Getting Underway

Andy Sneddon, CMUChippewas.com

MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. – The first day of practice never gets old.

Especially for John Bonamego.

Bonamego and his Central Michigan football team hit the Kelly/Shorts Stadium turf on Friday afternoon for the first time since spring practice ended in April as they began preparations for the Sept. 1 season opener at Kentucky.

"First day back – excited, everybody's excited, a lot of energy," said Bonamego, who is entering his fourth season in charge of his alma mater. "Long way to go, lot of work to do and not much yet to evaluate but I'm very, very pleased with the work ethic and the energy out here. Ready to move on to the next phase."

The Chippewas finished 8-5 last season, earning a berth in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl. They posted a 6-2 Mid-American Conference record which included a dramatic 35-28 victory over archrival Western Michigan in Kalamazoo. That win snapped a three-game losing streak to the Broncos and came in the midst of a five-game win streak to close the regular season.

The eight wins were the most for a CMU team since 2009, and the six MAC wins matched the 2015 team, Bonamego's first, for the most by a Chippewa squad since '09.

The 2018 team will take on a dramatically different look personnel wise. Plenty of veterans return on both sides of the ball, but the Chippewas lost a good number of top-flight players to graduation, many of whom are today in various NFL training camps.

"It's exciting to watch it unfold, it's exciting to watch these players mature and develop," Bonamego said. "You hope that the learning curve is fast. You have to see it in practice first. Someone said if they don't bite when they're puppies they're not going to bite when they're grown dogs. You want to see them do things in practice and in time you expect that those things transition over to games. For some players it happens very quickly and for some it takes a little bit longer.

"There's a lot of players that have the right stuff and they rise to that occasion. I expect that many of them will. That's the way we're going to prepare them and that's the way we're going to condition them to think about themselves."

The Chippewas dressed 107 players for Friday's workout, which was nonpadded and noncontact. Their first fully padded practice is scheduled for Tuesday.

Back for a fifth year
The day-one excitement and enthusiasm ran just as high among the players as it did for Bonamego and his coaching staff.

The veterans know full well what lies ahead in the four weeks leading up to the opener. It is a perspective that only experience provides.

Fifth-year senior Devon Spalding understands that better than most.

"It's more exciting to be honest," said Spalding, a running back, in comparing his mood with that of previous years. "I found a new-found love for the game in the offseason."

Spalding's 2017 season ended after just four games because of an injury. It marked the second time in his five years at CMU that he has seen a season cut dramatically short by injury. He has appeared in 31 career games and rushed for 1,412 yards (a 4.7-yard average), scoring 13 rushing touchdowns.

He said he was reinvigorated in the offseason while working under the tutelage of strength and conditioning coach Jason Novak. The 5-foot-11 Spalding said he reported to camp at 200 pounds, about 15 less than a year ago.

"Everybody knows I've been injured countless times," Spalding said. "Working with coach Novak, he made me fall in love with the game again. Most fun I've ever had playing football in college, just today, even though we don't have pads on. I feel great. I feel quick, I feel explosive. Moving good."

Spalding, as much as anyone on the Chippewa roster, appreciates that he has one final shot to play college football. It's an attitude that has sprung from his injury battles and maturity.

"I can't put it into words," said Spalding, a criminal justice major and substance abuse minor who is on track to graduate in December. "Obviously everybody wants to play at the next level; winning's fun, playing with your guys is fun, and I'm having a lot of fun right now.

"I couldn't appreciate it more. I love every second of it. I loved every second in the weight room this year. I loved every second of running. I just love every second of being out here."

Bono's stamp
Bonamego is in his fourth year in charge of the program and the vast majority of the players on the roster are his recruits. Those players, and the coaching staff – all but one, defensive line coach George Ricumstrict, is a Bonamego hire – fully understand the culture and the expectations that Bonamego has laid down.

It has been, and continues to be, an almost daily evolution.

"You want to continually evaluate yourself, evaluate your program and evaluate how you run practice, evaluate what works, what doesn't work, what's efficient and what's maybe not as efficient," Bonamego said. "You're always looking to modify, tweak, improve on whatever it is you're doing.

"You can never afford to be stagnant or stay the same because this is such a competitive industry. Everybody's working, everybody's looking to find that slight edge and if you allow yourself to (become complacent) you're going to start giving up ground quickly."

The overriding principle, Bonamego said, is daily improvement.

"What I've tried to instill in our program with players and coaches alike, and I hold myself to that same standard, is I want to try to get better every day," he said. "Learn something every single day and come out here tomorrow and just be a little bit better coach. That's what we demand of our players and that's what we demand of our coaching staff so it's only fair that I demand that of myself."

Numbers game
Spalding, who has been a mainstay in the Chippewa backfield since his arrival on campus in 2014, went back to his old uniform number, 25. Last season, he wore No. 13 after having worn 25 for the previous three.

"Thirteen was my number in high school," he said. "It's my all-time favorite number. But I look good in the 2-5."

Welcome to 'Fire Up Chips'
The Chippewas welcomed five transfers after spring practice, three of them graduate students.

The grad transfers are cornerback Xavier Crawford from Oregon State and defensive linemen Sean Adesanya (Illinois) and Marcus Griffin (Arizona).

The two undergrad transfers who came in after spring practice are Muskegon native Andrew Ward (Nebraska) and Luke Goedeke (Wisconsin-Stevens Point). Those two, along with the other undergrad transfers, will have to sit out the 2018 season.

Last season, the Chippewas had two graduate transfers, quarterback Shane Morris and safety Darwyn Kelly, who played extremely important roles.

"All are very high character individuals," Bonamego said of Crawford, Adesanya and Griffin. "I would not bring anyone into our program if I didn't feel like they were a good fit for the culture we have established in our locker room. The culture of your program is probably the single most important feature that you need to work on and develop every single day.

"I would be doing an injustice to our players and our coaching staff and the work that they've put in if we brought anyone in that we didn't feel like was going to add to us. Not just on the field but also from a character and leadership standpoint. From what I've seen of these three thus far they're very, very strong additions."

Central Michigan University Athletics

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