Michigan State vs. Eastern Michigan Game Preview

After an . . . interesting opening game win against Toledo, Michigan State (1-0) now prepares for a second week of MACtion against the Eastern Michigan Eagles (1-1, 1-0 MAC). But, before moving on to Eastern, make you check out Robbie’s Toledo recap, Steve’s weather report, and Darin’s film breakdown.

Kickoff against the EMU Eagles is in Spartan Stadium is at 3:30 PM EST and the game will be televised on the Big Ten Network. Now, let’s take a closer look at MSU’s week two opponent.

Eastern Michigan Overview

The Eagles are coming off a disappointing 4-8 year in 2025, including 3-5 in the MAC. The outlook for this year might be a bit better though. ESPN gave EMU the fourth-best odds to win the MAC championship, behind Miami (OH), Western Michigan, and Toledo.

Las Vegas, however, might not have the Eagles flying quite as high. Vegas Insider gives EMU a 5.5 win total and a composite of various outlets has Eastern finishing sixth in the 13 team MAC.

Like many teams now, Eastern has experienced a lot of roster turnover from 2025 to 2026. Approximately 25 players left via the transfer portal while roughly 40 new additions join as FBS or JUCO transfers or as high school recruits.

Having played a week zero game, Eastern Michigan is off to a 1-1 start this year. The Eagles scored a 28-17 win against first year MAC member (and first year NCAA Division I competitor) Sacramento State in their opener before falling 27-21 to San Jose State in week one. Both of these games were at EMU’s Rynearson Stadium so the trip to East Lansing will be Eastern’s first road test.

The Spartans will be the first of two Big Ten opponents the Eagles will face this year. After visiting Spartan Stadium, Eastern heads to Madison, WI to face the Badgers in week 3 before facing MAC opponents the rest of the way.

Eastern Michigan Coaching

Chris Creighton is in his 13th year as head coach at Eastern. His key tenets, according to his bio page, are toughness, pride, and resilience. Creighton has worked his way up through the coaching ranks and has compiled a 201-130 (.607) record as a head coach.

Creighton landed his first head coaching job at NAIA Ottawa College in the Kansas Athletic Conference. After going 32-9 in four years at Ottawa, Creighton moved up Division III Wabash College. From 2001-2007 at Wabash, Creighton went 63-15 and had two D-III playoff quarterfinal appearances. Creighton’s final stop before Eastern was at FCS program Drake University, where he went 44-22 from 2008-2013.

Creighton hasn’t experienced quite the same level of success so far at Eastern compared to his previous stops. He’s 62-84 overall in Ypsilanti and 37-58 in the MAC. The high water mark at EMU was the 2022 season where Eastern went 9-4 overall, 5-3 in conference, which was good for a share of the MAC West Division title, and won the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl.

The 2022 campaign was just the Eagle’s third winning season under Creighton, with the Eastern having gone 7-6 in 2016 and 2021. It’s also been a gradual decline since ‘22 though, with EMU going 6-7 with a 68 Ventures Bowl loss in 2023. A 5-7 season followed in 2024 before last year’s 4-8 record.

This year, Kasey Teegardin and Tate Omli serve as EMU’s co-defensive coordinators. Teegardin spent ten years on staff at Indiana and is in his third season with Eastern. Omli is in his fourth year in Ypsilanti after previously working as the DC at Hutchinson Community College in Kansas.

On the other side of the ball Mike Piatkowski is in his seventh year as Eastern’s offensive coordinator. EMU’s offense ranked third in the MAC with 377 yards per game in 2025 while former Spartan quarterback Noah Kim led the league with 235 passing yards per game.

Eastern Michigan Offense

After a statistically successful 2025 season, Kim is back to lead the Eagles offense again this year. Spartan fans will remember Kim from 2022 and 2023. He was named MSU’s starter for the 2023 season but finished the year on the bench. MSU looked primarily to Katin Houser and Sam Leavitt to finish out a miserable 4-8 season that saw head coach Mel Tucker suspended after game two and ultimately fired. Kim completed 57% of his passes that year, with six touchdowns and 6 interceptions while getting banged up along the way, leading to Houser assuming the starting role midway through the season.

After losing the starting job at MSU, Kim transferred to Coastal Carolina for 2024 but didn’t win the Chanticleer’s QB1 battle. So, it was on to EMU for 2025, where he seems to have found his footing.

Through two games this year, Kim (6-2, 185, GR) has completed 51 of 81 passes (63%) for 453 yards, three touchdowns, and one interception. The opener, against Sacramento State, was the better of Kim’s two games so far this year. He went 27-38 for 279 yards, two TDs, and no picks in Eastern’s win. Unfortunately, for Eastern, Kim struggled a bit in the game two loss to San Jose State, going 24-43 for just 174 yards, one TD, and an interception.

The INT came on a fourth and three with two minutes left in the game and ended EMU’s chances for a comeback victory:

Kim has looked to tight end Joshua Long (6-5, 242, JR) the most this year. Long leads the team in receptions with 11 for 78 yards. Wide receivers Nick Devereaux and Harold Mack each have nine catches so far, for 97 and 86 yards respectively.

Amaereon Blue is Eastern’s leading rusher with 136 yards on 23 carries – good for 5.9 yards per carry. However, 50 of these yards came on one play. As a team, EMU is only averaging 3.2 yards per carry and this drops to just 2.3 yards without the Blue’s 50 yarder.

Eastern hasn’t been particularly balanced on offense so far in 2026, with 55 running plays, including nine attempts from Kim for minus-3 yards, and 81 throws. The run game struggles probably put a lot of pressure on Kim to make plays through the air and, despite a lack of success so far on the ground, Eastern’s offensive line has protected Kim fairly well so far in giving up just two sacks through two games.

Eastern Michigan Defense

It looks like Eastern has primarily played a 4-2-5 defense in their first two games but this was against a couple of pass-happy teams. Sacramento State threw 46 times against the Eagles with just 17 runs while San Jose State threw 41 passes compared to 36 runs.

Eastern’s defense held up pretty well in both games. Opposing quarterbacks have completed just 55% of their passes for an average of only 6.1 yards per attempt against the Eagle’s D. On the ground, opposing rushers have averaged just 3.5 yards per carry against Eastern through two games. This is a big improvement from 2025 where EMU ranked near the bottom of the FBS in rushing defense. A major part of Eastern’s roster overhaul included eight new front-six (defensive line and linebackers in Eastern’s 4-2-5 alignment) players to improve the team’s run-stopping ability.

Senior linebacker Zach Mowchan (6-2, 224) leads Eastern with 25 total tackles. Junior defensive back Caleb Dobbs (6-2, 162) has defended five passes and recorded one interception on the young season.

Eastern Michigan Special Teams

Kicker Rudy Kessinger has made all seven of his extra point attempts but has missed his only field goal try of the year. Eastern has had to punt 16 times through their first two games and they average 39.6 yards per punt.

What to Watch For & What to Expect

There is probably still rampant disagreement on this, but there were some positives to take away from MSU’s opener. The Spartans possessed the ball for 43 minutes and scored on their first five drives (yes, four of them were field goals). There were only four penalties for 43 yards and they weren’t for silly things like illegal formations, movement, or late hits. MSU faced adversity in the third quarter, fell behind, and responded favorably – something coach Pat Fitzgerald has made a major point of emphasis. Kicker Liam Boyd was amazing. Alessio Milivojevic and MSU’s receivers made some plays. Toledo did most of their damage on two big plays, where there were correctable busts by the MSU defense, and one impressive six-play drive.

And it didn’t take a last-second (added) Hail Mary to beat a very good MAC team.

There were also some negatives. The Spartans struggled when injuries hit at least three key players (Jordan Hall, Ben Murawski, and Cam Edwards – all of whom returned to the game at some point after going out). This has been a theme for what seems like years now. Every team preaches “next man up” but the the players mentioned above are just a few that MSU absolutely can’t afford to lose this year.

Of course the Spartans need to be better offensively in the red zone and score more touchdowns than field goals. Obviously we’d like to see MSU prevent big plays against Eastern Michigan, score more than two touchdowns, and emerge as healthy as possible after game two.

This should be the only game on the schedule this year (well, maybe except for Rutgers, but that’s a long ways off) where the Spartan fans can hopefully feel pretty comfortable for a whole game. I don’t think MSU will completely run away with it but it would be nice to see a backup quarterback, for example, at least towards the end of the fourth quarter.

I also don’t think the Spartans will get caught looking ahead to a massive week three challenge at Notre Dame. I think they will be motivated to fix the game one mistakes and the coaches will be able to keep focus on the task at hand. It will still be far from perfect, but hopefully fans in attendance can enjoy a nice afternoon in Spartan Stadium and a convincing win for Michigan State.

What do you think, TOC? What have I missed? What do you want to see from the Spartans and what’s going to happen against the Eagles?