Central Michigan University Athletics
1994 Football Champions Recognized This Weekend
11/21/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
By Andy Sneddon, CMUChippewas.com
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. – All championship teams have common denominators.
Talent, coaching, leadership, experience and heart all pop immediately to mind.
There is a certain intangible they all seem to possess as well. It’s making the play at crunch time.
When talk turns to the 1994 Mid-American Conference champion Central Michigan football team, the memories come in waves for coach Dick Flynn.
“As you look back at the season, they just made play after play after play that had to be made,” Flynn said.
Players and coaches from the ’94 team will gather Saturday at Kelly/Shorts Stadium and will be introduced during the Chippewas’ home finale against rival Western Michigan. Kickoff is scheduled for 1 p.m.
For that team, the big-plays list is long and oh so memorable.
• There was a pass breakup on a two-point conversion try by Tim Banks to preserve a one-point win at Eastern Michigan, Flynn recalled.
• “Then there was the Western game,” Flynn recalled of the 35-28 win over the Broncos at Kelly/Shorts. “They were first-and-goal at our 1-yard line, and I want to say it was midway through the fourth quarter, and they did not score. And we had gone down 14-0 in that game.”
• “Then against Miami, they scored with 53 seconds to go to go ahead and we took the ball with (quarterback) Erik Timpf leading the way and we went 80 yards with no timeouts,” Flynn said. “Terrance McMillen went up among three defenders and got the ball with no time on the clock.”
The dramatic drive and McMillen’s sensational catch gave the Chippewas a 32-30 victory.
“This memory or that memory -- memories of a really special group of guys that just weren’t going to be beaten,” Flynn.
Then, of course, there was the famed fake punt that went for a touchdown in CMU’s 36-33 victory in the final game of the regular season at Bowling Green.
The Chippewas and Falcons entered the game tied atop the MAC. It was winner-take-all, and a trip to the Las Vegas Bowl was on the line.
“It had been forever since two teams had played on the last day for the championship,” Flynn said. “Bowling Green had an unbelievable record at home under (coach) Gary Blackney and an outstanding team that year. They had won nine games in a row when we went in there.”
Bowling Green held a 25-21 lead in the fourth quarter when the Chippewas faced fourth-down-and-3 at their own 27-yard line. CMU lined up to punt.
Punter Craig Fischer took the snap from Robert Hadacz and, instead of booting the ball, ran to the right (wide) side of the field.
Nobody on the field, least of all the CMU coaches, knew what Fischer had in mind.
“It (a fake) was always in the back of my mind,” said Fischer, who now lives in Las Vegas. “It was the last game of the season, we were losing, it was the fourth quarter.
“I figured I could run to the wide side, get 3 yards, and get the offense back on the field and we could take another shot it. We’d come so far that season. This was a championship game and I just wanted to get my offense back on the field.
“I angled toward the sideline, and as I started running I looked up field and there was no one there. My teammates started throwing blocks. Damon Tolbert was in front of me, Charlie Bush took out somebody, Thomas Creguer ran interference in front, John King threw a block.
“The first person who had a shot at me was actually the return man. I kind of darted back into the center of the field.”
After 73 yards, Fischer was in the end zone, the Chippewas were in the lead, and they went on to win the game and claim the title.
“Speed was not (Fischer’s) forté,” Flynn said, laughing. “Smarts, toughness? That’s another story. He had that. We said we timed him not with a stopwatch, but a sundial. But he was fast enough that day to go 73 yards.”
The ’94 team featured four players – Brian Pruitt, Brock Gutierrez, Scott Rehberg and Reggie Allen -- who are now members of the Central Michigan University Marcy Weston Athletics Hall of Fame.
Gutierrez and Rehberg went on to play in the NFL, while Pruitt, a tailback, and Allen, a receiver, remain fixtures in the CMU record book.
Pruitt was an All-American and he finished that season with 1,890 yards and 20 rushing touchdowns, which remain single-season CMU records.
“There are a number of outstanding players in the history of Central, and he’s right there,” Flynn said. “He possessed it all. The strength, the speed, the size, plus just he was just an outstanding individual. He was a tremendous competitor. He was the whole package. He could run over you or run away from you.”
That season marked Flynn’s first as the Chippewas’ head coach, and he led the Chippewas to a 9-3 finish. The Mount Pleasant native had spent 16 seasons as an assistant at CMU under the legendary Herb Deromedi.
The vast majority of the coaching staff that had been there the previous year under Deromedi remained under Flynn, so the program retained its continuity.
The Chippewas had finished 5-6 in each of the previous two seasons, but Flynn said he had a very good feeling as the ’94 season approached.
“It really stuck in their craw,” Flynn said of the 5-6 finish in ‘93. “You could tell in their determination that they had they were going to make things better.
“I really felt that they had the potential to do that, that we could do very well. We had a great group of seniors. You could see their leadership in the spring and throughout the summer. You knew you were dealing with not only some talented kids, but there was also a determination and a desire to be really good.
“They were a very tight-knit group and I think everybody really respected each other. In the course of the year we were able to overcome a lot of things. It was a test of their will. They weren’t going lose.”
