Football Preview: MAC Opener, Homecoming, and Something to Avenge

- The preliminaries are out of the way, and now it's an eight-game season against opponents in their own weight class. Plenty of angles to consider as the Central Michigan football team (2-2) prepares to entertain Akron (1-3) on Saturday (3:30 p.

It is the Mid-American Conference opener for both teams, it is CMU's homecoming, and there is a loss - a bad loss - to avenge. "There's not another game on our schedule I have thought about more," second-year CMU coach Matt Drinkall said.

"I've thought about this Akron game, conservatively, 50 times a day, every day, for the last 365 days because we failed to perform to our standards in that game." That game, a 28-22 Zips win in Akron, was CMU's first league loss in 2025 and it knocked the Chippewas off track. They would later lose conference games to eventual-league champion Western Michigan and to Toledo, but it was the Akron game that set the tone for a 5-3 (fifth place) MAC finish.

"We did not play well in the game, not up to our standards," Drinkall said. "It wasn't just offense or just defense.

We didn't convert on sequencing downs. We were poor in short yardage.

We didn't have them prepared for certain in-game situations. I can't handle losing when the product is bad and the product was bad because of me a year ago and I have got to make sure we get it right." The Chippewas emerged from the nonconference portion of their schedule a not-unexpected 2-2, with a dominant 24-10 home win over Wyoming as the highlight.

The two losses came by a combined 90-10, the first in the season opener at New Mexico, which is now 3-1 and among the favorites in the Mountain West Conference; and the second, last week, at now-No. ), which could very well be on its way to a second consecutive national championship game appearance.

None of those, good or bad, really matter now as the Chippewas, who finished anywhere from third-sixth in MAC presason polls, look ahead to the conference schedule. "The reality is, we're in league play," Drinkall said.