EMU Football Depth Chart and Snap Counts: Week 7
Eastern Michigan looks for its first back-to-back win of the season with Kent State coming to town Saturday.
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We have reached the midpoint of the season. Non-conference play, a rivalry game, and homecoming are all in the rear-view. Eastern Michigan split its Central Michigan and Ball State games to be 1-1 in MAC play (3-3 overall), and Kent State comes to town this weekend for a noon matchup.
Kent State, a MAC program that generally doesn’t have a lot of success (but has two more trips to Detroit than EMU has), comes to town with a lot going against it. Sean Lewis, maybe the best coach in the team’s history, left to join Deion Sanders’ staff at Colorado and a lot of its best players found homes elsewhere too. First-year coach Kenni Burns, 39, comes from P.J. Fleck’s coaching staffs at Western Michigan and Minnesota.
Right now, the Flashes are off to just a 1-5 start (0-2 MAC). After Saturday’s loss to Ohio, Burns had the gall to rip a sample off of Sanders.
“Everybody take their shots at our football team, please. Because we’re getting better and eventually we’re going to have a really good football team. And I told our team to keep their head up and keep grinding.”
Which, if that’s the case, perfect timing for Eastern, which would really like to see itself 2-1 in the MAC standings after a 0-1 start.
“We have not won back-to-back [games] this season, the regular season is halfway over. We’re six games in,” EMU head coach Chris Creighton said Monday at his team press conference. “We’re in that process right now of starting over and taking it day by day.
“We have to get better. We have to get better, and Saturday will be here before we know it.”
As with every press conference, the team’s somewhat updated depth chart is posted in the game notes. Below is EMU’s provided depth chart along with some of my personal notes, quotes from the presser, and snap counts via Pro Football Focus.
Previous depth charts: Spring/Summer | Week 1 vs. Howard | Week 2 at Minnesota | Week 3 vs. UMass | Week 4 at Jacksonville State | Week 5 at Central Michigan | Week 6 vs. Ball State
OFFENSE
QUARTERBACK
#4 Austin Smith
#8 Cam’Ron McCoy / #3 Ike Udengwu III
QB Austin Smith continued to play well through last week with an 18/28 performance for 192 yards, 2 TD and no turnovers. Still plenty of room for improvement, but this is sort of the normal rate of play that should be expected of him through the air.
On the ground though, he took a beating: -20 yards on the whole (sacks included).
RUNNING BACK
#22 Samson Evans / #28 Jaylon Jackson
Samson Evans is, after last week’s second-quarter rushing score against Ball State, EMU’s all-time leader in touchdowns with 32.
Said after the game, on the team’s improvements on offense “I definitely think it’s confidence, it’s trusting each other. We were kind of shaky at first, but we all have a great relationship in the offensive room. So we all know that we’re trying to win the game. Ultimately, the first couple of weeks, it was on us. We knew we didn’t execute well. We knew we had to improve and we all knew we could. So pretty much it came down to each week, working on the little things, trusting each other, and ultimately we started doing well.”
X RECEIVER
#17 JB Mitchell III
#7 Von Swinton
Z RECEIVER
#2 Tanner Knue
#7 Von Swinton
H RECEIVER
#1 WR Hamze El-Zayat
#5 TE Max Reese
J.B. Mitchell had his first career TD grab against Ball State and has seen his reception totals go up each week (minus the Minnesota game). Versus Ball State: seven grabs, 71 yards.
Hamze El-Zayat had another 50-yard TD catch at Rynearson, his second TD reception of the year.
Returning captain Tanner Knue, who leads the team with 25 catches, 210 yards and 2 TD, finally gets to see his teammates make plays on the perimeter to help this offense move. Knue was the only returning starter at wide receiver coming into the season.
Said Knue on Monday: “It’s awesome. Hamze, I’m super proud of him, I’m super proud of J.B. because I see the work they put in every single day. Most people only really see what happens on Saturday but I see the work they put in very single day and they’ve earned every single thing they’re getting and everything they’re going to get this year.”
Y RECEIVER, TIGHT END
#83 Jere Getzinger / #88 Blake Daniels / #85 Andreas Paaske
LEFT TACKLE
#63 Mickey Rewolinski
#76 Chris Mayo
LEFT GUARD
#54 Zack Conti
#50 Owen Snively
CENTER
#70 Dimitri Douglas
#67 Broderick Roman
RIGHT GUARD
#68 Alex Howie
#75 Carson Lee
RIGHT TACKLE
#77 Brian Dooley
#73 Joshua Anderson
A quick note on the number of snap counts above: I haven’t counted the snaps by player myself, but PFF has yet to acknowledge Joshua Anderson’s first career snaps at right tackle. No pun intended, but Anderson played a little bit in the second half when Brian Dooley came off the field to deal with a hand injury.
Zack Conti, who started the year at left guard, did not play and Dan Sunderman got the start instead. Brock Roman, who started the CMU and Ball State games, was an early exit on Saturday and wore a boot on his right leg during the second half.
EMU’s offense gave up 10 tackles for loss and five sacks last week against Ball State. How much responsibility should the O-line take for that, and how much of that has to do with not being able to play to full strength?
Creighton answered: “We had multiple people playing on the offensive line. The sacks, credit them (Ball State’s defense) but those were avoidable. I do think that’s an area, in its collective, it’s all 11 that we failed last week and know that we could do better. I think the other thing is the lack of explosive plays. Hamze had the seam there off the and-go off the bubble and was really good, but we just didn’t have as many explosive plays as we need to have.”
DEFENSE
LEO
#11 Mikah Coleman
#49 Jaden Gaines
DEFENSIVE END
#45 Joey Zelinsky
#47 Justin Jefferson
NOSE TACKLE
#94 Peyton Price
#99 Melvin Swindle II
DEFENSIVE TACKLE
#98 Tim Grant-Randall
#74 Jez Janvier
Tim Grant-Randall had an interception he’ll never forget to end Saturday’s game. Justin Jefferson hit Marquez Cooper as he caught a pass in Ball State’s march downfield and the ball popped out of Cooper’s and into Grant-Randall’s.
Grant-Randall is a Texan and second-year transfer from Blinn College, but he already had ties to the area before he made the move. His mom is a Flint native.
Said Grant-Randall Monday at the press conference: “It’s kind of a surreal experience being able to play where my mom was made at in Michigan and where my family roots are at. It’s kind of like an even more surreal moment every game. Even though I’m from Texas, it kind of feels like I’m playing for… a secondary home state. You know how people always say they want to play for [their] home state? It’s kind of like when I’m playing for Eastern Michigan, it’s like dang, I’m playing for my mom’s state as well so it’s an even bigger deal when I put that EMU on my back.”
MIKE, LINEBACKER
#6 Chase Kline
#44 Luke Cameron
WILL, LINEBACKER
#19 Joe Sparacio
#12 Elijah Williams
STAR
#4 Daiquan White
#39 Barry Manning
FREE
#16 Cameron Smith
#27 David Carter Jr.
BANDIT
#3 Quentavius Scandrett
#8 T.J. Peavy
CORNERBACK
#29 Kempton Shine
#14 Keylen Gulley
CORNERBACK
#17 Bennett Walker
#26 Tristen Hines
Redshirt-freshman safety Barry Manning has gotten some playing time on defense this year and delivered a big hit in the Ball State game. He squared up a BSU receiver on a tackle and his helmet caused a fumble for EMU to come away with, which resulted in a touchdown for the offense.
“We’re really pleased with Barry,” Creighton said. “A lot of work on the special teams units but then is playing safety as well. He’s developing quickly, we’re excited for him.”
One negative, though. Bennett Walker, who had three interceptions through the first two games of the year and has started the last three contests, will miss the first half of the Kent State game. Walker was penalized for targeting late in the second half vs. Ball State, and his disqualification will carry through to the next game.
Said Creighton on what the plans may be, personnel-wise, to start the game on defense: “So he’s out for the first half but we haven’t determined starting lineups and all that right now. But it’ll be all guys that you’ve seen before as we go through the week.”
SPECIAL TEAMS
PUNTER
#30 Mitchell Tomasek
#33 Ryan Kingston
PLACEKICKER
#35 Jesus Gomez
#37 Kenyon Bowyer
Gomez went 1-for-2 in the field goal department against Ball State. He made his first kick from 53 yards away, but missed his second from 51. For the season, he’s 6-for-8 on field goals with makes of 55 and 53 yards, and is 20-for-25 in his career.
LONG SNAPPER
#46 Steve Bird
#51 Mitchell Dietzel
KICKOFFS
#33 Ryan Kingston
#35 Jesus Gomez
KICK RETURN
#28 Jaylon Jackson
#1 Hamze El-Zayat
PUNT RETURN
#1 Hamze El-Zayat
#28 Jaylon Jackson
#23 Elijah Jackson-Anderson
HOLDER
#30 Mitchell Tomasek
#33 Ryan Kingston