CMU football falls to Toledo on senior day
The Chippewas will await their bowl game assignment
Senior players for Central Michigan pose for a picture in Kelly/Shorts Stadium on Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. (CM-Life | Trevor Sparks)
Before kickoff on Saturday afternoon, the CMU football seniors walked across Kramer/Deromedi Field, their names being called one-by-one while their families stood proudly beside them. Some waved into the stands. Some fought back tears. Some held their parents a little longer.
The Chippewas fell to Toledo 21-3 in its final contest of the regular season and will finish 7-5 overall and 5-3 in Mid-American Conference play. This loss officially eliminates CMU from the MAC Championship, which Toledo will now face Western Michigan on December 6.
For seniors like Jordan Kwiatkowski and Dakota Cochran, the game wasn’t just another regular season matchup, it was the ending of a chapter they spent half a decade writing on the turf of Kelly/Shorts.
"I just want to be remembered as a great person," Cochran said. "I'm always there to make someone's day. I'm a servant leader. I do whatever to make anyone happy."
Once the players ran on the field, it was clear CMU wanted to win this one for the veterans on the team. The defense came out swinging, hitting hard, allowing zero first-half points, forcing punts, stopping third downs and even blocking a Toledo field goal in the second quarter.
Kwiatkowski finished with 12 tackles, including a sack and multiple run stops that charged up the sideline.
"You can't avoid this day," Kwiatkowski said. "It's tough that we didn't get the win on senior day but I'm so very grateful to be in this position, to be with these guys, to have this coaching staff. Yeah, we lost. It's a learning lesson but I was surrounded by guys that I love and guys that love me and a coaching staff that cares for all of us, and you just really got to see the bigger picture. We're all human beings. We're all doing this life for the first time ever."
Alongside him, Cochran produced nine tackles and a pass breakup and repeatedly flushed Toledo's quarterback Kalieb Osborne from the pocket, disrupting its rhythm for much of the first half.
"I was pretty emotional during the honoring those guys in pregame," head coach Matt Drinkall said. "Where would we have been without those guys? The people underneath the uniforms...that's the one thing you never lose sight of is we're not coaching players, we're coaching people. Each one of them has a unique story and an unbelievable fingerprint that they have left on this football program."
The game tightened in the third quarter as Toledo finally broke through with a 57-yard touchdown pass that shifted the momentum with 10 seconds left. And in the fourth, its offense found its legs, adding two more touchdowns to pull away.
On the offensive end, redshirt senior quarterback Joe Labas threw for 242 yards, finding an array of receivers, including Tommy McIntosh and Langston Lewis. McIntosh hauled in a 34-yard strike early, and Lewis snagged a 37-yard catch late in the second quarter, sparking the crowd to its loudest moment of the afternoon.
A first-quarter drive reached the Toledo three-yard line, and after four grinding attempts, ended in a turnover on downs. A 12-play, 87-yard march in the second quarter stalled at the 10-yard line and resulted in a field goal and CMU’s only points of the day. In the fourth, after another promising drive, penalties and pressure forced a turnover on downs at the 31.
"That is a very good football team that is not only talented and well coached, but that is a veteran group that knows how to play well in games like that," Drinkall said. "I'm so proud of how the kids fought and battled through all 60 minutes. The reality is we just didn't play good enough football there in the last 16 minutes to come out victorious. We are not going to let a one game and a three-hour window, cast a shadow on the beacon of life that these guys provided for the entire season."
After the final whistle, many players conversed on the field, going to family or young fans. Despite the outcome, the Chippewas keep their heads high as the season is yet to be over.
"(We) don't let this loss really shadow over all of us and let us bring us down," Kwiatkowski said. "Because we're still getting to play that extra game, which we worked our tails off for. We got a chance to go have fun one more time and it's in a different location. We get to play a team that we probably haven't played in forever. Really soak it all in. We earned this, we worked our tails off from December, all the way up to this point. So why not go enjoy it with the people that you love?"
