Eastern Michigan Football 2013 Spring Wrap Up

Spring Takeaways

The biggest takeaway for EMU spring football is probably that spring football is not really a spectator sport.

As always, head coach Ron English likes to play things close to the vest, and this spring was no exception. The “spring” “game” was moved into EMU’s indoor practice facility due to inclement weather (although the weather was apparently good enough for the baseball team to play right next door) and, unsurprisingly, the first-string offense scored more against the second-string defense than the second-string offense did against the first-string defense.

Yeah, I should hope so. The third- and fourth-string teams also played, but no score was kept for that part of the…er, event. Also worth noting, according to Ron English, the team didn’t really show any of what they’d worked on in spring practice. All of which raises the question, why even bother with this farce?

Early in English’s time at EMU, fans got excited based on what they saw in the spring. Then the team reeled off an 18-game losing streak. Today, when the offense looks good in a scrimmage, the first thought in an EMU fan’s mind is, “Gosh, the defense must be terrible”, and based on recent history, that fan would probably be right.

EMU QB Tyler Benz

So, sure, quarterback Tyler Benz was efficient against EMU’s pass defense, but so was every opposing quarterback last year. The defense didn’t give up much in the way of big plays, but EMU’s offense under English has not been particularly explosive.

Special teams were bad, but that happens when you graduate both long snappers (Mike Zupancic and Matt Bowman) and your only punter (Jay Karutz). The Eagles do have one of the top long snappers of the class of 2013 coming this fall (Chris O’Risky), as well as a respectable punter (Austin Barnes), so that’s probably not quite as bad as it looked.

Rumor has it that Stan Parrish is installing some form of spread offense, but the team showed very little of it, which makes it awfully hard to evaluate the offense.

The bottom line is that I saw nothing this spring to make me change my assessment. This team should be capable of managing a barely winning record, but I have no faith in Ron English’s ability to get them there. I hope they prove me right and he proves me wrong.

Carter Adler of Eagle Totem provided the information for our Eastern Michigan Football 2013 Spring Wrap Up. For more EMU football information, commentary and analysis, you can follow Carter on Twitter @eagletotemblog.