Eastern Michigan's Defense Can Have Success If...
Eastern Michigan's Defense Can Have Success If...
Three ways EMU can see itself having a good year on the defensive side of the ball in 2024.
1. The defensive ends stay healthy
It’s a good thing Joey Zelinsky and Justin Jefferson held up as much as they did last year, because this team looked like it was on thin ice early in the year.
Carter Evans announced on Twitter that he’d miss the 2023 season due to an ACL tear he suffered during camp after showing some steady progress in 2022. Sterling Miles, who played in 11 games in 2022 after transferring from Cincinnati, missed all last year to injury too. Mikey Haney missed all of 2022 with an injury suffered during the team’s spring game, and only lasted two games before he was medically sidelined the rest of the way. Linebacker Zach Mowchan, who maybe could’ve subbed in at middle linebacker to potentially let Chase Kline get his hand back in the dirt like he was doing when he was at Michigan State, got hurt three games into the year.
Zelinsky and Jefferson finished the year with 1,098 combined snaps played last year (avg. 43.9 per game), and they both return as senior leaders for the edge. Mikah Coleman was the third-most active D-end last year (392 snaps, 35.6 per game), but now he’s off to Cincinnati.
So behind EMU’s seniors, it’ll be guys that’ve either been biding their time on the scout team and/or recovering from injury.
Evans and Miles each return, and it’ll be guys like Messiah Blair, Luke Fletcher and Gary Dorsey to show what a redshirt year did for their young development.
And then there’s the incoming transfers. Trey Laing comes to EMU from Indiana, and Ypsilanti native Jefferson Adam comes back home after his time at Iowa State. Laing missed all of 2023 with an ACL tear, but was a menace in 2022 at Southern University and in 2021 at East Mississippi C.C. — over a dozen tackles for loss in each season. Adam, likewise, did not play in 2023, but was the #3 junior college edge player by 247sports composite rankings out of Hocking College in 2022.
Having a couple of returning starters at this position, on paper, is a big help. Especially when one of those guys was tied for the team lead in tackles for loss last year (Jefferson at 7.5). But as long as all of these guys are able to spend more time on the field than in the training room, then I think this position group could be a lot stronger as a whole coming into the year.
2. Peyton Price dominates the inside
I don’t know how much was exactly riding on Price’s shoulders last year, but things ought to heat up all the way for him this year in his true senior season.
Price has played over 500 snaps in each of the last two seasons with 12 starts made last year and played in 11 games as early as his true freshman year. While he’s been a good, rising defensive tackle on the defense, Price hadn’t reached the heights of being an All-MAC D-lineman yet. But if you look at the preseason All-MAC lists in preview magazines, you’d see that Athlon Sports has Price as a preseason First Team All-MAC player, and Phil Steele has him listed on his Second Team roster.
Should Price end up being an All-MAC player at the end of the year, that’d be another first for the Chris Creighton era. While EMU’s had defensive player and defensive ends, including 2022’s MAC Defensive Player of the Year Jose Ramirez, Creighton’s never had an interior defensive lineman make an All-MAC roster.
Whatever the ceiling is for Price, 2024 should be the year where this guy jumps through the roof. Price is the kind of player who absolutely has what it takes to reach new heights, it’s just a matter of actually hitting the marks he’s capable of. Double-digit tackles for loss? Matching his career sack total? Creating some turnovers?
The defensive line is always a unit that’s searching for its homerun hitters. If Price is ever going to be considered one of those, he’s only got a few short months left to prove it.
3. The run defense doesn’t drop off too hard
How much stock do you put into Pro Football Focus’ team grades?
Against the run, Eastern Michigan’s run defense received the 29th-highest grade in the nation according to the website (84.5), not too far off from its 2022 finish at #31 (85.0). Three years ago, EMU’s defense was… ready to take that next step forward.
That 2021 defense, which of course didn’t include eventual transfers Joe Sparacio and Chase Kline to help figure out the middle of the defense, was very young up front. There were just three seniors in the D-line room compared to 10 first and second-year freshmen. No, not all of those freshmen stayed around until now, but Price did. Justin Jefferson did. Melvin Swindle II did too. Carter Evans has been fighting injuries, but he’s still around too. Jez Janvier was on offense in 2021, but now he’s grown into his interior D-line role. Those two old transfer linebackers are out, but four new transfer LBs occupy the team’s two-deep at Mike and Will.
Do I expect EMU to be a top-30 team against the run for basically a third year in a row? Without having seen what this defense looks like with the new linebackers outside of a spring game, that’s not going to be an easy one to forecast. They’ll try to keep the pace up front, but the team probably feels good about the security blanket of defensive backs that it has to use in coverage this year, too. If opposing coaches see the secondary as the clear strength on this defense, then you’ll bet the front six will end up being more tested against the run as a result.
Really pleased with how the run defense tightened up recently. Hopefully that holds, because I remember spending most of the 19, 20, and 21 seasons praying for the other team to throw the ball.