Washington Week: If You're in Seattle, Catch a Big Fish
Washington Week: If You're in Seattle, Catch a Big Fish
Also, a homecoming with no reunion.
One and oh.
And now it’s time to catch the big fish on their schedule.
To do so, this Eastern Michigan will have to catch a 1,920-mile flight to Seattle and pick a fight against one of the newest, shiniest additions to the Big Ten. A team that not only is fresh off of a national championship game appearance to end the 2023 season, but it’s a team that EMU head coach Chris Creighton grew up watching and looked up to.
And wouldn’t you know it, the Washington Huskies have one of the most beautiful-looking settings this sport has to offer.
Creighton grew up walking to and loving these Huskies, but now he’s doing something even he’s never done before. He has to be the one to take it to them.
Wait, hold that thought.
Creighton has taken so many of his teams, from Wabash, Drake, and Eastern Michigan, to places all over the world: Austria, Panama, Africa, the Bahamas, and even Detroit. Every year, seniors on his teams go to Colorado to attempt climbing Pikes Peak. But in 27 years, or 306 games spent as a college head coach, not once has he taken a team to play in the town that he gets to call home.
Creighton’s helped accomplish so much at Eastern Michigan with all kinds of ‘firsts’, but going back home to do the thing he loves most is going to be a first for him.
“I think it’s going to be an awesome experience for our entire program. Then personally, I have really good friends that are still in the area. That’s where I played my high school football, and that’s where I grew up,” Creighton said Monday during his week-opening press conference.
“I went to Huskies games as a kid, and we were close enough where I walked to a couple of those. Got sweat bands and dirty socks from guys as they were leaving the locker room and I thought I had hit a treasure chest.”
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Preparing for Washington
WHAT HAPPENED AT WASHINGTON OVER THE OFFSEASON?
In short, everything.
Let’s start from the top: January 8th.
National championship game; Michigan 34, Washington 13.
Two days later, Nick Saban retired from his post at Alabama.
Then-Washington head coach, and former EMU offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, Kalen DeBoer got picked to be the guy to replace the guy, and he took that job on. Now he and four former EMU staffers and/or players from last year’s Washington staff are all gone. Ryan Grubb is the new offensive coordinator for the Seattle Seahawks. Strength and conditioning coach Ron McKeefery followed DeBoer to Alabama. Assistant strength coach Bryan Fink was not kept by the current Washington staff. Former EMU running back and UW graduate assistant Shaq Vann is now a receivers coach at Ball State.
Maybe DeBoer left for “a bigger job.” Maybe he left because, kind of like Creighton, DeBoer saw a job opening that you’d have to be crazy to accept. Following up Saban of all people? Who would want to do that?
“It is officially a forfeit,” Creighton joked. “For whatever reason he left, he’s not there. So I’m counting it as a 1-0 forfeit.
“I was obviously super excited about being able to (coach vs. DeBoer and staff) I mean, there were five guys on the Washington staff last year that were here at Eastern Michigan. Really good people and really good coaches. None of them have climbed Mt. Rainier so I don’t know if they’re, you know, can get the ultimate amount of respect. Challenged them with that.
“But they’ve moved on now, but it’s still just a great opportunity for our team to go play a phenomenal program in what they call the greatest setting in college football, so we’re excited for it.”
VIEWING / NOT VIEWING THEM AS LAST YEAR’S #2 TEAM IN THE LAND
From the outside looking at the Pac-12 Big Ten team from afar, there’s still a lot of glitter shining from the banners Washington was able to hang last year. Big Ten Pac-12 champions. National championship appearance. Two top-10 draft picks. A 25-3 record over the last two seasons is definitely a high the UW faithful will never want to come down from.
But for everybody inside those walls, how much do they even look at themselves with that much success?
In a recent Q&A session I had with Washington and Seattle sports writer Kevin Cacabelos of SeaTown Sports, he told me that this new coaching staff, led by Jedd Fisch, can’t ignore the school’s recent run of success, but it also can’t start backpedaling now that everybody’s out the door and the school’s entering a new age of college sports.
New Huskies head coach Jedd Fisch has made it a point to acknowledge that this a brand-new team, but that the “standard” hasn’t changed. I think that’s a fair assessment on how to view things with this year’s team.
While virtually the entire starting offense from last season is gone (only junior kicker Grady Gross returns) and only three defensive starters remain (senior linebacker Alphonzo Tuputala, junior cornerback Elijah Jackson, and junior punter Jack McCallister), there are a handful of returning players that made significant contributions last season. For example, Washington returns senior linebacker Carson Bruener finished third in tackles last season and senior wide receiver Giles Jackson, who appeared in seven games last season, including all three playoff games. The returning starters, along with guys like Bruener and Jackson played in so many tight games last season and have the intangible experience of playing in the Pac-12 championship, a national semifinal, and a national championship.
So, while these guys know the Kalen DeBoer and Michael Penix Jr. era is over, they have valuable postseason game experience to lean on from last season that not many other players in the country have.
By ESPN’s returning production metric, Washington only brings back 40% of its roster from last year, 124th nationally. Its defense is ranked second-to-last nationally in the figure at 26%, leading only Air Force.
And yet, EMU’s not ignoring the glitter either.
Grad transfer quarterback Cole Snyder, who started his career out at Big Ten-expansion-level Rutgers, now gets to look ahead to facing a new expansion-level team from the Big Ten’s roster.
“I think it’s just going to be a great opportunity to go compete against a really good program and a really good team. Last year they were in the national championship game,” Snyder said. “You could say they had a bunch of players transfer out , they’ve got a bunch of new players, but you have to give them the respect that they deserve.”
A BELICHICK AND A CARROLL ON THE OTHER SIDE
Jedd Fisch is the man leading Washington’s operation after DeBoer’s exit. Having to hire a brand-new staff, who did he go after for his coordinator hires?
Brennan Carroll, Pete Carroll’s eldest son, will run the show on offense.
Steve Belichick, Bill Belichick’s son.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think Pete or Bill have any work obligations keeping them away from their sons.
So sure, we can focus a lot of rightful attention to the fact that the roster turnover on this Washington roster is heavy and serious. But it’s not like the guys on this team aren’t going to be well-coached.
And if Washington plans on bringing their A-game to square-up against the MAC team that will surely come in with their best efforts, then Snyder said he’s ready for the challenge.
“I’m looking forward to the challenge. You don’t want to catch someone on a bad day. As a competitor you want someone at their best and they looked good this past week,” Snyder said. “On top of that, the coaching staff that they have is super impressive. Head coach has a great track record. Defensive coordinator that’s been a part of three Super Bowls.”
Snyder continued, “Super excited about that and the challenge that it presents. I’m sure it’s going to be a great atmosphere and I’m just really excited about that.”
A Homecoming for some
Creighton moved to Seattle from San Francisco during his childhood and has lots of fond memories in the Pacific Northwest. But he’s not the only one on this team with ties to the area.
Running back Dontae McMillan, a Weber State transfer, is from Seattle.
Tight end Max Reese claims Chicago as the city he’s from, but not before he was born in Seattle and moved to Dallas before growing up in the midwest. His dad actually met Creighton on the high school playing field.
UNLV transfer receiver Zyell Griffin is from Vancouver, Wash., which is actually closer to being Portland, Oregon.
Second-year tight end Gabe Hoffman is from Bellevue, Wash., sandwiched between Lake Washington and Lake Sammamish.
It’s a homecoming for some, and these are guys who are certainly trying to make big splashes in front of some old friends and relatives that can show up for the occasion.
McMillan, paired with NC State transfer Delbert Mimms III, is trying to be the catalyst for the running back room after spending most of last season developing as a transfer. Reese, a big receiving target, is the type of player who should be on the cusp of a breakout season. Griffin and Hoffman are in their first and second seasons with their team, but Griffin’s on a much shorter timeline as a graduate transfer.
EMU has gotten some positive attention over the past decade, and beating Big Ten teams on the road is part of uptick in good vibes. However, it’s been a minute since that last happened. EMU beat Rutgers in 2017, Purdue in 2018, and Illinois in 2019. Since then? Lost 34-7 at Wisconsin in 2021, and got flicked 25-6 by Minnesota last year.
Aside from starting center Broderick Roman, who was a true freshman in 2019, nobody on this team has any first-hand memory of beating a Big Ten team as an Eagle.
Under Creighton, EMU is 4-9 against Power 5 Power 4 schools. The last Power victory came in 2022 when the Eagles stunned Arizona State 30-21.
Snyder settles in
Was it a perfect outing?
No.
Was it as good as anybody could’ve asked for?
Well, EMU got the win at UMass which is all anybody could ask at the end of the day, sure.
But Snyder made the right decisions play after play in the season’s opener against the former and future MAC squad.
This year’s offense features very few returning linemen up front, and even fewer returning skilled players for Snyder to throw or hand the ball off to. Having previous playing experience with your teammates is one thing. Having leaders in the locker room is another.
“The comradery that’s in this locker room and the feel that you have with this team, it’s like we’ve been playing together since high school.” Snyder said Monday’s player availability session. “It just feels like we’re a family in here. I haven’t really felt that since high school and it really feels like we’re out there having fun. So it’s a really good vibe that we’ve got going around here.”
Snyder was named the starting quarterback last week ahead of the UMass opener. That, for those that’ve been paying attention, probably came to little surprise as Snyder was a two-year starter for the Buffalo Bulls and nobody else in the QB room could match his experience.
In his first outing in the green and white, Snyder looked poised and comfortable with 32, 33, and 40-yard passes made to three different receivers — all of which are either first or second-year transfers with the team too. His 17-of-28 stat line might not be stellar-looking, but he did everything anybody could’ve asked of him. He picked up 10 first downs through the air. He rushed for 28 yards and a score. There were a couple of drops out there, and some of those incompletions helped draw some flags against the UMass secondary. Whatever it takes to keep the chains moving.
Singleton led the game with 8 catches for 89 yards. Terry Lockett had 3 catches for 80 yards, and Markus Allen had 3 grabs for 61 yards. This alone already matches last year’s total for number of games where a trio of EMU players finish with at least 50 yards receiving. In 2022, that feat was achieved just one time as well.
It was done six times in 2021. Who knows? Maybe this year’s offense is on its way of topping that number.
“I’ve been around a lot of great players, especially receivers,” Said Snyder, thinking back to his days as a player at both Buffalo and Rutgers. “We’ve got a super, super talented wide receiver room. Some guys that are on scout team could be starters at a lot of programs and could help us here a lot. So we’re super deep. Couple guys have gone down with injuries that hopefully we can get them back during the season so there’s a ton of depth in that room. But without the guys up front, none of that is possible.”
Snyder was a 3,000-yard passer at Buffalo in his first season with the team, then his production dipped last season, and had his season end with EMU celebrating a bowl-clinching win on his old home turf.
If there’s going to be any improvement in his game on the field this year, Snyder said it’s because he’s trying to be fully-developed on the mental side of his game.
“Changing the way I attack the game mentally has been a huge impact for me, I think it is a big reason for any success I’m going to have this year,” Snyder said. “You learn new stuff every day. I’m always adding on to my process with everything off the field, especially this year. It’s been a lot mentally.”
Jez Janvier 360’s his way back on offense
If there were any position groups that came into the season with question marks around it, there’s no question that there was a little bit of uncertainty around the offensive line room. While EMU has had some amounts of returning luck and lockdown consistency with guys like Brian Dooley and Sidy Sow to finish with 60 and 58 total starts throughout their respective careers, this year’s offensive line group offers a very small percentage of that.
Coming into the year, Mickey Rewolinski was the team’s most-experienced offensive lineman with 14 starts over his career. In 2022, Rewolinski played in the second-half of the season with four starts made at right guard. Last year, Rewolinski stepped up to the plate as the team’s left tackle. This year, he’s settling in at left guard. Among Broderick Roman, Chris Mayo and Carson Lee, there were 12 total starts made. While grabbing some transfer additions, namely Blake Bustard from Wayne State, to provide depth (or be the new starting right tackle after Dooley’s long-awaited graduation), this team found itself needing some more juice at O-line during camp.
That’s where Jez Janvier comes (back) in.
Janvier, from Montreal, Quebec, Canada, was initially an offensive lineman with the team when he was recruited to join in 2021. Janvier wore a redshirt and played in the LendingTree Bowl that season, saw action in 10 games in the bowl-winning 2022 season, then moved to defensive tackle in 2023 where he totaled nine tackles and half of a tackle for loss through seven games.
Now, a year later, he’s right back where he started with the team.
“(Janvier) might be our most physically-impressive player when you look at weight room numbers, height and weight, and all of those things,” Creighton said Monday. “We recruited him as an offensive lineman and got to a point where we thought that he’d be better on the interior of our defensive line and was going to play there. Then with the inexperience of our offensive line, we thought that he’d have a better chance of potentially helping us on the offensive line. So that was sort of a mutual conversation about what he would want to do and so he came back over to the offensive line.”
Against UMass, Mayo, Rewolinski, Roman, Lee, and Bustard made up EMU’s starting five from left to right. But even in a non-blowout victory performance, nine total linemen saw the field on Saturday, including Janvier as the second right guard to come into the game for 21 snaps.
“He got to play some on Saturday and he’s going to continue to get better and better, so we’re excited about his progress.”
Mack Indestad also got in the game after Mayo, plus up-and-comers Daniel Warnsman and Joshua Anderson at left and right guards. Bustard, who made the jump-up in competition this season, didn’t come out of the UMass game.
Some spinning plates, but through 68 downs of offense, this O-line, no matter how it was constructed, allowed zero sacks all game, and allowed just two tackles for loss. Running the football, EMU had a team rushing average of 3.8 yards per carry, and the longest rush it allowed was a 27-yarder for Mimms (5.0 avg.) to set up his own score. Snyder got a score on a QB sneak at the goal line, too.
“We weren’t dominant in the run game in terms of moving people and whatnot,” Creighton assessed. “I thought we protected really well and we did run the football.”
Overall, Creighton said they played as about well as his staff expected them to.
“We really believe that that group is talented and does lack experience of playing together... I think that is gonna be one of our groups that is good and is gonna be most improved as we go through the season. We’re really excited about what we can become on our offensive line.”
By the numbers
Zero
Last year’s Washington group won the Joe Moore Award for having the nation’s top offensive line unit. But this year’s UW linemen combine for zero starts made last year. Only one current Husky, Landen Hachett, played in nine games as a true freshman last year.
18-22
Jedd Fisch comes to Washington with only three full seasons as a head coach, most recently spent at Arizona; he was also UCLA’s interim head coach for UCLA’s 2017 Cactus Bowl. He’s posted an overall record of 18-22 with and 11-15 record in Pac-12 play. Last year, his Wildcats went 10-3, and won the Alamo Bowl.
127
EMU’s defense will have its hands full whenever Jonah Coleman gets his number called. Against Weber State, he led Washington’s 204-yard rushing efforts with 127 of his own.
196-27
This is the first meeting between EMU and Washington, but it’ll be the fifth between Washington and a MAC team.
WASHINGTON VS. MACTION
1984: Washington 55, Miami (OH) 7
1986: Washington 48, BGSU 0
1991: Washington 48, Toledo 0
2022: Washington 45, Kent State 20
1,905.8 miles
From the middle of the 50-yard line at Rynearson Stadium to the middle of the 50 at Husky Stadium, it’s the fourth-longest distance between EMU and a (new) Big Ten School; Autzen Stadium (Oregon) is 1972.3 miles away, LA Memorial Coliseum (USC) is 1,948.4 miles away, and the Rose Bowl (UCLA) is 1940.9 miles away.
