the road,” Drinkall said. 

Coming from a stint as an assistant on Jeff Monken’s staff at Army, Drinkall certainly knows what it looks like when a team is disciplined in a regimen. 

But even coaching cadets, Monken made sure he and his staff were keeping things fresh and engaging for the players, even as they might have been doing technical, repetitive work. 

So while Central Michigan players might be repping a pass protection or coverage combination for the Nth time, Drinkall is looking for ways to add a different element or dynamic to each practice period. 

“Changing up that stimuli so they don't ever get in a comfortable rhythm or habit where something becomes routine,” Drinkall said. “That was something I learned from coach Monken. He is so, so good at fundamentals and detail, and when you do that stuff all the time you have to plug in new stimuli so it doesn't become monotonous. When you re-emphasize the same thing over and over it's the how you do, not what you do.”

Though the Chippewas are trying to capture some good vibes this year, it doesn’t mean there’s a lack of hard coaching. Drinkall put it on display after the pick-6, and the various position coaches weren’t shy to make corrections and raise their voice as needed. 

Being pushed is necessary for improvement, and the Central Michigan players are pleased with how their new staff has come in and set a tone of being hard-nosed and fair. 

It’s being done in service of improvement, not ego, and all parties know that. 

“We all trust each other and these kids know that it's coming from a place of love,” Drinkall said. “Like I know if a kid makes a mistake, he's trying to do his best. Like he has demonstrated that. They've done everything we've asked.”

Cornist concurred, and shared his desire to be pushed.  

“I want to get coached hard, I want to get better every day,” Cornist said. “I want to take big footsteps and just keep improving every day.”

And Drinkall’s shaping of the environment in Mt. Pleasant goes deeper than making practice or other football work a bit lighter. 

As the head coach, he wants to give as much as possible to his assistant coaches and support staff, too. And being limited in budget relative to bigger competitors, Drinkall is finding other methods to compensate his staff better. 

“Two of the biggest compensation tools I have are your work environment and your quality of life and the amount of time you have,” Drinkall said. “What's the most famous presidential address ever given? The Gettysburg Address. The thing's like 248 words long, it's one of the shortest ones. Teddy Roosevelt used to go up there and talk for five hours. Just because it's more or longer does not mean it's better.”

On this particular Friday, practice wrapped up after a crisp 1 hour and 45 minutes of work, with Drinkall pleased with the work his team put in during the 15 practice periods. 

Drinkall gathered the team at midfield and spoke briefly about how he was impressed with the learning and teaching that occurred. 

He finished his remarks by bringing Cochran, who had the play of the day with his pick-6, to the middle of the huddle to break down the team.

“Any time a kid does something right? Catch 'em, and reward it and acknowledge it and publicly acknowledge it and talk about why it’s so important to all of our success,” Drinkall said. “So, a lot of work to do but that's how we try to do it.”