Davis Was Passionate About Family, Children, Football

Talent, work ethic, drive, determination. Those traits, and so many more, come to mind when the name Titus Davis comes up.

"It's very easy to describe Titus in three terms: hardest worker in the room, leader, and passionate about whatever he loved, and that was his family, his kids, and football," said former Central Michigan offensive lineman Andy Phillips about Davis, who died on Wednesday of renal medullary carcinoma, a rare form of kidney disease. He was 27.

"I'm heartbroken by the loss of Titus, who was first and foremost an outstanding person," said Dan Enos, the Chippewas' head coach during Davis' four years on campus. "On the field, he was a phenomenal athlete and competitor. He was also a great friend and teammate to many.

"From the first moments we started recruiting him, we at CMU football knew he was something incredibly special. He was a joy to coach and to be around. My deepest sympathies are extended to his family during this difficult time."

Davis came to CMU in 2011 from Wheaton, Ill. and developed into one of the all-time great Chippewas. He was named a Freshman All-American in 2011 and was a four-time All-Mid-American Conference selection and a two-time Herb Deromedi Most Valuable Player Award winner.

He ranks first in Chippewa history in receiving yards (3,700) and touchdown receptions (37) and is fourth in receptions (204). He was the first player in Football Bowl Subdivision history to have caught at least eight TD passes in each of his four seasons of collegiate eligibility.

Davis made a program-record 13 touchdown receptions in 2014, and he had four TD receptions in the Chippewas' memorable 49-48 loss to Western Kentucky in the 2014 Bahamas Bowl.

"Legends are born in the big moments," Phillips said. "All you have to do is go back to 2012 at Iowa (a 32-31 CMU win), and the best player on the field that day was Titus Davis. You go to the Bahamas Bowl our senior year, the best player on the field that day was Titus Davis. It didn't matter what the score was, he was competing play in and play out.

"When you (as a teammate) got the chance to watch Titus, you wanted to because we knew that what he was doing was as good as you're going to find on a college football field -- and I don't mean just a MAC field -- I mean a college football field."

Davis holds three of the top 10 pass receiving yardage games in CMU history, including a 208-yard effort – one of only four times in Chippewa football history that a receiver posted a 200-yard effort -- against Western Michigan in 2012; his 1,109 yards receiving in 2013 ranks as the fifth-best season in program history.

"He wasn't a loud, obnoxious guy," Phillips said. "He was very quiet in the way he went about his business, especially early in his career. The thing that I will always remember about Titus is, whether it was his first day (at CMU) or his last practice as a senior, he was the hardest worker in the room. I promise that if you had asked me a year ago, I would have said the same thing. You could try to work as hard as him, but you couldn't outwork him. He wouldn't let that happen.

"As a person you're not going to find a more genuine guy. He was a great father, a great teammate, a great leader. He loved helping the younger guys on the team, seeing if he could get them better."

Davis signed in 2015 with the San Diego Chargers. He was a member of the Chargers' practice squad and also spent time on the practice squads of the New York Jets, the Buffalo Bills, and the Chicago Bears.

Fitting that Davis' last shot at the NFL came in Chicago, about 30 miles from Wheaton, where he played his high school football.

"He had a Michael Jordan quality to him," Phillips said. "Coming from Illinois, he was always wearing Jordan gear. That wasn't it though, it was the confidence with which he carried himself on the field. It was very similar (to Jordan) because he knew he had put in the work and (that) he was going to succeed.

"There was a definite swagger to him without him having to tell you how good he was. They always say, 'Good people will tell you how good they are; great people will let others tell you how great you are.' He was very much in that category. He was just a pleasure to work with and play with throughout the years."

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