CMU/Indiana: Purdue Part Deux?

(Edited 11:30 p.m. Thursday)

If you are a CMU fan, you more than likely remember the last time the football team played a Big Ten squad.

The Chippewas were on the brink of victory at Purdue, a team that scored a combined 96 points in its two 2007 wins against them. Quarterback Curtis Painter, a man who torched the CMU secondary in 2007, faced a downhill pass rush he never saw out of the maroon and gold before.

And with just 1:18 remaining on the clock at Ross-Ade Stadium, Central had the lead, 25-24.

But yet again, the first Big Ten win in 16 years and the first-ever Bowl Championship Series win eluded Central. The Boilermakers scored on one offensive play. And the Chippewas went home as 32-25 losers teased out of glory.

Another chance, however, comes at noon Saturday. The team returns to Indiana to face a Big Ten team. This time, it's the Hoosiers of Bloomington, Ind. - a team that dropped five of its last six games.

Nobody in the CMU football program is going to say it. Yeah, it is a non-conference game. It has no say on who will represent the Mid-American Conference West Division in the MAC Championship game, the team's main goal.

But if this team wants national respect, it simply has to win Saturday. No ifs, ands or buts. This is it.

Why?

1. Indiana is 3-5 overall, including 1-4 in the Big Ten. One win came against the FCS' Murray State. Another came from Western Kentucky, a former FCS team converting to FBS. The Hoosiers, despite their talent, are a mediocre BCS team, whether or not it starts fleet-footed quarterback Kellen Lewis. Yet they're still 2.5-point favorites to win Saturday, which goes to show how much respect CMU has from the Vegas betters right now.

2. A MAC team already walked out of Bloomington with a win. That would be No. 16 ranked Ball State, which routed Indiana 42-20 on Sept. 20 for its first-ever BCS win. We know the game of football is more complex than comparing common opponents. But a CMU loss here would look foolish in comparison to BSU, and would kill the little national respect it has right now.

3. That Sept. 20 loss at Purdue is looking worse and worse. The Boilermakers hosted CMU one week after they nearly toppled then-No. 16 ranked Oregon in overtime. We thought they were a good team. Not anymore. Purdue, now 2-6 overall, has not won a single game since escaping CMU, or even come close for that matter. It is a Big Ten-worst 0-4 - worse than Indiana. Central needs people to forget that loss. Winning Saturday will help that.

4. CMU needs to keep its win streak going. Because after Indiana, the team plays its two biggest games of the year - Nov. 12 at NIU (5-3, 4-1 MAC) and Nov. 19 vs. Ball State (8-0, 4-0 MAC). A loss in either game and chances are that three-peat bid will pack its bags and kiss CMU goodbye. A milestone win is a good way to go into these games, barring any letdowns.

5. If the Chippewas win out, they're ranked. You heard it here first, unless BSU enters Mount Pleasant with a loss. In this scenario, CMU would beat its first Big Ten team and first ranked opponent in the program's Division I history. And assuming the Big Ten sends a team to the Motor City Bowl (chances are, it will send either Iowa or Illinois), if CMU wins that, it will go 12-2, 9-0 in the MAC and finish somewhere between No. 23 and 25 on the AP Top 25 and/or the coaches' poll. You heard it here first.

That would do wonders for the MAC, a conference stuck in the basement of the FBS.

And coach Butch Jones, who set the goal of an AP Top 25 ranking right from the get-go of his head coaching career, would complete his legacy in just two seasons.

But, of course, it comes down to Saturday first.

Indiana. A Big Ten team.

Can CMU finally do it? We will see.

CMU/Indiana: Kellen Lewis to start?

First of all, an update on Indiana quarterback Kellen Lewis. IU coach Bill Lynch is mum on who will start Saturday, saying as much as "I don't know." Lewis missed the last couple of weeks with a high ankle sprain, paving the way for backup Ben Chappell.

Does this matter, considering Chappell led IU over a ranked Northwestern team last week? Yes, considering Lewis, with 404 yards on 57 attempts, is the team's leading rusher despite playing in two less games than starting running back Marcus Thigpen. Any team that has to deal with junior quarterback Dan LeFevour and the CMU offense can attest to this: Dealing with a running quarterback blows open a completely different dimension to an offense. While CMU already beat a mobile quarterback in Ohio's Boo Jackson, he's not a LeFevour or a Lewis. Those guys can really scramble and open holes in the secondary - a simple scramble to the outside can cause a defender to lose his man. 

Chappell is a much better matchup for Central. He's not a dominating passer, completing just 52.2 percent of his passes, but as already mentioned, he did beat Northwestern. That counts for something.

Within the next 24 hours, my hope is to get into the whole "Purdue part deux" topic a little bit - does CMU absolutely have to win this game to earn some national respect? I'll write about that on Wednesday.

Monday quick snaps

Good afternoon!

I never got a chance to really comment on CMU's 24-23 win last Saturday, so I'm going to do that now. I've come to realize my laptop is not all that reliable when it comes to getting an internet connection, so again, I was having trouble - plus, I had to leave pretty quick to attend that night's Journalism Hall of Fame Banquet in Mount Pleasant. I made it, albeit 5 minutes late or so.

If there's anything to take away from the win over Toledo, it's this: CMU finds ways to win. Despite having a ton of underclassmen on the team and very few seniors, as coach Butch Jones will tell you, this is the most experienced group in the Mid-American Conference, moreso than even Ball State. The Rockets are an inconsistent group, but they brought a lot of energy into the Glass Bowl. They already were 0-3 at home heading into the game and they're playing the back-to-back MAC champs. Of course they're going to bring their A-game.

But, as we've seen time and time again, CMU doesn't panic in these cases. Dan LeFevour doesn't panic. Neither does Ontario Sneed, or Bryan Anderson, or anybody on that team. They do enough to get the job done, and that's why they're a MAC-best 5-0 in the conference. The biggest margin of victory for the Chippewas in those five games is 10 points.

Ball State knows how to crush teams, but the real question is this: Does it know how to win slug-it-out or grind-it-out games? That's something it may have to prove when it comes to Central on Nov. 19. We've seen it a lot in the National Football League and even in BCS play: The best teams are those that know how to win the close ones. I'm not saying BSU can't do that, but it certainly hasn't proven it yet, especially with a schedule as weak as theirs. And at this point, the victors of Nov. 19 may very well play in the MAC Championship, unless Northern Illinois has something to say about that. WMU would have to hope CMU loses twice for it to have any chance.

Now... on to this week. Even though Indiana's not a MAC team, this game is certainly big for CMU. This is probably the greatest chance the team has had at a Big Ten victory in a long time. Although the Hoosiers just beat a very good and then-ranked Northwestern team, they're still an inconsistent ballclub that gives up quite a few points. Plus, quarterback Kellen Lewis is fighting injuries. The line right now has Indiana at -2.5, which sounds about right at this point, but I think a lot of CMU fans are expecting victory out of this game. And really, that would give Central a huge energy boost heading into critical MAC games against NIU and Ball State.

More to come this week!

Dan LeFevour started... then left... and is back again (UPDATE)

TOLEDO, Ohio - As expected, junior quarterback Dan LeFevour started the game today, and drove CMU down to the Toledo 29-yard line...

...then left the game again. He took a sack, which looked like it twisted his right ankle again. He layed on the field for a couple minutes before senior Brian Brunner came in.

But after the Rockets took a 6-0 lead, LeFevour returned and looked well again. Drove CMU to a touchdown with a 22-yard throw to junior Bryan Anderson. 7-6 CMU.

If anything else happens, I'll be sure to update. Check cm-life.com for real-time score updates!

CMU/Toledo: Pregame

TOLEDO, Ohio - We're about 30 minutes from kickoff here at the Glass Bowl. Apparently, the weatherman was wrong when he said it was going to rain today - the sun is shining right into my eyes as I type this. It's not too cold, either - a typical fall Saturday, which is nice.

First of all, NCAA 09 (4-2 on the year) predicted CMU to win this game. Toledo had the lead for most of the game, and a 23-14 advantage in the fourth quarter, but CMU's junior quarterback Dan LeFevour (injury aside) led the team to 21 late points to secure a 35-23 win. Sophomore receiver Antonio Brown finished with 144 receiving yards, while senior running back Ontario Sneed had 104 yards rushing and two touchdowns.

Speaking of LeFevour, he's fully dressed and taking reps with senior Brian Brunner. It's still unclear at this point who's starting. I'll be sure to update you whatever the case may be.

Other than that, not much else to update on here. Be sure to check back at cm-life.com and this blog for real-time updates from CMU's noon game at Toledo!

CMU/Toledo: In the news

First of all, let's clear some air. ESPN's Graham Watson reports Dan LeFevour is to start Saturday against Toledo. Which is all fine and dandy, except for one thing: We expected him to start against Western, too. Guess how many snaps he got in that game? Zero.

This is why we're being so cautious about LeFevour starting: We were told one thing last week, then senior Brian Brunner played the entire game, leading us to believe the right ankle injury LeFevour suffered was more serious than originally thought. Honestly, I don't expect him to play Saturday, either, with what I'm hearing. A lot of that DOES have to do with Brunner's success as the man running the offense, but that leads me to my next point...

There is no quarterback controversy. After covering this team for the second year, I'm not quite sure how this came up. As good as Brunner played last week, LeFevour has already shattered multiple career school records as CMU's quarterback despite not even being a senior. He's 16-2 against the MAC, led the team to two MAC Championships, two Motor City Bowls and is the poster boy of the program (as evidenced by the Comerica Park billboard). He hasn't done a thing to lose his starting job and I don't expect that to change anytime soon. It's just a matter of getting him 100 percent before the toughest stretch of the season goes underway, that's all.

On another note, though, here's a story by Saginaw News' Hugh Bernreuter about sophomore wide receiver and returner Antonio Brown. In particular, toward the end, it mentions Brown's intention to play for Jones no matter what- whether at West Virginia or CMU. Again, I think this goes to show just how powerful CMU's recruiting classes are starting to get. This year's class, looking at Scout.com's ratings, is looking like the best yet, with one four-star recruit and two three-star guys. I remember evaluating the 2005 and 2006 recruiting class and seeing all one- and two-star guys! Coach Butch Jones and his staff definitely know how to recruit talent and dig in the pipeline states. 

There's more to come prior to the Saturday coverage at Toledo. Expect an NCAA 09 prediction tomorrow- it's now 4-2 on the season after missing its Western pick last week. I picked CMU 41, Toledo 24... I haven't missed a single game yet (7-0), but then again, there's a first for everything.

Midweek Burning Questions

1. Will junior quarterback Dan LeFevour play on Saturday?

Honestly, even though LeFevour and the coaching staff says he's fine, I would be surprised to see him play on Saturday. I think with how good senior Brian Brunner's handling the offense right now, and with this being his final season on the team, it's a safe bet to make sure LeFevour is 100 percent before getting him back on the field. He's too physical of a quarterback, when you consider his running ability, to be rushed back out there. There's no doubt that Saturday's game at Toledo, despite the Rockets' record, is big, but 1) I would argue that CMU's next real big game is at Northern Illinois in three weeks, and 2) Brunner just nabbed MAC Offensive Player of the Week honors and had a career day against rival Western Michigan. I think he's fine to run this offense, especially against one of the worst defenses in the conference.

2. Is freshman running back Bryan Schroeder the new starter?

It's difficult to say at this point. Obviously he's going to get chances to run the ball on Saturday, and he should after his spectacular performance against WMU. But the running back position is in such a carousel right now, you don't know who's going to step up on a weekly basis. It could be senior Justin Hoskins, or Ontario Sneed, or even freshman Paris Cotton, who's had some decent runs this year. There are some days where Sneed will cut through the defense and other days where he consistently gets stuffed at the line. Hoskins has not had much of a chance to run the ball this year, but when he does, he looks pretty good. Whoever it is, they could have a big day against a Toledo defense that gives up more than 170 rushing yards per game.

3. How many times are announcers and analysts going to mispronounce Brian Brunner's name?

Good question. I stopped counting after a few dozen. The first moment of this happening was when I starting hearing the pronunciation of "Broo-ner" countless times from fellow reporters in the press box last Saturday. I corrected a couple people on it, to be polite, but later on in the press conference, they were still pronouncing it that way! And if that wasn't enough, I heard it from the ESPN Plus guys in their postgame analysis, and then again on an ESPNU College Football show where three analysts talked about the MAC West race. I don't know who on Earth started mispronouncing the name and began spreading it to other people. It's pronounced Bruh-ner. I don't consider myself a speech expert by any means, but break up the syllables. "Brun" and "ner". The double N's give it away. (And, of course, it's right in the media guide if you don't believe me.)