“You play to win. You coach to win,” said Deromedi, who was CMU’s head football coach from 1978-93. “Winning is the reward at the end of any given week. You prepare for it mentally and physically and on Saturday you play it out emotionally.”

Home openers were no different. In fact, the pressure to win might be worse, especially if it is a conference opponent.

When the Chippewas joined Division IA and the MAC in 1975, they hosted Western Michigan in the season opener. The rivalry had been more or less one-sided up to that point.

“We were like the (Detroit) Tigers,” Deromedi said. “We were winning one out of four at best. If you play a good conference opponent early, both teams are ready to play.”

CMU would start a new trend that year, winning 34-0. Since 1975, the Chippewas have gone 23-5 in home openers.

“It’s certainly something we would like to continue in the future,” Deromedi said.

Deromedi — the MAC’s all-time wins leader — posted a 13-3 record in home openers during his career. His winning percentage couldn’t erase the pre-game jitters Deromedi felt, though.

It wasn’t a lack of confidence in the game plan or the players. It was just the anticipation causing the queasiness and pacing prior to games.

“I just can’t imagine a coach not being nervous before a game,” Deromedi said. “I think I was nervous no matter where we played. The hardest part was the time lapse to the kickoff. Once the game got underway, all of that nervous energy is gone.

“When you’re coaching, you have control of it even though you’re sometimes hanging on by your fingernails.”

Deromedi said one of his fondest, yet quirky, memories came in the 1985 opener against Pacific.

The Mount Pleasant area had 14 straight days of heavy rainfall, resulting in flooding everywhere, Deromedi said. The only place virtually unaffected was Kelly/Shorts Stadium, but doubts lingered as to whether or not the game would be held, he added.

“It was unbelievable how much flooding there was,” Deromedi said.

CMU would go on to win 27-10.

Former CMU Head Coach Dick Flynn said the first home game is a measuring stick of what a team is capable of doing for the season, although it isn’t always pretty.

“Not too many teams go out and play a perfect football game their first game,” he said. “There’s a lot of unknowns as to how guys are going to react under fire.”

Flynn, now an assistant at Akron, said the anxieties of playing home and away games aren’t too different, but the comfort level of ones own surroundings helped.

“I think for the first game, there’s a certain amount of excitement,” he said. “Being at home compounds that and makes it greater.”

Flynn guided the Chippewas to a MAC Championship during his first season, but lost 52-24 in the Las Vegas Bowl to the same UNLV team he had beaten in the home opener.

Flynn finished his career at CMU with a 5-1 home opener record.

“I believed I was capable of doing my job from my standpoint that there wasn’t any self doubt,” he said.

Current Head Coach Mike DeBord said winning home games early in the season is important for fan support throughout the season.

“Obviously, you want to play in front of a crowd, and you want those people to come back,” DeBord said. “We’ve let people come in here and beat us and that can’t happen. You’ve got to win at home.”

DeBord looks to improve to 4-0 in home openers when the Chippewas host New Hampshire Saturday. However, quality opponents — for the home opener — have been scarce in recent years.

DeBord though, said “guaranteed” wins don’t exist in today’s competitive football market.

“I think it’s important to play somebody that you have an opportunity to beat,” he said of scheduling an opening opponent. “I don’t know if there is any easy games anymore. The most important thing is you have an opportunity to win.”

Flynn agreed, saying he prefers weaker opponents in home openers.

“As a coach, you don’t want a whole lot on the line when you go into these home openers,” he said. “If you’re going to have a tough opponent, you rather play them at home.”

Deromedi said prestige of opponents shouldn’t matter when scheduling non-conference games.

“You schedule what you can schedule to come in here to play,” he said. “You don’t worry about the quality of the opponent coming in here.”

In either case, one thing remains certain: DeBord has studied his notes for Saturday’s final exam.