Two years ago, Western New Mexico teammates Isaac Crichton and Tytus Timoteo knew they needed a change.
 
After winning just five games in three seasons and enduring a coaching change, both Crichton, now a tight end for Central Washington, and Timoteo, a starting offensive lineman for the Wildcats, wanted a fresh start and a better overall experience.
 
"It was more about having three straight losing seasons," Timoteo said. "We went 0-10 as sophomores and 1-10 as juniors. We were both all-conference and we just couldn't go out losing."
 
Crichton, Timoteo and the rest of the Wildcats (6-2) visit Western New Mexico (1-8), 11 a.m., Saturday, in Silver City, N.M. Central has won four straight and is currently third in the NCAA Super Region Four Poll with two weeks remaining in the regular season.
 
Despite both hailing from Honolulu, Crichton and Timoteo didn't know each other growing up. They met at an all-star game following their senior seasons, forming a bond which still exists today.
 
The all-star game was the annual Life Champions Bowl, an event intended to increase recruiting exposure for football athletes in the Hawaiian Islands.
 
"We met at that game and we got recruited at the same time by Western New Mexico," Timoteo said.
 
Roommates at Western, the bond between the two was deeper than just simply being teammates. Over the course of their four seasons in Silver City, the families became close as well, forging bonds at Friday night family dinners before home games.
 
When the time came to depart from the Mustangs, there was no doubt they would only go as a package. They sold themselves to other colleges as a combo deal.
 
"Our plan was to go to the same school together," Timoteo said. "It would make it easier to transfer together than to go to a new place alone."
 
After nearly choosing a different GNAC program, the duo heard from the coaches at Central Washington.
 
"We had great talks with the coaches here," Crichton said. "We were coming from a smaller school and we always wanted to play at a bigger school and have fans at our games. To play football at Western New Mexico, you've just really got to love football to stay there and grind it out. But for our senior season we just wanted to be around something bigger and better, a school with a lot more students, see the bigger life of college."
 
Or as Timoteo put it:
 
"Once Central called us we knew we were going to end up here."
 
But coming to Central wasn't as easy as it seemed. The Mustangs and Wildcats had engaged in a fiercely competitive game during the 2019 season. Both Crichton and Timoteo remember the game vividly.
 
"We should have won that game," Timoteo said.
 
The Mustangs held a 20-17 lead at halftime in a game the Wildcats eventually rallied to win by a 36-27 margin.
 
"Central just made better adjustments at halftime," Crichton said.
 
Yeah, way better adjustments!", Timoteo said.
 
So the new Wildcats not only needed to adjust to a new school and a new town, they had to walk into the weight room and locker room and face their new teammates, the same ones they tried to beat a few months before.
 
"That was weird," Timoteo said. "When you're an offensive lineman, you do a lot of trash talking during the game with the defensive line. Now those guys were my teammates. It was weird, but it was pretty cool, too."
 
Despite playing just one year for the Wildcats, their impact hasn't been lost on the coaching staff.
 
"What those guys have meant to our program is obvious," CWU head coach Chris Fisk said. "Both of them have become starters. Isaac has done a wonderful job at tight end. Tytus, all he's done is start every game since he's been here."
 
Both Crichton and Timoteo are happy to be returning to Silver City this weekend. Despite their struggles at Western, both players have mostly fond memories of their time as Mustangs. And adding another layer to their return is the fact that Saturday is Senior Day for the Mustangs, and the pair will get to see some old teammates celebrated in their final home game.
 
"That place did build me up," Crichton said. "I wasn't ready for college when I came out of high school. I got better while I was there, as a player and a person. It's good for us so we can be reminded of how we came up. And we have strong relationships there, too. But there's a new coaching staff now so there's no bad blood on our part towards them. There will be a lot more good feelings than bad feelings."
 
Timoteo had a slightly different take on the return.
 
"It's more like closure for me," he said. "I honestly didn't think I'd ever step back on that field. Before COVID, they were supposed to come to Ellensburg (in 2020) and I wanted them to see all we have at Central. But now I can close out my senior year and give it one last hurrah."
 
That lost season of 2020. COVID wiped out the entire fall for the Wildcats, and it nearly spelled the end for both Crichton and Timoteo, too.
 
After redshirting their first year at Western, Crichton and Timoteo were faced with a decision last spring: graduate and move on with life or take advantage of the NCAA waiver granting student-athletes impacted by COVID an extra year of eligibility.
 
The decision was easy.
 
"There were times where I was questioning if I wanted to keep playing," Timoteo said. "But my brother, who played at Weber State, he always told me that football is only going to last for so long. He told me to see it through."
 
"Coming out of high school, I wasn't sure if I was going to play college ball," Crichton said. "But the more I played the more I loved it. We fell in love with the program here during the COVID year. I wanted to go to the playoffs, I've never had a winning year, and I wanted to experience what that was like, so I stayed."
 
And that experience is carrying both back to where it all began.