Rollie Ferris, the former Central Michigan University offensive lineman and Delton Kellogg varsity football coach, is only half joking when he says he has told his family's foreign exchange student coordinator not to seek out any wide receivers to spend a school year with the Ferris family.
“I'll be like, 'nope,'” Ferris said. “I don't want no wrist band wearing guys. It won't work. It won't work in here.”
But, as Rollie's wife Marie Ferris certainly would agree with, sometimes the exchange student coordinator can know better than the 'head coach.'
The Ferris family, Delton Kellogg and now Central Michigan have received the best of both worlds in Bernhard Raimann.
Walking off the field at Delton Kellogg High School following a tough 46-14 loss to Saugatuck in October 2015, Panther varsity football coach Ryan Bates told the local sports reporter, “you're going to see him on Sundays.”
He wasn't talking about Saugatuck junior quarterback Blake Dunn who had just rushed for 359 yards and four touchdowns while throwing two more TD passes.
Bates was talking about his 6-6, 230-pound Austrian tight end Raimann – a senior foreign exchange student who came to the Panther program as a wide receiver with some club experience from back home across the Atlantic in Austria with the Vienna Vikings.
That wide receiver turned tight end has now turned into one of the best collegiate left tackles in the nation. Raimann, a junior in the NCAA's eyes, is forgoing a chance to play on another Friday in an effort to be certain he is ready for the NFL Draft on April 28, 2022.
Some NFL draft experts have the Central Michigan University (CMU) left tackle projected as a possible first or second round selection in the upcoming NFL
Draft. Raimann has played the past few seasons side-by-side on the Chippewas' offensive line with former Delton Kellogg and now current Central Michigan teammate Tyden Ferris – who he lived with as an exchange student during the 2015-2016 school year in Delton.
Tyden, a red-shirt sophomore in terms of NCAA eligibility, is with the Chippewas this week to take on Washington State Friday, Dec. 31, in the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl. The trip to El Paso, Texas for the Sun Bowl comes after a late change to the bowl slate which originally had the Chippewas taking on Boise State in the Arizona Bowl in Tucson, Ariz. Dec. 31. Tyden has split his time at both guard spots and center over the years with the Chippewas.
“Now that I am at left guard, I like left guard a lot more,” Tyden said. “It is just muscle memory with my left foot back and everything gets kind of reversed at right guard. I liked a lot this year being next to Bernhard. It made things a lot smoother to know he was next to me on the outside.”
Raimann is skipping the bowl game, but will line up one more time before the draft as he has been selected as a Senior Bowl All-American and will get to play in the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala., on Saturday Feb. 5, 2022.
With the sophomore Tyden Ferris and the senior Raimann among the anchors on the offensive line the Delton Kellogg Panthers won five games in 2015 and earned a spot in the state playoffs for the first time since 2001. They were back together in 2018 with the Chippewas. Tyden was a red-shirt that fall.
Together they helped the Chippewas finish as one of the top rushing teams in the NCAA FBS this season.
Raimann won't be the first guy who walked off the field that October day in 2015 in Delton to get drafted. Dunn was selected in the 15th round of the 2021 MLB Amateur Draft this summer after a stellar collegiate baseball career playing for Central's rival Western Michigan Broncos. Dunn had a much more traditional route to the draft however.
Raimann arrived in Delton to join a football family, the Ferrises. Rollie, Tyden's father, played on the offensive line at CMU from 1995-1997 was second team All-MAC in 1996 and 1997 and named the team MVP at the conclusion of the 1997 season.
Raimann played one year of football at Delton Kellogg, hauling in 11 receptions at tight end for 248 yards and five touchdowns in the Panthers' run-heavy Wing-T offensive scheme. Raimann then had to return to Austria to fulfill the country's required year of military service before returning to Michigan to join the Chippewas as a tight end.
“We knew coming in that he was just a freak, even as a 17-year-old who hadn't graduated from high school yet,” Delton Kellogg head coach Ryan Bates said.
“The tangibles he brought to the table, his speed for his size and his strength for his size, he was built like a football player in a basketball player's body - just long and strong. We knew he was going to be very talented.
“Our offense doesn't use wide receivers and he had no problem transitioning to a tight end. And he was a very, very good blocker at wide receiver anyway, so he was just coming out of a different stance essentially, different footwork. He took to that very well and obviously that transitioned to him starting out as a tight end in college and even though he could catch the ball and he was talented with the ball in his hands, he is just a devastating blocker. When we watched him play at the high school level, he was getting holding calls simply because he was blocking people 15, 20 feet down the field and then would just truck them. They were calling holding and there was no holding to it. He was just destroying people, and officials didn't have another answer. He was just that good.”
Raimann had ten receptions as a tight end in each of this first two seasons with the Chippewas before transitioning to left tackle beginning with the pandemic shortened 2020 season. He started all six games at left tackle for the Chippewas in 2020.
“It has been pretty crazy,” Raimann said of his positional shuffle over the years. “I started out playing receiver and I knew about running routes and catching the ball. The first time I played on the line of scrimmage was in Delton, because we ran a Wing-T offense. That was the first time I learned how to block and not just a little cornerback out on the outfield somewhere. That kind of transitioned me to tight end and then I kept trying to gain some weight. Obviously, I started off as a tight end at central and then after my second season as a tight end I made the transition to O-line.
“I just kept moving inside I guess.”
Raimann said the move from tight end to tackle started at CMU when the coaches asked him to help fill in due to a lack of depth on the line due to injuries and graduations.
“I didn't know a thing, but they just kind of threw me in there,” Raimann said. “I ended up loving it from the very first practice, until we got shut down from Covid two or three practices later. But over the summer time, the o-line, the guys helped me out the most. We couldn't meet with coach, we could have full practices, but we got together in little groups. Tyden and Derek Smith and other O-linemen, they were really the ones that helped me out during that summer of transition.”
“He picked it all up pretty fast,” Tyden said. “It didn't take him long before he was telling me what I needed to do. He focused a lot on his footwork a lot and even his stabs. I don't think there is anybody on the team that watches as much developmental film as he was, even during the summertime when everyone else was at the pool, or the lake, or hanging out with friends I knew he was watching film, or I would drive by the football field or one of the soccer fields and he is out there by himself or with [his girlfriend] running. He's out there doing drills by himself, and I'm like 'what are you doing, it's summer time?'”
Marie Ferris, Rollie's wife, is an exchange student coordinator in the Delton area. The couple have hosted close to a dozen exchange students themselves over the years.
“I look for kids and I look for good families and I try to match them.” Marie said. “I think the most important thing is to make a good match. It is not good to just take any exchange student and throw them in any home. Life is good if you can find a good match. I work really hard at doing that. But, you're not a coordinator for your own exchange student. So, I have my own coordinators for that.”
“I just told my coordinator, please look for a boy who would like to come to the United States and play football,” Marie said.
It was a match made in football heaven. Bernhard was Rollie and Marie's fifth exchange student, and the first boy they hosted.
It takes something to impress a Ferris, like with Tyden seeing Bernhard working alone during the summer in Mount Pleasant, with hard work. Rollie put
Bernhard to work on a job site the day after he arrived in Delton.
“I got picked up from the airport and everything, and the day after we got to spend the day at Grandma Ferris' house,” Raimann said, “and then the day after that we were on the job site with Rollie working which was tough at the beginning, but I just got to learn so much about handy stuff that helps me in every
day life and a lot of manual work I wasn't used to up until that point.
“To see how much they work for each other, and the dedication they do it with really rubbed off on me for my work ethic and what I want to do with my family. I learned a lot.”
“A guy that tall and that strong on a job site is great,” Rollie said.
Bates could certainly see the fit between Raimann and the Ferrises. He said called Bernard's work ethic extraordinary and the Ferris family's work ethic freakishly strong.
“The family will go to the weight room and lift and then put a roof on a house,” Bates said. 
Those kids are built that way, and Bernhard jumped right in with that same mentality and the two that are at Central right now, between Bernhard and Tyden, they live in the gym. They work their tails off and the younger one is going to go wrestle. The same thing. The work ethic that all three of those boys have is incredible.”
Tyden's younger brother, Caden, a senior at Delton Kellogg this year signed his National Letter of Intent in November to wrestle at CMU next season. Caden won the state championship at 215 pounds at the MHSAA Division 4 Individual State Finals in April, and like Bernhard opting out of playing in the bowl game Caden opted out of a senior football season in an effort to stay healthy for collegiate wrestling.
There was no sitting on the sideline though. Caden spent the fall splitting time between the Delton Kellogg varsity boys' cross country team and the varsity boys' soccer team where he teamed with current Ferris family exchange student Giovanni Stea in helping the boys' soccer program to its first ever district championship.
Tyden was a four-time state medalist in wrestling himself in high school, finishing as a state runner-up in Division 3 twice including at 215 pounds in 2016 the year he had Raimann as a practice partner in the wrestling room.
Bates said the only time he saw Raimann have a tough time with something on the football field in high school was dealing with an injury. Raimann said every wrestling practice was tough.
“Definitely tough,” Raimann said. “I don't think very many people start their wrestling career by practicing against an all-state wrestler. It wasn't always easy, but then again I think it did prepare me for college and it made me a better athlete overall. I am thankful for the experience.”
Tyden and Raimann were also a part of the DK varsity boys' track and field team in the spring of 2016. Raimann won Southwestern Athletic Conference Valley Division titles in the 300-meter intermediate hurdles and the high jump and qualified for the MHSAA Division 3 Lower Peninsula Track and Field Finals in the 300 hurdles.
Tyden went on to qualify for the state finals in the shot put and discus in his junior and senior seasons and was the Division 3 state runner-up in the shot put as a senior.
Tyden wasn't the first of his siblings to be a college athlete. His big sister Faith Ferris helped Delton Kellogg's varsity volleyball team to the state semifinals in Class C in 2011 and went on to play at Cedarville University.
With a red shirt freshman season and a pandemic shortened year, Tyden still has two years of football eligibility left at CMU. He plans to play with the Chippewas in 2022 and he'll decide on a sixth year in Mount Pleasant after that. He expects to wrap up a Bachelor's degree in marketing and sales by December of 2022.
Raimann earned a bachelor of science degree with a double major in statistics and actuarial science last May and is now working towards a Master's of Science in Administration and is currently eligible for Academic All-America honors.
Coach Bates hasn't been able to see his two former players in person as much as he'd like, what with the responsibilities of running the Delton Kellogg football program on the weekends. He did get to attend this year's Central/Western game (a 42-30 CMU victory Nov. 3), and has been thankful for the chance to watch a few more games on television or online.
“It has been pretty fun to watch those two play together side by side, especially when they're running zone schemes and those two are double-teaming some poor sucker. It is pretty fun to watch.”
The bowl game change means Tyden and the Chippewas will be playing on national broadcast television Friday, at noon on CBS. Both Tyden and Raimann were a part of CMU's last bowl appearance, a 48-11 loss to San Diego State in the 2019 New Mexico Bowl.
Tyden is looking forward to being in a second bowl game.
“I just think the experiences are fun, the memories and everything you're going to take with you for the rest of your life. It is a little getaway too, something new that you don't get from Michigan or even Delton,” Tyden said.