Eastern Michigan's Offense Can Have Success If...
Eastern Michigan's Offense Can Have Success If...
EMU's offense took a hit last year. If it's year's going to be fruitful, it'll because it achieved these three things.
1. These new RBs keep the pace
Not only did Eastern Michigan graduate its #1 touchdown-getter in program history out of its running back room, but it also lost a multi-faceted back with an impressive 0-to-60 time to Iowa State in the transfer portal. Now that this team is without the duo of Samson Evans and Jaylon Jackson, how much of a step should this RB group take?
To refresh, Evans graduated after scoring 41 career touchdowns on the ground for EMU, and rushed for 2,302 yards on 515 handoffs. A former high school state championship-winning quarterback himself, he was 6/6 passing with five touchdowns in college. Jackson offered a lot of speed that doesn’t around very often, and showed it off as a RB (974 total rush yards, 4 TD), catching the ball (361 yards, 2 TD), and on kick returns (976 yards, 2 TD).
Sure, EMU loses two skilled and reliable RBs. But those two dudes did a lot of different things for this offense.
To help carry the torch this year (Olympics joke) are three guys who are primed to have their shots at standout years. Dontae McMillan, a second-year transfer from Weber State, and third-year signee Elijah Jackson-Anderson both lead this position on the team’s initial two-deep, but I expect we’ll see heavy rotation of RBs throughout the season.
McMillan was an All-Big Sky RB without ever having to be *the* every-down guy for the Wildcat offense. Yes, he led the team in rushing over the 2021 and 2022 seasons, but in 2021 he was only averaging 7.6 rush attempts per game, and in 2022 he was one of three RBs to carry the ball at least 120 times that year (he led with 134 attempts).
His rushing marks? McMillan averaged 5.6 yards per carry in 2021, then 6.0 the next.
Jackson-Anderson has been in EMU’s system for two years and has already scored a touchdown via a Wildcat-formation reception. With 16 game appearances but just one (1) rush attempt to his name, he'll have fresh legs entering the season and has obviously already been worked into the playbook early on.
Then there are some others worth mentioning too. Both McMillan (5-10, 201) and Jackson-Anderson (5-10, 191) are so close in size, but NC State transfer Delbert Mimms III (5-11, 220) and second-year signee Deion Brown (5-9, 184) could offer some changes in pace. Last year with the Wolfpack, Mimms had 96 total carries for 282 yards (2.9 avg.) and scored 8 touchdowns. Brown was hidden on the scout team last year, but I imagine he’ll have a growing role on gamedays this year.
And since we’re talking about a team’s rushing performance, we should probably look at the five guys who need to create holes for these RBs; I promise we won’t spend too much time on this. Whoever ends up being the starting five for EMU in Week 1 will have their first time playing together as a five. Last year’s offensive line went through a lot of changes with injuries at the center position, then some short-lived injuries on the line’s left side. Staying upright is always priority #1, but then there’s the collective progress goal: push past last year’s rushing mark of 3.36 yards per rush, which was 116th in the nation.
2. Cole Snyder has efficient start
While it isn’t officially official yet, Cole Snyder’s going to be the catalyst behind center this year for EMU’s offense. After three years of developing and studying at Rutgers followed by two years as a starter in Buffalo, EMU is Snyder’s third and final FBS-level stop. While EMU has freshmen Drew Viotto (redshirt transfer from Minnesota) and Jace Stuckey (true freshman) as long-term solutions for the roster on paper, there’s no immediate reason to think that either one of them will be the offense’s leader out the gates. There’s currently no reason to expect either of them to start a game in October when the conference season heats up.
EMU fans didn’t have to ask who Snyder was when he announced that he’d be joining the team via transfer over the winter. The former Buffalo QB threw to former EMU receiver Quian Williams in his first year with the team under second-year head coach Mauice Linguist (who is now a co-defensive coordinator under Kalen DeBoer at Alabama), and they ended up going 7-6 with a Camellia Bowl victory that season. Over those 2022 and 2023 seasons, Snyder has been to Ypsilanti for a 50-31 butt-kicking over the Eagles, then hosted EMU last year as EMU grabbed its sixth win of the year with a 24-11 victory.
In his two seasons with Buffalo, Snyder was a 56.9% passer with 5,138 total yards, 31 touchdowns thrown (17 picked) and 234 rushing yards (1.32 avg., 5 TD). His first season at Buffalo, though, had way more action than his second. Some of that had to do with the change in play-calling, but maybe some of that had to do with him losing some really talented receivers to throw to, not just Williams, from one year to the next. Either way, Snyder’s performance slipped in the books and no matter where we end up placing blame for it he’s in a spot to redeem himself and finish his college career on a high note.
EMU has its ambitions of winning its first-ever MAC Championship very front-of-mind, and to do so it’ll need an offense that can pick up the ball and move it at will. Last year with first-full-year starting QB Austin Smith, EMU was anything but that — it finished 129th in the country at 4.35 yards per play.
Should Snyder help move this offense at a more improved rate with few turnovers, then the rest of the team will have to do its part to see some early wins on the schedule. Alls well if everything goes well, but how grim would things need to look for there to be a serious change at the position? Chris Creighton has said in the spring that former walk-on QB Jeremiah Salem has gotten the team’s rallying support with his practices and, of course, him being the longest-tenured QB on the roster. He’s listed as Snyder’s lead competitor for the QB1 spot to open the year, but let’s play devil’s advocate and assume Salem doesn’t start the year but is called on if it’s Week 7 and Snyder ends up doing more bad than good out there. Would Salem be ready to help steer a game — or even part of a season — in the right direction on a moment’s notice? Would Viotto or Stuckey be optioned into the season at some point to replace Snyder?
I don’t think the broader expectation for Snyder an this offense is as sky-high as, say, Toledo’s offense usually is. But I think that EMU really wants to be able to stretch the field (and its playbook) more than it was able to show last year, and it’d be nice to be able to run more plays to get some of its developing players the ball more too. And while big plays are fun and necessary out of the QB spot, efficiency is probably a better fix for this side of the ball.
3. Max Reese has a breakout year
While there’s a long grocery list of receivers on this roster that are ready to have breakout seasons in 2023, I don’t think this offense really does what it wants without its tight ends. Jere Getzinger needs to remain a steady sixth O-lineman with some sneaky grabs. Blake Daniels (former Division 2 QB) needs to be the height advantage that every 6-6 skilled player can be.
But Max Reese is a guy I’ve had circled for a while now. The converted wide receiver helped his Chicago-area high school win its first-ever state championship at the 5A level and set single-season records for his school at the position too. Reese’s father actually played against Creighton and intercepted one of his passes back when they were in high school.
Funny stories aside, this is the point in timeline where I expect guys like Reese to have breakout seasons. Now that he’s spent some time learning how to get out of a 3-point stance and play this position, it’s time to see what that development can look like with the natural pass-catching abilities he initially came to campus with. He wore a redshirt with no playing time his first year with the team then got in eight games last year — which matched how many receiving yards he had on just two catches. Now that he’s a redshirt-sophomore and in comes Snyder at QB to conduct the offense, it’s time for Reese to break out and start to become the weapon that this team has been hoping to see.