EMU Football Depth Chart and Snap Counts: Week 12
Snap counts and notes ahead of EMU's home finale vs. Akron.
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With Wednesday's loss to Toledo, Eastern Michigan is no longer playing for a MAC championship.
The best-case scenario from here is to win your next three games: home to Akron, at Buffalo, then in a bowl game in back-to-back years. That'd be a first.
But football, more than blocking and tackling, starts with focus. Doesn’t matter if your team is doing really well or, like in EMU’s case, isn’t doing so hot this season — this is the part of the year where focus becomes evident and is arguably the strongest determining factor of how these teams will finish their seasons.
That’s just one man’s opinion.
For EMU, the grind gets tougher at this point in the year when the main prize — a MAC title — is off the table and the team’s walking into pre-holiday season with a 4-6 overall record. EMU needs to win out, or else this team’s not going bowling.
The MAC championship is always a front-of-mind goal in this league, and EMU’s still hasn’t made it to the championship game ever since the MAC started crowing East and West divisional winners in the 90’s.
“That certainly was a goal,” EMU head coach Chris Creighton said Friday at his week-opening press conference, ahead of the Tuesday night Akron game. “I will never put that above being our best… We have lots of goals and we still have a chance to make history as the 132nd team to go to three straight bowl games, to win back-to-back bowl games — those things have never happened before.
“If you’re gonna talk about having a 1-0 approach, you better live it, whether you’re 10-0 or 0-10.”
EMU held its weekly press conference earlier today, Friday, because that’s just life with mid-week MACtion. Below are some more quotes from the presser, along with snap counts (via Pro Football Focus), notes, and the team-provided depth charts found in the weekly media notes.
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 | Week 7 vs. Kent State | Week 8 at Northern Illinois | Week 9 vs. Western Michigan | Week 11 at Toledo
OFFENSE
QUARTERBACK
#4 Austin Smith
#8 Cam’Ron McCoy / #3 Ike Udengwu III
Austin Smith’s season went left just as soon as things were starting to get good for him. Over the last four games, Smith’s passing line reads 47/100 for 586 yards (5.86 Y/A) with 2 TD and 4 INT. Obviously an in-game injury against Northern Illinois continues to linger for him, so maybe we might see more Ike Udengwu and Cam’Ron McCoy in the final two games? They’ve already played in a couple of games, and Udengwu was only benched in the Western Michigan game after a brutal eye-poking.
When asked, Chris Creighton didn’t exactly say if #3 or #8 will see the field more in the final stretch of the year, but he didn’t rule it out either. If anything, he expanded the conversation to every position group.
“We’re talking about all of our personnel right now and how we want to attack Akron. So we haven’t made any final decisions on that but Ike played some of the Jacksonville State game, and then Cam played a play or two there — we had a package for him. Then again, in the Western game when Austin was hurt, those two guys took all of the reps that week. Then Ike got hurt.”
RUNNING BACK
#22 Samson Evans / #28 Jaylon Jackson
Elijah Jackson-Anderson and Dontae McMillan both scored their first EMU touchdowns against Toledo.
Jackson-Anderson, a redshirt-freshman from Flint, got the team’s first touchdown out of the Wildcat formation when he caught a 28-yard pass from Samson Evans, his fifth career TD pass. McMillan, a Weber State transfer, rushed for a 1-yard score to close out the game for his first score with the team. Jaylon Jackson also had a 6-yard score in the fourth quarter, his second of the year.
X RECEIVER
#17 JB Mitchell III
#13 Jamarien Wheeler
Z RECEIVER
#2 Tanner Knue
#5 TE Max Reese
H RECEIVER
#1 WR Hamze El-Zayat
#11 Terry Lockett Jr.
Tanner Knue, with three catches at Toledo, still leads the team’s receiving efforts by a wide margin — 40 catches, 393 yards, and 3 TD. All are team-highs, though J.B. Mitchell (26-308-1) and Hamze El-Zayat (19-278-2) each have 50-yard receptions.
Terry Lockett Jr., a Michigan State transfer, has seen the field more in the second half of this season than what he played in the first half. Against Toledo, he had his first touch for a 6-yard pickup.
Said Creighton on Lockett earning his playing time: “We are really excited about Terry, has been an awesome maturation. He got here in January from Michigan State. In my opinion, it took him a little bit to figure out our culture and our program. Not in a bad way, wasn’t fighting against it but we’re like ‘Let’s go!’ right away and I think he was trying to figure it out. Spring ball, we’ve known that he’s got talent, he’s learning the system and could see that he could end up being a good player but had a ways to go. And he’s just continued to get better and better, and throughout the season he’s practiced really well so we’ve played him in games and we think that he’s going to end up being a really good player. So you’ll being him these couple of weeks for sure.”
Y RECEIVER, TIGHT END
#83 Jere Getzinger / #88 Blake Daniels
LEFT TACKLE
#63 Mickey Rewolinski
#76 Chris Mayo
LEFT GUARD
#54 Zack Conti
#55 Dan Sunderman
CENTER
#75 Carson Lee
#67 Broderick Roman
#70 Dimitri Douglas
RIGHT GUARD
#68 Alex Howie
#75 Carson Lee
RIGHT TACKLE
#77 Brian Dooley
#73 Joshua Anderson
After three games with Chris Mayo at left tackle, Mickey Rewolinski returned from injury to start and play again at his spot. It was most of the starting offensive line unit from the start of the season except for Carson Lee, who has started for his third game. Between all the injuries health with at left tackle, left guard, and center this year, the Toledo game featured EMU’s sixth different-looking starting offensive line.
First four games: Rewolinski/Conti/Douglas/Howie/Dooley
At CMU: Rewolsinki/Conti/Roman/Howie/Dooley
vs. Ball State: Rewolinski/Sunderman/Roman/Howie/Dooley
vs. Kent State: Mayo/Conti/Douglas/Howie/Dooley
NIU & WMU games: Mayo/Conti/Lee/Howie/Dooley
At Toledo: Rewolinski/Conti/Lee/Howie/Dooley
DEFENSE
LEO
#11 Mikah Coleman
#49 Jaden Gaines
DEFENSIVE END
#47 Justin Jefferson
#45 Joey Zelinsky
NOSE TACKLE
#94 Peyton Price
#99 Melvin Swindle II
DEFENSIVE TACKLE
#98 Tim Grant-Randall
#92 Alex Merritt
MIKE, LINEBACKER
#6 Chase Kline
#44 Luke Cameron
WILL, LINEBACKER
#19 Joe Sparacio
#12 Elijah Williams
Joe Sparacio and Chase Kline both sit at 4th and 5th, respectively, in most total tackles made in the nation. Sparacio has 111 tackles on the year (6 at Toledo), Kline with 109 (13).
STAR
#4 Daiquan White
#5 Korey Hernandez
CORNERBACK
#29 Kempton Shine
#14 Keylen Gulley
Kempton Shine’s 27 career pass breakups is second-most in school history behind DaQuan Pace’s (21013-2016) 28 career mark.
CORNERBACK
#17 Bennett Walker
#26 Tristen Hines
FREE
#16 Cameron Smith
#27 David Carter Jr.
Cameron Smith intercepted his first career pass against Toledo, and returned it 35 yards, to prevent a touchdown. For the season, Smith is fifth on the team with 38 tackles, 1 TFL, 1 forced fumble, and 3 pass breakups.
BANDIT
#3 Quentavius Scandrett
#39 Barry Manning
SPECIAL TEAMS
PUNTER
#30 Mitchell Tomasek
#33 Ryan Kingston
PLACEKICKER
#35 Jesus Gomez
#37 Kenyon Bowyer
Gomez missed a PAT at Toledo but made there rest of his assignments. For the year, Gomez is 9/11 on field goals (made 25-yarder at Toledo) and 14/17 on PATs.
LONG SNAPPER
#46 Steve Bird
#51 Mitchell Dietzel
KICKOFFS
#37 Kenyon Bowyer / #33 Ryan Kingston
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