Week 6: Right Where They Wanted To Be

Eastern Michigan, believe it or not, is on the rise, and isn’t too far off the path it wanted to be this deep into the season. Aside from the home loss to San José, EMU is having as good a season as anybody could ask for.

EMU’s 2-0 in MAC play, its first since 2005, with an 11-point win over Sacramento State, then a 24-point beating on UMass; the latter spoiled an early-perfect season, and EMU hadn’t won a game like that in 38 years.

Next, with a road trip to Akron on the schedule, EMU hopes it can achieve its first 3-game winning streak since September 2024, and the program’s first 3-0 start in MAC play since 1995.

(I don’t mean to be a downer, but that ‘95 team got off to a 4-0 start, but then it went 1-3 the rest of the way. Just a quick history lesson.)

Akron (1-4, 0-1 MAC), whose only victory this season was against FCS-level Robert Morris, isn’t the scariest-looking team EMU will come across this year. EMU’s been playing really well on defense, and is certainly running the ball much better these days offensively, and Akron, to be kind, is wearing more bumps and bruises this season.

Still, it’s a classic “don’t focus on the wrong opponent” type of week for EMU. It beat UMass in front of a sellout crowd, a beatable opponent’s up next, and a MAC contender comes to town after that. Toledo is worth the attention, and it will definitely be a big game next week, but this week’s focus should be on the Zips.

The last time EMU went to Akron was in 2024, and it was after a win over Central for EMU to have a 5-2 record. Then things fell apart at Akron; EMU trailed 18-0 at halftime, and fell short in its late rally attempts to lose 25-21. It was the first of five straight losses for EMU, including a 1-point loss at home to Toledo the very next week.

A win Saturday wouldn’t redeem the 2024 team, but it’d certainly keep this year’s squad rolling in the right direction.

Akron got off to an exciting start to the season, but, honestly, only because of a funny ticketing promotion. For $75, you could purchase season tickets and a chance to call an offensive drive against RMU.

Sadly, Akron fumbled the ball on Coach Marty’s called drive.

With no other early wins after that, the team’s early-expected quarterback not eligible to play, and the team’s recent 41-17 beatdown at CMU, we’ll see how many purchasers fumbled their tickets for Saturday.

It’s probably safe to say it won’t be UMass-sized, whatever the attendance ends up being.

The Zips, clearly, are not having the season they wanted to have. The hope for this team was that quarterback Reese Poffenbarger, who has been itching to get another chance to start somewhere after he was one of the top players in the FCS ranks in 2023, but lost the starting QB battles at Miami FL and North Texas in the two years after.

The NCAA never granted Poffenbarger a waiver to play this season, though. Without the former leading passer of FCS football on the field for Akron’s offense, Joe Moorhead’s had to play his second- and third-string options behind center.

Freshman Cibastian Broughton impressed with an 80% completion rate in his first two games, but was injured against Minnesota. Sophomore Brayden Roggow, in five games, hasn’t been as impressive: a 56% completion rate, and he has more interceptions (5) than touchdowns (3) so far.

If things are ever going to go well for Moorhead and Akron, things have to be right at the quarterback spot. Clearly, things are pretty dismal at that position for Akron.

It’s not all on the QB spot, though. Akron’s whole offense has some work to do.

For real, though. Last week against CMU, Akron did something that I don’t know if I’ve ever seen before: it punted on fourth-and-goal. An early turnover put Akron’s offense on the field on CMU’s 20-yard line, but a sack and an unnecessary roughness penalty moved it back to the CMU 38.

Between Akron’s issues protecting the quarterback (MAC-worst 13 sacks allowed), its poor average starting field position (second-worst in MAC, by BCFToys), the turnover issues (4 fumbles, 5 INT), and its okay-to-pretty-fine run game (705 yards, 4.3 avg.), it’s tough to see a way for Akron’s offense to put a dent in EMU’s defense other than, first, by getting out of its own way.

It’s not the worst-run Akron offense anybody has ever seen, but this team’s not moving the ball in ways a Moorhead-led team ought to.

Plus, EMU’s defense has been playing particularly well this season.

Even without key defenders like Barry Manning at linebacker, or Jason Marshall at deep safety, or Caleb Coley at cornerback, guys like Elgin McDuffey, Davion Williams, and Rayquan Adkins have stepped up as they’ve been out with injuries.

On paper, this EMU defense comes into this road game with the upper hand, and a ton of confidence after it held UMass to just two scores and took the ball away twice as well.

Offensively, EMU’s seen overall improvements by simply moving the ball better at the beginning of games (and second halves), and is running the ball at a much better clip than what it showed at the beginning of the season.

For the second game in a row, all three running backs — Amareon Blue, Braydon Bennett, and Joey Mattord — had individual rushing averages above 4.0. The potential for all of these guys to be playmakers in EMU’s backfield this season seemed clear to those who watched the season opener vs. Sacramento State, but the stats didn’t back them up too kindly.

EMU had 69 rush yards against Sac State, then 107 yards rushing (mostly aided by a 50-yard TD by Blue) vs. San José. It felt proud of the 101 yards it picked up against Michigan State, and all the shuffling with injuries (both bad and good) and roster decisions at offensive line finally led to 192 big ones at UMass.

Blue finished with 66 yards and a score. (He had a 20-yard run called back to a penalty on the game’s opening drive).

Bennett had 42 and a score. (Again, he had a 56-yard stomp called back to a holding call, moments before Blue’s run was waved off).

Mattord, finally, got the first score of his career since he first joined as a walk-on in 2023, and 54 yards against the Minutemen.

EMU, clearly, is going to want to keep its ground game alive with a strong showing against Akron, which just surrendered 332 rushing yards and 4 TDs to CMU (QB Angel Flores: 18 att., 154 yards, 1 TD).

Again, this is just a classic spot for a team like EMU to have its focus stressed and tested this week. EMU’s shown that it has the ability to wipe away the two MAC opponents it’s seen so far, and now it has to buckle down and take care of Akron by not getting distracted by next week’s matchup against Toledo.