Eastern Michigan Head Coach Chris Creighton discusses improvements his team needs to make to rebound from last year’s second half drought. Julia Ferry/The Pit
[dropcap]A[/dropcap]fter a disappointing ending to the 2014 season that saw the Eastern Michigan University football team lose its final six games, redemption and maturation were key during the offseason.
The Eagles were picked to finish sixth in the Mid-American Conference West Division determined by select members of the league’s media contingent.
The annual preseason poll was released Wednesday at the conference’s 2015 football media day held at Ford Field in Detroit.
And after a 2-10 finish to end the season in 2014 and now with a year under head coach Chris Creighton under their belt, EMU is looking to move beyond expectations and compete amongst the big boys of the MAC conference and their division rivals.
“It’s been a long offseason and hopefully it carries on into the regular season,” defensive lineman Pat O’Conner said. “The biggest thing for us is balance, I feel like we came together and put it all together where everything is equal on both sides of the ball.”
On the opposite side of the field, the Eagles will look to take tremendous strides of improvement to its offense.
Redshirt sophomore quarterback Reggie Bell is projected to start under center this year and with a year of learning behind him, you live and you learn couldn’t ring more true.
“I feel like I have a lot more experience coming into my second year,” Bell said. “Going into this season, I have a good sense of what I should and should not do out there.”
After EMU finished the 2014 last place on offense, Bell expects the attention paid to detail in the offseason to pay dividends for a Eagles offense looking to keep up with its high scoring conference rivals.
“Turnovers are definitely one thing I learned from last season,” Bell said. It’s really the small things and winning the turnover margin was definitely something that killed us last season.”
Along with Bell starting this season for the first time, Eastern returns senior running back Darius Jackson and redshirt senior offensive lineman Jake Hurcombe, both of whom made it on the watch lists for national player awards for the upcoming year.
Every year college football experts along with reporters and committees around the country compile lists of the best college football players across the country at their respective positions.
Jackson and Hurcombe are joined by O’Conner along with senior linebacker Great Ibe (Philadelphia, PA) on the watch lists as well.
O’Conner and Ibe are candidates for the Rotary Lombardi Award, given to the best defensive lineman or linebacker in college football.
O’Connor led the Mid-American Conference last year with 7.5 sacks and recorded 64 tackles and 27 solo tackles, earning him a spot on the First Team All-Conference roster.
Ibe led the team with 133 tackles last season, ranking ninth in the country in overall tackles.
Meanwhile, Jackson was named a candidate for the Doak Walker Award, given to the best running back in the nation. He averaged 4.8 yards per carry for 295 yards on the season.
With the bit of notoriety garnered from these watch lists and after a full season and offseason to develop continuity, Creighton feels this could be a turning point for the EMU football program.
“The whole point is continued improvement,” Crieghton said. “My goal with this team was to take them places they have never been and build responsible young men as a result.”
That attitude has rubbed off on the players, leaving them striving for more in this program’s journey for growth.
“It’s the hunger in us this year,” Bell said. “Like coach always tells us, there is a difference in fighting when you’re up and when you’re down by a significant amount. This year there is a different fight about us and knowing what we have to do to be competitive.”
And the biggest difference this past offseason for the Eagles.
“It’s been the really the work in practice,” O’Conner said. “Coach has been pushing us pretty hard in practice and we figure the more effort we put into it, that translates into the game.”
With four of their first five games against non conference opponents, including a road trip to LSU as well as Wyoming on the dock, Creighton believes his team needs to come out and play for right now to set the tone for conference and a potential bowl birth.
“It’s games like LSU that help you gauge where you are as a team,” Creighton said. “Our focus has been on maturity and progress, so let’s see if it translates to on the field and we can prove that we belong on the same stage as the competition.”
Eastern Michigan opens the season on September 5th as the Eagles hosts Old Dominion in a game scheduled to be broadcast on ESPN3 at 3p.m.
