DETROIT — On Thursday, players and coaches from the 13 teams that make up the Mid-American Conference met at Ford Field to preview the 2025 football season.
It will be an interesting year for the conference, as UMass joins while Northern Illinois is set to leave the MAC for the Mountain West following the 2025 season.
Here are some takeaways from the three Michigan programs that play in the conference: Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan and Western Michigan:
Central Michigan
There are six new head coaches in the MAC for 2025, most notably Bowling Green’s Eddie George taking over after four seasons at Tennessee State. But there may be something special brewing at CMU, as Matt Drinkall enters his first season following Jim McElwain’s retirement.
Drinkall enters the program after six seasons in multiple roles at Army, serving mostly on the offensive side of the ball, including the last two seasons as the offensive line coach.
“I had several different roles during my time at Army, and I got a chance to be around some really quality people, especially head coach Jeff Monken, to see how things operate and run,” Drinkall said. “Just to watch how coach Monken runs his program, to get a PhD master class on that every day from a guy who does it so well has been incredibly helpful.”
Some would think going from coaching men training for the Army to regular college football players would be a huge transition. But Drinkall credits McElwain and the coaching staff, along with 25 returning seniors, for a smooth transition.
“We’re very fortunate to be coming into a situation where we not only have talented guys, but guys that are very serious about winning,” Drinkall said. “It’s serious guys that are professionals, that want to do well and want to be challenged, so that’s been really a refreshing surprise.”
One of those returning seniors is quarterback Joe Labas, who is coming back from a serious shoulder injury to his throwing arm that limited him to six games last season. Drinkall knows Labas well, the Iowa-native coach having seen the former Iowa QB before transferring to Central for the 2024 season.
“I love him, I think he’s bringing this type of culture into the program. He really cares about us players, which is really good,” Labas said of Drinkall. “He can get fired up at times too.”
Eastern Michigan
Now from a first-year head coach to one of the longest-tenured coaches in the conference, Chris Creighton returns for a 12th year at the helm of EMU. Already established as the most decorated coach in the program’s history, Creighton looks to get Eastern back to winning ways.
Eastern Michigan head coach Chris Creighton watches from the sideline during the first half of an NCAA college football game against Washington, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024, in Seattle. (LINDSEY WASSON — AP Photo, file)
After a 9-4 record and a bowl win in the 2022 season, the Eagles have gone through back-to-back losing seasons. Last year was especially painful, as a 5-2 start turned into five straight losses that were in-conference, including a 26-18 season-finale loss against Western Michigan where both teams were fighting for bowl eligibility.
“That sticks in everyone’s crawl,” Creighton said. “We know that we are good enough and can be good enough to realize all of our goals, and it’s just part of sticking with the process and believing in it all the way through the season, and we absolutely plan on doing that.
“We played some of our best football in the beginning of the year last year. And we’re really taking an approach this year of continuing to develop once the season has started so that we’re playing our best at the end of the year.”
Creighton said that during recruiting visits, when he asks people what they know about Eastern Michigan, he usually gets two answers: the gray field, and former player Maxx Crosby.
It’s not just the fans who seems to love the unique field, as players seems to enjoy it as well.
“I just think it’s super different, unique, going out there and practicing on a gray field. Not a single person in the country can say they’re able to do that,” said senior defensive lineman Jefferson Adam. “I wouldn’t want it any other way, and what it represents too, like toughness and our motto and our brand.”
Western Michigan
Entering his third season as head coach at WMU, Lance Taylor looks to bring back the program’s winning ways. A 5-3 (4-0) start turned into a 6-6 (5-3) finish for the Broncos, and Taylor failed to win his first bowl game in a 30-23 loss to South Alabama in the IS4S Salute To Veterans Bowl.
“One of the things that I saw in last year’s team was we started 4-0 in the MAC and we were finding ways to win, overcome adversity, which was a great step from where we were in Year 1, when we were beating ourselves a bunch,” Taylor said. “But what happened was … we didn’t handle success very well. And I think handling failure is much easier than handing success. Failure motivates you. Success makes you complacent.”
Taylor has been involved in his share of many rivalries, such as the Iron Bowl during his time as a graduate assistant at Alabama, the Jets-Patriots rivalry of the early 2010s when he was on Rex Ryan’s staff, and being on both sides of the Stanford-Notre Dame rivalry.
“I was really impressed with the rivalry of us and Central, us and Eastern; it means a lot to a lot of people in this state,” said Taylor. “And I’ve never been part of a three-way rivalry, so it’s pretty cool to have to play two in-state rivals for the Michigan MAC trophy, right? Which, by the way, we still have.”
Western Michigan opens with a huge road game, traveling to East Lansing to face Michigan State. MAC commissioner Jon Steinbrecher on Thursday stressed the importance of the relationship between the MAC and the Big Ten.
Tate Hallock, a former Spartan who transferred to Western in 2023, is looking forward to the opener. Tate has family that went to MSU, even a sister who’s currently on the basketball team, and said he’ll be preparing teammates for an “awesome place.”
“Just because Spartan Stadium is probably my favorite place I’ve ever played at, being at Michigan State,” Hallock said. “But now to be on the opposite side, it’s going to be a little weird, but it’s going to be a lot of fun. So I’m very excited, and just try to help those guys and just let them know it’s gonna be rowdy, it’s gonna be awesome, but we just gotta execute.”
Added Taylor: “I think our guys are excited, because we have so many players from the state of Michigan or Midwest that understand the history and how cool Michigan State is. One of the things that we always talk about, it’s not about who we play. It’s always about us, and we will try to make it about us, playing to our standard, playing to our level, and then playing one play at a time, and letting the score take care of itself.”
Originally Published: July 24, 2025 at 8:40 AM EDT