COLUMN: WMU loss epitomizes the Enos era
The Western Michigan game Saturday epitomized the season and Dan Enos’ three-year tenure at Central Michigan.
CMU looked strong out of the gates but couldn’t capitalize on early opportunities. Miscues came back to cost the Chippewas, and the opposing team came back to win it at the end.
That’s what we've seen from CMU in the past three years under Enos. He has brought in good recruiting classes and has a talented team that can play. The potential is there, but that hasn’t shown on the scoreboard at the end of the day.
CMU dominated the first quarter of the game but only led 6-0. Three long drives ended with only six points.
Then WMU scored on blown coverages and missed tackles in the second quarter. It's been those kind of dumb mistakes that have killed this program the past three years.
On the opposite side of that, the offense looked phenomenal at times. Senior quarterback Ryan Radcliff was putting the ball all over the field for 383 yards. Sophomore receiver Titus Davis had a career day, and, once again, Zurlon Tipton ran for more than 100 yards for the third consecutive game.
You can see the pieces are all there, the talent is there, but the wins aren’t.
It's little mistakes – not from one guy, but the collective group. Davis had a great day, no mistake about it, but he had two drops in the end zone. Sophomore Courtney Williams fumbled the ball away with two minutes left on a kick return. Avery Cunningham did not wrap up a receiver after a reception, allowing him to bounce off him and rumble into the end zone.
Most of those players had good games, but the small – sometimes big – miscues add up. The Chippewas have made mistakes all season and throughout the Enos era at CMU.
CMU has to start winning these games.
Yes, you can see the program has talent and has potential, but, at some point, you have to reach that potential and turn it into wins.
And right now, Enos is not doing that.
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