Finishers.
That's what coach Jeff Genyk wants his Eastern Michigan football team to become.
Last year's 31-10 home win over the University of Louisiana was an all-too-rare example of his Eagles getting an opponent down and keeping them down. He'd like nothing better than for Saturday's game against UL in Cajun Field to be this year's first such example.
EMU, making its first-ever visit to Acadiana at 4 p.m. Saturday, lost three games by two points or less in last year's 4-7 season. Over the last two weekends, the 0-4 Eagles had several chances for a road win over a Big 10 conference team before falling 14-6 at Northwestern, and lost to in-state rival Central Michigan 24-17 in overtime.
"It's definitely very frustrating when you look at the films," said standout senior receiver Eric Deslauriers. "There's a few simple things that we could have done to change the outcome, but we couldn't pull it off."
"We're taking games down to the last possession," Genyk said, "but we haven't won them. We're confident in our improvement, but not in finishing teams off. We're lacking there."
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Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com