Some of the best players are often the ones who don’t get all the shine of the big-name players, and most of the time, those are the ones we are drawn to—the underdogs, the scrappy and hardworking players, and that is the case with Northville’s Drew Rankin.
Drew Rankin first popped up on our radar back after his sophomore season. He was a young and hungry player who wanted to make a name for himself and bring the shine of the Friday night lights back to Northville, and he did just that. “Before I started on varsity, we hadn’t made the playoffs in a couple of years,” according to Rankin, whose first start on varsity came as a sophomore. He would continue, “Our record had been good, but not great,” and that is what led to Northville being out of the playoffs since the 2016 season, with the exception of the 2020 season, where everyone made it, and that was something that Rankin and his class wanted to change, and they did just that. There was a culture change at Northville, which led Rankin and his class to be part of the winning three-year span in Northville history.
Part of that change in culture for Northville and Rankin was hiring Head Coach Brent Luplow before the 2023-24 school year. That coaching change shocked the players, according to Rankin, but it might have been much needed for him and his team. “That offseason was one of the best I’ve ever had,” Rankin said when talking about the change in coaches. Rankin would then touch on his team at that same time, saying, “We all came together,” and that they did as they would go on to win a district title and go 16-6 in his final two years under Luplow and that included having the most wins in a season since the 2015 season.
Rankin was able to help change the culture in one place; will he be able to do it again? That is a wait-and-see type of answer, but he will try, as he has committed to Wayne State University. Rankin walks into Wayne State as a freshman along with his class to a program that hasn’t had a winning record since 2019, and outside of that one year, they haven’t done much for a long stretch of time since the early to mid-2010s. However, that didn’t scare Rankin away, as he embraces it: “They have a program of storied success, and it’s getting back to that,” according to Rankin. “The class above me has done a really good job, and since Coach (Tyrone) Wheatley became the head coach, there has been a lot of building up the program,” Ranking would go on to say. With the Wayne State program looking like it is heading for a sense of stability, Rankin feels like they can go and take that next step.
Rankin feels like they are ready for that next step partly because of Coach Weatley. “When you’re looking for a coach, you’re looking for a role model, and you want somebody who’s been there and done that,” according to Rankin. If you want someone who has done that, Tyrone Weatley is a great example. Wheatley went to and played at the University of Michigan and then spent 10 years playing in the NFL. That’s the goal of everyone who has ever played football: to get to the NFL. For Rankin, that’s no different; with a coach who has done that, it’s a great opportunity. “You have no better option to success than being built up by a guy who’s already done it,” Rankin said.
As we mentioned earlier, Rankin is a scrappy underdog type of player, which is partly due to the talent of the last few years in Michigan. Rakin has been pushed to the side, and that has caused him to have a chip on his shoulder. Rankin would have to go up against three and four-star recruits who have big-time offers, and he would shut them down or other players he trained with get more attention. It only made him hungrier and want it more. “High School recruiting doesn’t matter at this point, now that I’m going into college,” according to Rankin. “It’s about working my ass off harder and being more consistent than all these other guys because I need to take two steps when they take one,” he would go on to say.
Part of that two-step forward approach is enrolling early into college, and that, according to Rankin, is so he can get ahead in school. Rankin is taking 13 credits this semester in college when most other people in his class are looking ahead to Spring Break or Prom. Rankin will be getting ready for midterms and the start of spring practice. By the time he should be hitting the campus of Wayne State in the fall, Rankin says he should have 19 credits under his belt, as he’s also going to take some summer classes.
At Northville, Rankin accomplished a lot, and looking back on his time in High School, Rankin said he’s going to take away having some of the best moments with some of his best friends, and that is something he said he is going to cherish for the rest of his life. To the Northville community, Rankin said that you helped raise him. He started playing youth sports in Northville when he was six with his dad as his youth coach, and then once he got to high school, he had coaches who believed in him, from Coach Ladach to Coach Luplow and Coach Sexton, who all helped mold him into the player and person he is today. He wanted to thank you for helping him get here.