Y11 Notes: Chris Creighton featured on Maxx Crosby's The Rush
Y11 Notes: Chris Creighton featured on Maxx Crosby's The Rush
Creighton "had no idea" that Crosby's career would take off as quickly as it did when he declared for the NFL Draft.
Y11 Notes: July 11, 2024
The thing a lot of football coaches (or teachers) will tell you is that sometimes the biggest joys of their job doesn’t come from the day-to-day interactions with their players (or students), but those little moments where they get to look up after some time to see what everybody’s up to these days. For the friendship of Maxx Crosby, Brogan Roback Dustin Creel, and Darien Terrell, those four former EMU football players have all long since graduated from the program, but they still use a podcast to keep their friendships close together.
The podcast, titled The Rush, was born out of Crosby’s playing fame, and he’s one of many high-level NFL players who create their own media to share stories, laugh along with guests, and have some low-pressure conversations on camera.
During the weekend of Crosby Field’s unveiling to its fans, Crosby and his friends brought the podcast back to Eastern Michigan and had Chris Creighton on as a guest. Creighton has been a catalyst in the program’s turnaround into it now being a respectable Group of 5 (or “Fantastic 5” as Creighton said in the podcast) program, and he was hired into a situation where Roback, Creel, and Terrell were already on roster, and had to go out and recruit players like Maxx Crosby that would eventually buy into what Creighton was selling in Ypsilanti. Now, 10 years later, Crosby was in town to help introduce the new and improved turf that he and his wife Rachel helped make happen, and the former players got to share laughs with their former coach on their good old days together.
Remember those culture-shifting moments?
Remember those fights we got into at practice?
Remember the girls that would walk away when we said we played football for *Eastern* Michigan?
If you could have a do-over on any season, which one would it be?
Some highlights from Creighton’s featured appearance on the boys’ pod, which was released yesterday:
Crosby “still not over” 2018 Camellia Bowl loss
Most EMU football fans are in the same boat. Even Chris Creighton has previously said that that is one of the most disappointing losses in his time as Eastern’s head coach. For Crosby, that game was his final time dressed as an Eagle. Soon after the bowl game, Crosby announced that he’d be leaving EMU a year early to pursue the NFL Draft. For as much as his pro football career has panned out so far, the taste of that last-minute loss for the Eagles hasn’t gone away.
Crosby: “Don’t get me started on the Camellia Bowl, I’m still not over it. It was my last game and I’ll never forget it. It still bothers me and I think about it all the time. We had ‘em — had ‘em!”
On the transfer portal era
I’d say this podcast serves a couple purposes. One, it does the job of letting Crosby’s fame rise through his own media platform, and it does the job of letting these college friends continue to work and hangout together.
The other job this podcast episode does is serve as Chris Creighton’s own little media day. While he’s not going to be grilled by his former players on who got injured over the summer and how the depth chart looks, but he still got the chance to expand on how he handles, in this case, the transfer portal.
Creel: “I think the biggest plus side for Eastern is going through you (to Creighton). So… when you think of MAC schools or MAC coaches, it’s almost like a stepping stone whereas you’re so, you know, solely focused on- you are not leaving this place until we are reigned the MAC championship.”
Terrell: “Now it’s a complete curveball because it used to be getting them, but now it’s getting them and keeping them because of the transfer portal.”
Creighton: “I mean, that’s what we have to battle money and size of stadiums or whatever. That’s not always going to win, but I know this. Some of the guys who have already gone on, we still have conversations, it doesn’t mean that where they went was a better experience.
Creighton’s big idea & Crosby’s big ‘nope’
Crieghton’s idea for Crosby was shot down well before Crosby had a chance to hear it.
Wouldn’t it be cool, Creighton thought, if Maxx and his wife rode a helicopter above Rynearson Stadium and saw a covered-up field with a giant tarp, then a team of people would uncover and unveil to them many, many feet up in the air, then have them land on the field?
A big, cool, visual idea to celebrate a big project, Creighton thought.
The problem, before the idea got to Crosby’s ears, was that Crosby’s agent declined on his behalf.
Crosby, who was conveniently wearing a Kobe Bryant shirt for this episode of the podcast, shared that riding helicopters has been off the table for him ever since Bryant’s tragic death in 2020.
Crosby: “But after that happened — (former EMU safety) Brody Hoying was the person who told me when I first found out the news, and I was sitting there with Rachel and I was like ‘I am never getting on a helicopter in my life. Ever.’”
2015 Scout team player of the year
Crieghton helps paint a picture of Crosby’s first fall with the Eagles.
Crosby’s first day on campus, he weighs 212 pounds, at least 40 pounds lighter than when Creighton last saw Crosby during basketball season. Creighton’s half-scared that he accidentally recruited a kid who would rather be a model for Calvin Klein like his older brother. But instead, Crosby starts to add on some weight and he’s on the scout team going up against future two-time Super Bowl winner Andrew Wylie, then a senior with the Eagles at the time. And every day, it was Crosby vs. Wylie.
Creighton: “So here’s the thing. They were absolute wars. And Wylie looked the look. I remember saying about Wylie that if this guy’s not an NFL player, what is? I mean his Pro Day he measured at 6’5”, 303 lbs, and like a 34-inch vertical… like this is ‘freak’. And you (Crosby) didn’t stay at 212 for long. That’s what I always say about Maxx on scout team, those wars with a guy who has now been in three Super Bowls were wars.”
Creighton “had no idea” that Crosby’s NFL career would take off like it has
Creighton shares his memory of Crosby really declaring for the draft.
While anybody following at home may remember a graphic posted on Twitter as the way they found out that Crosby would be leaving EMU a year early. But Crosby had to let his coach know about his decision first.
Creighton admits that he has selfish feelings about Crosby leaving the program when he did. In his mind, Crosby could’ve wound up being the MAC’s Defensive Player of the Year, and Crosby could’ve been the difference between winning and losing the 2019 Quick Lane Bowl.
Creighton: “Remember, you (Maxx) and Rachel came in after the Camellia Bowl and whatnot. In your mind you were being super respectful and all that and you were already leaving, and I thought I had a great idea. I was like, let’s take the selfish coach out of it, and then anybody that’s telling you you’ll be the first pick and all that stuff, let’s take them out of it. Let’s go with what the NFL guys said… I had no idea that you’d be this good. I mean that’s probably not what I’m supposed to say but I totally believe it now that it’s happening. But selfishly, we beat Pitt in my biggest loss here for our second Power 5 win in Ford Field with a record crowd, defensive player of the MAC and the whole country knows about him and all that, but honestly, too, your story is perfect… Even in the very beginning, you never know how someone’s gonna - who they are and how they’re gonna pan out. And even at the very end I was like ‘Yeah, no one can block him,” but I probably just didn’t have the experience to know.”
Crosby: “I didn’t know either. That’s the thing people didn’t understand. When I came in, and that’s why I talk about that plaque I got that year for scout team player of the year, it’s in my office front and center as the most important year of my career.”
More notes
If nothing else, Creighton’s a jokester. On his very first April Fools Day with the team, he collaborated with then-sophomore defensive lineman Mike Steals having only known each other for a few months. The first part of the plan was, during a scrimmage, that Steals would just start fighting with somebody on the offense.
Creighton: “I told Steals, ‘If you walk off, you’re done’ and you’ve got to keep going.”
Anyways, the whole team felt for it. Even the coaches tried to keep Steals from leaving. The whole team fell silent before Steals eventually came back at the end of practice with a classic “April Fools” delivery.
Creighton’s ‘Mount Rush’ of his all-time greatest coaches include:
Jim Tressel, legendary Ohio State coach,
Bill McCartney, legendary Colorado coach (fun fact: he’s from Riverview, Mich.),
Neal Neathery, who Creighton got to work with for over years,
and Tony Dungy.
If Creighton could have a re-do of any season at Eastern, which year would it be?
Pretty easy answer for Creighton, he picks 2017 when EMU went 5-7 and suffered six straight, one-score losses right after capturing the program’s first-ever win over a Power 5 school (Rutgers).
If Creighton had to pick removing one tradition from the program, would he remove breaking the wall down to break the team’s tunnel, or remove carrying that big old wrench around?
Creighton: “Resign.”
Creighton said he hasn’t had a sip of “soda pop” since May 2014.
Impressive that he was able to cut Diet Coke out of his life before he even coached a football game in Ypsilanti. But I think it’s worth noting that he still calls it soda pop and not just pop.