By Pat Hickey

Hello Wildcat fans,

What is a Chippewa? That was a large part of the discussion during practice among the specialists, as well as the rest of the team. Coach Fitz couldn’t come up with a definition for “Chippewa,” and neither could we. The best guess was the name of an Indian tribe or chipmunk. I don’t think any of us are still entirely sure. One thing we did know for sure going into our first true home opener against Central Michigan is that the Chippewas have been MAC Champions for the past four years.  Coach Fitz and the rest of the coaching staff beat into our heads not to take these Chips, as I will refer to them from now on to avoid misspelling or further confusion, lightly.

We definitely go back and review the history of our upcoming opponent through film study in order to prepare for their schemes and style of play, but this week we studied these Chips’ history in order to not have it repeat itself. Everyone remembers the big upset last year when Central Michigan walked into Spartan Stadium and beat Sparty by a slim margin to pick off a Big Ten team. They had done the same a few years back to the Hoosiers down in Bloomington. We knew what we were up against a Mid-American conference team with a vengeance to continue their winning streak against the Big Ten Conference.

Besides having these Chips on our mind, we had to start fall quarter classes in Tuesday. We’ve been without classes for the first three games of the season, which is really a huge advantage to our preparation with us being able to study more film and take care of our bodies through recovery after practice, but now we have class to go to. I’ve been living like an NFL player for the past three weeks, and now I’ve been knocked back down to earth by classes and homework getting tossed on my plate.

Although not many people on our team were excited to start classes, besides maybe the bookworms Brandon Williams and JHP (John Henry Pace), everyone was excited to finally have a real student section at Ryan Field. Coach Fitz was calling this game our “true” home opener since the students are back at this university that we represent out there on the field. We had a great week of practice in prep for CMU. It was high energy and intense, but also a lot of fun. After the final practice of the week on Thursday, Coach Fitz told us about a new tradition starting at Ryan Field to get the fans into the game. Everyone was going to put their hands in the air at the beginning of the fourth quarter, and the song that goes along will get that point across just fine. So after Thursday practice, the film crew set up a camera, blasted the “hands in the air” song, and just let us bust out our best dance moves for the Jumbotron at Ryan Field. Niko Mafuli, Venric Mark, and even Coach Fitz were the best dancers of the day. They busted out some moves I’d never seen before.

We headed into the game as prepared as we could be for the Chips. We had high energy and were pumped to play in front of our students back at Ryan Field. And the student section was unbelievable at the game! They truly gave us a home field advantage. It was a great turnout for the game; the student section gave the Chips a hard time hearing out there on the field on third down by throwing up the Wildcat paw and screaming their heads off in our support. We fought hard to put away a Central Michigan team, and get a win by only five points. We know it definitely was not our best game, but we’re going to get things fixed this week on the practice field in prep for our Big Ten opener at Minnesota on Saturday. Minnesota is a hungry team, coming off three consecutive losses, so we know we will have to be ready to play a full four quarters of Wildcat football against the Gophers on Saturday.

Until next week,

Pat Hickey