Defending champ Ferris State football embraces being the hunted in a land of hunters

It didn't take long for Ferris State to move on.

Months after winning the university's first Division II football national championship, the Bulldogs are already dreaming of taking their second one home. As proof, the group focused on putting their championship win behind them while at their annual team retreat.

At a retreat on a lake nearby head coach Tony Annese's house, the players swam, hiked and played games such as tug-of-war to unwind before the start of the season. After the sun set, the players huddled around a bonfire and discussed how they can somehow improve on last season's 14-0 journey.

"It's just a big team building day," offensive lineman Adam Sieler said at Monday's GLIAC media day. "At the end of the night, some of the leaders stand up and try to get us all zoned in. We always do it at the end of June so we have a month before camp to get everyone's mind right. ... The mindset was really good at the campfire last year, one of the better ones, actually. You realize that last year was last year, and we have a lot of work to do to get back towards it."

The Bulldogs' 2021 campaign included their third straight and fifth-ever GLIAC championship.

Dating back to 2018, Ferris State is 41-2 and has two winning streaks: 38 straight regular season wins, and 31 straight conference victories. Annese is 101-16 with the Bulldogs.

"(The retreat) helps bring us together," defensive back Cyntell Williams said. "It helps us work with teammates you might have never talked to. ... It helped us win last year, and we're hoping it'll do it again this year."

Annese was absent from Monday's media day due to recruiting, his role was filled by assistant coach Brian Rock.

Rock joined Ferris State in 2019 after serving as an offensive analyst for Oklahoma State. Now in his fourth year in Big Rapids, Rock believes Annese's ability to build a winning culture has led to the Bulldogs' success.

"He develops and sets in place new leaders every single year," Rock said. "Last year's leaders did a great job, but a lot of those guys have moved on. This year's leaders are all set up and (ready) to make this their team. We're not going to spend any time looking in the rearview mirror."

The success Ferris State has achieved makes the Bulldogs the top target for every team in the GLIAC and any team with national championship aspirations.

Enter rival Grand Valley State. The GLIAC's other playoff team from a year ago, the Lakers suffered just two losses last season, both at the hands of Ferris State. The latter came in the second round of Super Regional play as the Bulldogs cruised to a 54-20 win.

GVSU, which received the second-most first-place votes in the GLIAC's preseason coaches poll, won't need extra motivation heading into its Oct. 15 meeting with Ferris State in Big Rapids.

"We won't address that until the week of the contest," Lakers coach Matt Mitchell said. "I almost think it's disrespectful to the rest of our opponents and our team if we put too much emphasis on that before the game comes. (But) that game over the last few years has had really big implications on the GLIAC championship and the postseason. Hopefully, that's still in play for 2022."

As for the rest of the GLIAC, the Bulldogs expect each team's best every week

"I think that helps our guys focus in on what they need to do," Rock said. "You can't have a let-down day. You can't have an off day. You're going against the best on any given day. That's why you play the games. There's good football players and coaches on the other side, too.

"So, you better get yourself ready mentally, physically and emotionally or someone's going to come and knock you off."

Chandler Engelbrecht is a reporting intern at the Free Press and can be reached at CEngelbrecht@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @ctengelbrecht.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Ferris State ready to return to top of GLIAC, D-II football world