Central Michigan, The Mid-Major Struggle

Just about this time last year, Central Michigan was celebrating a win at Iowa. The Chippewas returned a decent group of contributors in 2013 but the results have been pretty ugly. First the Chips lost by 50 points to Michigan, which just barely survived an Akron team that has gone 1-11 in each of the last three seasons. After a (comeback) win against New Hampshire, CMU lost by double digits to both UNLV and Toledo.

CMU had to replace multi-year starting quarterback Ryan Radcliff. The team later lost running back Zurlon Tipton for the season because of injury--he ran for almost 1,500 yards last year. Attrition put an obvious dent into the offense, which is averaging about 18 points per game so far this year. The team is still searching for Radcliff's replacement; freshman Cooper Rush (good QB name) is the guy for now. Yep, CMU will cast its fortunes on the road with a freshman QB. On one hand, who knows. On the other, this will end badly.