Image via Eastern Michigan Athletics
Eastern Michigan’s defense devoured Sacramento State early and often Saturday night.
Special teams and offense begin the game with constant, annoying hiccups? No need to worry, Zach Mowchan and Bryce Llewellyn reminded everybody what a defense full of returners can look like right away.
Punt the ball away four times in the opening quarter? It’s all good. Juan Salas and Jason Marshall patrolled the deep passing zones, and the Hornets didn’t have a catch over 20 yards (Sac State passing: 52%, 25-for-46, 221 yards, 0 TD, 1 INT).
Sacramento State finished the game with, technically, a better rushing performance (2.9 yards per rush) than EMU (2.3)? It might not have felt that way, but it’s true.
Sacramento (0-1, 0-1 MAC) freshman Isaiah Ene didn’t get a touch until the fourth quarter, and his first carry was a tough, physical, and meaningful one. He went up the middle on third-and-short, pushed his way from EMU (1-0, 1-0 MAC) pressure, and was finally shoved out of bounds 37 tough yards later.
No, getting run through by a third-string teenager once isn’t exactly the takeaway EMU’s defense wants to remember from its long-awaited home opener Saturday. And why would it?
EMU was dead last in the nation last year versus the run. Didn’t look like that was the case Saturday as the Hornets finished with 49 rush yards (Ene had 44).
If this team is going to have meaningful success this season, it’s going to have to get a lot of things right in all three phases of the game. EMU knew over the offseason that if its defense was going to have a turnaround year, it’d have to hurry up and get good at the fundamentals of the game.
This year’s team has to prove that it has, indeed, improved on its tackling and can reliably play well against the run.
Which is why Saturday felt so meaningful for this defense.
By halftime, Sac State had zero rushers with positive push. The Hornet offense ran 30 plays and gained only 34 yards. It had -21 rush yards at the break. Sophomore Quincy Byas, an undersized defensive end in his fourth career start, created his first fumble in the first half (which turned into quick points from the offense).
“We’ve been waiting nine months,” Byas said Monday at EMU’s week-opening press conference, when asked about practicing against/only being able to tackle teammates during the winter, spring, and summer months. “But in the first game, all of that is out the window. It’s physical, it’s taking teams to the ground, so it’s a great refresh.”
Marshall, a fifth-year senior, finished the defense’s day with his first career interception on a sideline throw.
Mowchan, no longer wearing a knee or shoulder brace while playing, led EMU’s defense with 14 tackles and was one of four players to make stops for loss against the Hornets (1.5 TFL). There was, however, one very obvious missed tackle on his mind after Saturday’s game.
That 37-yarder from #22.
“There was a big run tonight. Started with me, and then a couple other guys missed tackles on it as well. But it started with me. I stopped my feet, missed (the) tackle, and that was I think the biggest run of the night,” Mowchan said after Saturday’s game.
Missed chances, unfortunately though understandably, happen.
EMU’s defensive efforts, co-coordinated by Kasey Teegardin, the defensive ends coach on the sidelines during the game, and Tate Omli, the safeties coach up in the booth, are supposed to be simple. As long as its players are focused on tackles, turnovers, and effort, the defense, in theory, should play fast and free, and not feel over-complicated.
Hopefully, players playing without hesitation should lead to opposing ball carriers being met by second and third defenders on stops.
Like Mowchan on that run. Salas, too. He had his tackle broken on the play, and they needed Rayquan Adkins, a first-year transfer cornerback, to follow Ene the whole way and end the threat by, eventually, pushing the running back out of bounds.
“It was a big run, but just the identity of all of us flying to the football is what prevented that from being a touchdown,” said Mowchan.
EMU can’t afford to have hiccups from its return unit and offense and expect its defense to do what it did against Sacramento State 11 more times in the regular season and expect everything to work out in the end.
Time was Sac State’s enemy last offseason. The Hornets had no idea they would move up from FCS to FBS until weeks after the transfer portal closed in mid-January. Plus, this team turned over 73 new players to its current roster, which is already a lot to sort through for a first-year coach in a non-transition year.
Sacramento is far from being EMU’s toughest test of the year. A good, important victory (28-17) that immediately matters in the conference standings. It’s just not a game that granted EMU any more than that.
So no, EMU’s defense didn’t have a perfect night. But when it opened up Saturday’s match with five series in a row that ended in three-and-outs for the Hornets (-2 combined yards), it certainly seemed like a perfect start to a turnaround season.
If there’s something that this defense showed, whether it was through its stops, through Sac State’s lone 37-yard rush, or through having two coordinators control its defense, it’s that the best chance at demanding a better future for yourself is by making sure you always have somebody by your side.
