Angel Flores carried 28 times for 163 yards against Wyoming. Then he stopped throwing entirely, no pass attempts in the second half, and Central Michigan won 24-10 at home behind 339 rushing yards on 59 carries, with Jayden Clerveaux adding 81 and Brock Townsend breaking a 38-yard touchdown in the third quarter. Matt Drinkall went for it on fourth-and-1 on the opening drive, Flores ran 19 yards, and CMU finished 3-of-3 on fourth down. "Our plan, the way to frame the game was to come out early and be really aggressive," Drinkall said, and he called it the first time all three phases "played complementary football together finally."
That is the team traveling to Miami. Kickoff is Saturday at 6:30 p.m. Eastern on The CW Network, against the No. 6 Hurricanes at Hard Rock Stadium, and the model gives Central Michigan a 2 percent chance.
Flores' legs are the entire offense
Mario Cristobal, asked about the Chippewas this week, listed the plays by name. Central Michigan runs its quarterback "in every way possible, using quarterback stretch, quarterback power, power read, quarterback counter." He said eye discipline would be critical because CMU "executes at a really high level." That is a compliment, and it is also a problem, because CMU has not shown a second answer. Flores completed 4 of 7 passes for 32 yards against Wyoming and CMU ran on 59 of its 66 plays; the faster, more open passing game promised in camp did not appear.
This is not a wrinkle CMU picked up in September. The Chippewas ran on 66.5 percent of their snaps in 2025, fifth-highest in FBS, while averaging 32:03 of possession. Drinkall built the turnaround on rushing volume and clock, and Year 2 was supposed to add to it rather than lean harder on it. What CMU needs Saturday is narrower than a new identity. Flores has to get four or five yards on first down. If he can, CMU keeps the ball and stays in the game longer than the line suggests. If he cannot, there is no evidence yet that anything else moves.
Scale matters here. CMU's best game of the season came against a Mountain West team in a matchup the books priced essentially even, sportsbooks disagreed on which side was the 1.5-point favorite, and CMU won it by 14. Miami opened as a sizeable favorite. Those are different sports, and nothing Saturday should change how you feel about the Wyoming win.
What the secondary can actually win
The most enjoyable thing about the Wyoming fourth quarter had nothing to do with the run game. Justin Taylor, a senior transfer from Wyoming, intercepted his former team and finished with nine tackles; Kameran Hayward picked off a pass in the end zone to end it. Captains gave Taylor the game ball.
That group is brand new. CMU had to replace all four safeties who accounted for every one of the position's 26 starts in 2025, adding Taylor, Darrell Bryant Jr. and Coen Ali. A rebuilt back end that can take the ball away is the only realistic path to CMU scoring more than once or twice, because sustained drives against Miami are going to be scarce. The counterweight is that CMU held Wyoming to 10 points and four first downs in the first half but recorded no sacks and one tackle for loss, and Wyoming still gained 342 yards at 5.8 per play, roughly 229 of them after halftime. A quarterback with time is the exact condition under which this secondary has not been tested.
One more small thing worth watching, because in a game like this every point CMU gets has to be cashed. Caden VanHuis kicked a field goal that gave Central Michigan a 3-0 lead, his first field goal of the season. After a missed 29-yarder and a blocked PAT the week before, that is one good week following one bad one. CMU will likely get very few scoring chances Saturday, and missing one would sting more than usual.
What this trip actually costs
Miami is dealing with real absences; CharMar Brown and Josh Moore are out for the season, Ezekiel Marcelin is out a few weeks, and Miami is already down three starting-level cornerbacks, but Cristobal called Malachi Toney's and Mark Fletcher Jr.'s issues "banged up stuff" that looks "favorable" for this game. None of that closes a gap that size.
Winning would move CMU's MAC championship game odds from about 13 percent in the branch where it loses to about 17 percent in the branch where it wins, which tells you how little the conference math actually turns on this trip. This is the last game of the nonconference stretch that began at New Mexico; Akron and MAC play start next week, and that is where the season lives. Flores making yards against a defense that knows his plays, and Taylor and Hayward stealing one from a far better quarterback, are the results that would carry into Akron week. A competitive three quarters would mean something. Nothing beyond that is required.
Full odds and matchup detail are in the interactive guide, and the methodology explains how the projections are built.