Ragin' Dave's EMU Eagles Breakdown
Eastern Michigan Eagles Preview
This is a team coming off a successful 7-6 2021 campaign where they went 3-1 out of conference including a win vs SBC West opponent Texas State. The expectations this year are not has high as they did last year going 4-4 in the MAC and losing badly to Liberty in the Lending Tree Bowl 56-20. EMU is lead by their 9th year Head Coach Chris Creighton, whose results will remind you of UL when Ricky Bustle was here. Since 2017 he has gone 5-7, 7-6, 6-7, 2-4 (covid year) and 7-6. Creighton has lead EMU to 4 bowl games in 8 years, but has never had a record better than 7-6. Before leading EMU, Creighton was a very successful head coach at Drake University in FCS as well as at Wabash College in D3 ball. This year EMU faces Eastern Kentucky to open the year then faces UL on the road and follows that up with a trip out west to face Arizona State. Their other out of conference opponent is a home game vs UMASS for homecoming. We have faced EMU twice in our history both in 2005 and 2006. In 2005 we lost to them 31-10, but got them back in 2006 in Cajun Field beating them 33-14 behind great performances by Jerry Babb, Tyrell Fenroy and Jason Chery.
Last years team was a pass happy team, they threw for 3417 yards vs only rushing for 1909 on the ground, but both of the top QB’s for EMU are gone as well as their main rushing threat. So this year might look a little different compared to 2021. They also struggled on defense as they gave up a combined 438 yards per game to their opponents, so defense was a problem.
QB—As I stated earlier EMU will be replacing a pretty good QB in Ben Bryant who amassed 3121 yards and 14 TD’s vs 7 INT’s. They bring in a familiar face to SBC fans, their new starting QB is expected to be Taylor Powell a transfer from Troy. Powell fought with Gunnar Watson at Troy to see who was going to be the starter in 2021, they went back and forth with Watson and Powell. Powell is on his 3rd FBS team, starting at Mizzou, then transferring to Troy and now at EMU. Powell is a pretty good QB completing 66% of his passes last year for 1251 yards, his biggest issue was turning the ball over, he ended up with 7 TD’s and 6 INT’s and was part of the reason why he and Watson split time, that and injuries. Behind Powell will be allot of inexperience, including 2 RS Freshman and a Walk on Freshman. Austin Smith should be the assumed backup to Powell. Powell is a big strong kid at 6’2 207, but is not much of a threat to run the ball, he is a pro-style drop back passer with a strong arm.
RB—Again, EMU did not successfully run the ball well last season and the only player that had any real success was Jawon Hamilton and he is gone. His suspected successor will be Samson Evans a 6’0” 218 lb. who played in 12 games last year. He rushed for 316 yards on 83 carries for a 3.8 yard per carry average, but did score 13 TD’s rushing the ball. Evans started his college career at Iowa. He is a physically strong young man. He also added 19 receptions for 107 yards. We will also see a lot of Darius Boone a 5’11 202 lb running back and Jaylon Jackson a 5’7” 172 change of pace back who transferred in from Lamar. Boone gave EMU 451 yards on 120 carries last year and 6 TD’s. While Boone and Evans will get the majority of the carries, Jackson who rushed for 220 yards on 49 carries in only 6 games in 2021 at Lamar will be a guy that comes in to be more of a 3rd down back/change of pace guy.
WR/TE—This is a spot where they get almost everyone back, again from a team that liked to throw the ball all around the field in 2021. The main guy is going to be Hassan Beydoun, who is not a big guy but put up big numbers. Beydoun is a senior who had 1015 yards on 97 receptions last year with 4 TD’s. Beydoun is listed at 5’8” 174 lbs., but that is not all they have, they also return Dylan Drummond (6’0 179) who had 64 receptions for 704 yards and led the team with 6 TD’s and Tanner Knue (5’11” 180) who ended up with 32 catches for 342 yards and 1 TD. A player they are high on is Darius Lassiter (6’3 200), only real big threat at WR, and finally they have Zach Westmoreland (6’2 204) who had 17 catches for 293 yards and 1 TD. From the TE position will be Gunnar Oakes (6’5 256) a RS Senior. Oakes had 11 catches for 125 yards with 1 TD. They do lose an elite blocking TE y the name of Thomas Odukoya, but the strength of this team on offense is no doubt the receiving corp.
OL—This team only loses 1 starter from last year in 4th team ALL MAC contributor Mike Van Hoeven. And it is lead by 1st Team ALL MAC Sidy Sow (6’5” 334) LG who is a Senior and 3rd Team ALL MAC RT Brian Dooley (6’7 305). They also return RG Alex Howie (6’4 317) LT Marcellus Johnson (6’4 309) and the other player that will fill in at Center is Dimitri Douglas (6’4 316) who will be moving over from Michigan State, he never appeared in a game at MSU saw some game action in 2020 in 9 games for EMU, they will get back Richard Bates (6’3 285)this week who could start at Center or they could play both. This group has had some real success in pass blocking but has struggled in run blocking in the past. But they are veterans there all 5 being Seniors including 3 Graduate Students.
Special Teams—EMU losses both their starting PK and Punter from last year and their PK was a good one, Chad Ryland was perfect on XP and 19-22 on FG including 7-8 from 40 and beyond. He will be replaced by Jesus Gomez, interesting story, Gomez played HS football in Mexico, who has only kicked off for them in the past, in 2 games. Their punter from last year was Julien Jake who averaged 43 yards per punt, he will be replaced this year by Mitchell Tomasek a RS Freshman with no stats to this point, but Tomasek was a fairly highly rated recruit, he had 3 punts vs EKU for a 42 yard average including 1 of 51 yards and 1 inside the 20. At Punt Returner they will use a couple of starters between their #1 and #2 WR’s, Dylan Drummond and Hassan Beydoun, Beydoun ahd 11 PR for 62 yards last year. At KR we will either see Jaylon Jackson or Hassan Beydoun, Beydoun led the team with 15 returns for 284 yards last year. Jackson did some kick returning at Lamar.
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DLine—This was a team last year that gave up 438 yards per game and 200 of those were on the ground, so stopping the run was a little bit of an issue for EMU. That being said they do have some talent there. The main guy for them will be DE Jose Ramirez (6’2 251 Edge rusher) he finished last year with 63 tackles and led the team with 6.5 sacks, he is a kid that started his career at Arizona. With him on the D-Line will be a number of returning players, Alex Merritt( 6’2 286) who had 5 starts last year and Jordan Crawford (6’1 330) will be in the middle of the D-Line. Merritt had 19 tackles last season and Crawford had 20. They are more of the runstoppers for a team that struggled to stop the run. On the edge with Ramirez is Grant Trueman (6’3 240) and/or Mike Haney (6’4 246). Both Haney and Trueman were backups last season and played on the 2 deep, but they will be replacing some significant contributors on the D-Line. The big loss for this team is #2 tackler Terry Myrick from last season who ended up with 85 tackles last season. There is no doubt the player to watch for on this unit is Ramirez who plays DE/LB in their 4-2-5 style defense.
LB—The strength of this defense might just be the LB’s. Besides Ramirez (Hybrid), this group includes some pretty solid players. The leading tackler from last year is Tariq Speights (5’10 237) and from everything I am reading, he might not be the starter at LB, that is because the guy that is coming in to replace him is Joe Sparacio (5’10 226) a transfer from Boston College, Sparacio had 61 tackles at BC in his 4 years there. Also in that mix will be Chase Kline 6’4 234 who played in 24 games in 3 seasons at Michigan State, he had 9 tackles vs EKU over the weekend. TJ Peavy a Junior 5’10 190 who plays what they call “DOG” position S/LB hybrid finished last year with 43 tackles. So this is a veteran group with a couple of really good transfers from P5 schools. This should be a strength for them.
D-Backs—They return a couple of starters in the Defensive Backfield. At CB the leader is Kempton Shine (5’11 168), he finished with 43 tackles last season and 3 PBU’s, Mark Lee (6’0 188) will be opposite of him. Lee played in 7 games last year and had a total of 16 tackles and 4 PBU’s. The three safeties will consist of TJ Peavy mentioned with the LB’s and Russell Vaden (6’3 221) and Blake Bogan (6’2 202). Bogan had 45 tackles last year while Baden who has an interesting stat line. He played in 8 games starting 4, after battling back from injuries in 2020, he only finished with 10 tackles on the season, but led the team in INT’s with 3, in 2020 he was the projected starter at safety but had a season ending injury vs Liberty in the 2nd game of the season. Another player coming back from injury that could make an impact for them could be Korey Hernandez (5’11 182) Senior CB that started his career at Arkansas and ended up at EMU after playing JUCO ball at Iowa Western, he sat out all of 2021, but has 66 tackles in his career at EMU.
This will be another back to back pass happy offense with questionable Defense. Part of the issue with EMU last year was the lack of pressure on the QB, they only had 24 sacks all of last season. This team has the ability to score points and move the ball down the field on offense but struggled to get off the field on defense, which could again be their problem this year. I think ultimately the issue with this team is going to be defense and running game.
My prediction
Cajuns 31
Eagles 17
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