EMU Football Depth Chart and Snap Counts: Week 11
The Actual Biggest game of the year coming up.
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The stakes are pretty clear entering next Wednesday’s contest at the Glass Bowl in Toledo.
Beat the Rockets, and Eastern Michigan’s chances of staying alive in the MAC West remain alive if certain dominoes in the MAC fall in the right way.
Lose, and Toledo is crowned MAC West champs before EMU even gets on the bus to go back home.
Last year, Toledo came into EMU and won 27-24 in a fourth-quarter meltdown for the Eagles. EMU had the lead until it didn’t and the Rockets ended up dancing all the way to Detroit for a MAC title. Obviously, redemption is going to be on EMU’s mind entering their week towards Toledo.
Redeem themselves after last year’s loss, and redeem themselves after last week’s letdown to Western Michigan.
“During that game last year with Toledo, we were winning most of the game and kind of let one slip away at the end,” EMU running back Jaylon Jackson said Friday at the week-opening press conference, “so I think knowing that how the game ended last year, should give us some hope.”
It’s a mid-week MACtion switch. No Monday press conference this week, instead things were held on Friday. EMU’s updated depth chart in its game notes are below, along with some quotes from the press conference, and some select 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
OFFENSE
QUARTERBACK
#4 Austin Smith
#8 Cam’Ron McCoy / #3 Ike Udengwu III
Injured and without a full week of practice, Austin Smith was the third quarterback EMU fielded last week against Western Michigan. He wasn’t as mobile as he likes to be, but Smith still ended up with his first 200+ yard passing performance of his career and arguably his best day of locating his intermediate-to-deep passes.
Was it an encouraging individual performance from Smith to play like that through the pain?
“Heck yeah,” Chris Creighton said Monday.”He got injured early in the NIU game and the adrenaline and all that kind of stuff got him through that and then didn’t practice much against Western Michigan at all, but he sort of all along was like ‘Hey, I’m going to be ready to play, I’m going to be ready to play.’ Then Ike (Udengwu) got injured, he got poked in the eye in a way where doctors didn’t clear him. So yeah, he came in and thought he did a really nice job.”
For the year, Smith is 123/217 passing (56.7%) for 1,334 yards with 7 TD, 6 interceptions.
RUNNING BACK
#22 Samson Evans / #28 Jaylon Jackson
Jaylon Jackson can do it all. Nobody should be surprised that he was able to play wide receiver and be so wide open for a 68-yard catch and score deep downfield, and he ended up with a team-best 9 catches for 111 yards against WMU.
But on Friday I asked him of the three things EMU fans haven’t seen him do: 1. pass the ball, 2. punt the ball, 3. placekick, what does he think he’s best at?
“I’m going to say throwing the ball. I played some quarterback in high school in the back-half of my senior year. People might not know that, but I can throw it a little bit… I’m going to go with punting second. I tried an extra point a couple of times in the summer, and I’m going to go with punting second.”
Jackson has 382 rushing yards with 1 TD on 81 carries. He’s caught 18 passes for 200 yards, and 1 TD. Samson Evans, with 37 career rushing TD, has 425 rushing yards (13th MAC) and 8 scores (tie-3rd MAC) this season.
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 still leads the team’s receiving efforts by a wide margin — 37 catches, 371 yards, and 3 TD. All are team-highs, though J.B. Mitchell (24-283-1) and Hamze El-Zayat (18-270-2) each have 50-yard receptions.
Y RECEIVER, TIGHT END
#83 Jere Getzinger / #88 Blake Daniels
LEFT TACKLE
#76 Chris Mayo
#63 Mickey Rewolinski
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
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
The most tackles recorded in a game this season before the Western game: 19 tackles.
Against Western, Joe Sparacio broke that mark with 22 tackles, and Chase Kline cleaned up with 21 as well.
Said Creighton on Sparacio: “Joe’s made of all the right stuff, I can’t tell you how much he loves football and he’s just a great fit here at Eastern Michigan and he knows it. That’s on and off the field, that’s 24/7, 365 days a year. After (he was ejected for targeting at NIU) and couldn’t finish that game, because of his character he was rather quickly able to focus all of his energy on the team and all that, but it breaks his heart. So he’s doing and giving absolutely everything that he has and believes deeply. Love ‘em.”
STAR
#4 Daiquan White
#5 Korey Hernandez
Daiquan White has worn a lot of responsibility this year in place of Joshua Scott, who suffered a season-ending injury early in the season. White has every game of his true freshman season, and leads EMU’s defense with 11 pass breakups.
Said Creighton on White not only having the ability to start as a true freshman, but to stay consistently productive: “Just doing this throughout the years, so many freshmen, there’s a point in their freshman year where everything just catches up. You’re trying to stay on pace with learning the game plans, and some guys are on scout team so they just fall behind, but for so many guys they kind of just can’t keep up anymore. That sure hasn’t happened with Daiquan and I don’t see that happening. He is so level-headed, so well-prepared coming from Creek Side High School down in Georgia. It’s big-time football there, really well-coached, just an awesome program. And he’s got that inner-confidence, the humility, the ability to learn. So we’re not surprised but we’re always surprised because, like I said, you recruit everyone and you’re super-excited about them and what their capability is, but it’s almost impossible to know who is going to be able to be coachable, who’s going to learn quickly, and who is going to play at a high level and he sure is that guy right now.”
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.
BANDIT
#3 Quentavius Scandrett
#39 Barry Manning
Quentavius Scandrett had a personal-best 11 tackles against WMU. His next-best day was last year when he had 10 tackles against UMass.
SPECIAL TEAMS
PUNTER
#30 Mitchell Tomasek
#33 Ryan Kingston
PLACEKICKER
#35 Jesus Gomez
#37 Kenyon Bowyer
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