The University of Toledo Rockets head to Ypsilanti to take on the Eagles of Eastern Michigan University in the conference opener for both teams this Saturday. Toledo is coming off a season opening loss to the University of Arizona of the Pac 10, while Eastern is coming off a 2nd game loss to Michigan State of the Big 10. Eastern stands at 1-1 on the season after opening their 2008 campaign with a blow-out win over Indiana State.
Toledo’s opening loss to Arizona didn’t surprise many people, but their inability to put the ball in the endzone on a couple of 1st and goal situations was uncharacteristic and costly. Defensively, the Rockets started off showing promise. Sean Williamson blasted through the line and sacked Arizona quarterback Willie Tuitama on Arizona’s first play from scrimmage.
As Williamson said though “it’s too bad it didn’t hang on for too long. But it was a good start. Their game plan kind of took us out of it; they switched it up and went to the quick drop and that hurt us. Not much time to get pressure, but we were trying. They’re a good team with a lot of seniors. They’re good competition, and it’s always good to go up against good competition. It lets you gauge where you’re at, and I think we took a lot of positives away from that game. The whole defense played as a group, had a lot of hustle, so there’s a lot to build off. Everybody’s attitude was right and they played to the end, and that’s what matters.”
Regarding Eastern, Williamson said “Number 3 is pretty solid, and their quarterback looks smooth back there, he can run, so we’ll have to play assignment football. We’ll get our mistakes corrected from the first game and I think we’ll be alright.”
Eastern sports a running back, Terrence Blevins, who is averaging 115 ypg on 30 carries for a 7.7 ypc average. The Eagles’ next leading rusher is QB Andy Schmidt who has carried 14 times for 92 yards, a 5.6 ypc average.
Schmidt is also a threat throwing the ball, having completed 60.5% of his passes for a 135.5 ypg average. Schmidt’s number of attempts to date indicate that Eastern is a run-first team, but his efficiency and ability to make plays with his feet make for a challenge to the Rocket defense.
Barry Church says “their running back and their quarterback are very experienced, they also have some really fast receivers, so we’re going to have to focus on them a lot. They look like a pretty solid team.” Regarding Schmidt, Church says “he’s a real good quarterback. We played against him in the 2nd half last year and he played real well, so we’re going to have to keep an eye on him as well.” Barry thinks the Rocket secondary is meshing really well, and sees a lot of improvement in the defensive line over last year, which, “hopefully, they’ll keep improving over this season.”
Stephen Williams says while he “left some plays out there” Saturday night, he hopes to make “bigger plays against Eastern Michigan. We’ve just got to come out against every team with our best effort. We have to treat this as a championship game; we’re trying to get to the MAC championship and a bowl game, so we’ve got to start now with Eastern Michigan.”
Talking about this past Saturday’s game, Williams said “I kinda left a couple of plays out there. There were a few times we put the defense in a bad position, but the offensive line is coming together and doing a pretty good job. We just want to come out against Eastern and jump on them fast and the defense will have our backs.”
Coach Tom Amstutz thought Arizona was a very good team, saying "they probably had as many skilled players as we’ve seen in a long time. Their receivers, I thought their tailback was just outstanding, an outstanding football player, very quick, a lot of good moves, and was a special player. Their quarterback did a great job of getting the ball out and delivering it quick.”
Asked about the shuffling of the 2-deep roster on Monday morning, Amstutz said “we had 26 different players on defense make tackles, so we had a lot of players. We’re going to have a lot of depth. We want to have the best players on the field and let ‘em play.”
As for the changes on the Oline, Amstutz said “we’re still looking at that”, so nothing is finalized yet.
Tom is happy with the improvement so far on the defensive line, but of course he’s always looking for more. Talking about Sean Williamson’s opening play sack against Arizona, Tom said he was just happy to see him make that play. “He’s coming off that surgery, and all the work he’s put in, to come out there and make a sack, I was really excited for him. All the toughness and work he had to go through to make it back to the field, it just really made me happy for him.”
Talking about the upcoming game against Eastern, Amstutz said we’ll have to do a good job against the run, as Eastern’s “quarterback is a solid runner, they’ve got a back who had a 40 yard run against Michigan State.”
The defense definitely has it’s work cut out for them.
Naturally, the Rockets hope to have a large following drive the 45 minutes up to Ypsi to cheer them on in this conference opener.
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