Football starts it on MAC Media Day

DETROIT, Mich. Are you ready for football?

Jim McElwain and the Central Michigan Chippewat certainly are. The 2021 season kicked off unofficially on Tuesday on Central America’s conference media day at Ford Field, the December league title game.

The Chippewat went 3-3 in the COVID-shortened season of 2020, and they are restoring a talented and solid core of veterans, like a defensive end Troy Hairston II and a wide receiver / punt return Kalil Pimpleton, both represented CMU on Tuesday Media Day.

CMU defeated MAC West in 2019, following McElwain’s first-season program.

“I think we have some great pieces on our team; I think our parts are great,” McElwain said. “I think we have really talented guys. Now we have to bring these parts and make it a whole.”

Hairston, who was MAC’s defensive player of the year last season, is the main line of defense that includes the pillars Troy Brown double All-MAC First Team player security Devonni Reed, and the center line guard George Douglas.

Pimpleton is one of the most dazzling players on MAC and is in danger of going the distance whenever he touches the ball. He’s part of the offense, which includes one or two running kicks Kobe Lewis and Lew Nichols III, the latter of which was voted MAC freshman of the year in 2020.

Chippewat was selected fourth in the pre-season media poll.

“We’ve been selected fourth; that’s how we should be,” McElwain said, referring to the 2020 season, when CMU lost to all three Ball State, Western Michigan and Toledo schools selected in the poll for it. “We got our tail kicked to Ball State, we got our tails hit from Western, we got our tails hit from Toledo.

“It was a pretty easy choice. Everyone is back, everyone has the same team; for us, we really need to have the development of our young players, which has to push us over.”

Also back is the quarterback Daniel Richardson, which started four games in 2020 and completed 63.9 percent of its passes. The injury shortened the season. Others on the list competing for location are Jacob Sirmon, a second year of study in Washington and Tyler Pape, a freshman who played at Parma Western High School.

Hairston’s journey

Birmingham senior Hairston led MAC with 5 sacks in 12 losses in 2020, earning MAC’s Defensive Player of the Year award and a place on the first team of the entire conference. He finished fourth on the team in 41 matches, forcing one to curl up and recover. He and Brown were among 90 players nationally named on the Bednarik Award Watch Watch on Monday. The prize is awarded annually to the defending player of the year in college football.

CMU is one of 11 schools with two candidates on the watch list. Brown and Hairston are two of five players from the Mid-American Conference schools on the list.

Hairston became CMU’s primary destination and earned a scholarship before through 2019. His journey from the beginning of the year to the MAC player is significant.

“A lot of time, effort, a lot of older guys kind of take you under their wings,” Hairston said as he explained the trip. “(Former Chippewa’s defensive head) Joey Ostman worked a lot with me and was one of the people who really believed in me, and he really worked with me during the quarantine, and I got to know him on a deeper level.”

Hairston announced his arrival as a force on the defensive side of the ball with a three-sack performance in a 30-27 victory over Ohio in the opening season of the 2020 season.

“The day I knew a lot of the hard work had paid off and it hasn’t been done yet was the first game against Ohio,” he said. “The only thing I could do was sit there and cry because I went through a lot of stuff, a lot of trouble, and not a lot of people believed in me like I would believe in myself.”

“I have a lot of teammates who, if they weren’t, I wouldn’t have done the plays I did last year.”

Schedule

The Chippewoes are scheduled to open the season on September 4 in Missouri and are scheduled to entertain Robert Morris in their home key on September 11. Ohio) on October 2.

The Missouri and LSU trips give CMU two dates in two weeks against the Southeastern Conference Schools. The Chippewat did not play non-conference games in 2020; in 2019, they went to Wisconsin (Big Ten) and Miami (Fla.) (ACC). The Chippewoes ’last match against the SEC opponent came on September 1, 2018, when they opened the 35-20 losses of the season in Kentucky.

“For our university, our people and most of all our players, it allows us to go play against the best conference in the country year after year,” McElwain said. “I see it as an opportunity for us to bring Central Michigan to the national stage.”