Hi, everybody. Imogen Tremblay here, writing from a corner table in Depot Town with a coffee and the quiet confidence of someone who has spent her whole life explaining that Ypsilanti is not a suburb of Ann Arbor. It's not. Ann Arbor is a suburb of us, if you squint, and I always squint.
We had a rough Saturday. But I'll tell you something before we get into it: Eastern Michigan is 3-1 in the MAC. Write that on the gray turf in chalk. Gray turf, bright future.
Part 1: The Factory Had a Slow Shift
Toledo beat Eastern Michigan 34-14 on Saturday at Rynearson Stadium, the place Wikipedia says folks call "The Factory." We're 4-4 overall and 3-1 in the league.
I won't sugarcoat it. Toledo went up 31-7 by halftime. John Alan Richter threw for 288 yards, Autavius Ison ran for 104, and CJ Miller scored twice from short range. AP says Toledo's defense got six sacks and nine tackles for loss and stopped us on downs four times. We ran for 34 yards on 28 carries, and we lost two fumbles. That was a Saturday for the scrapbook's back pages.
But here's what I'll keep in the front pages. Noah Kim threw two touchdown passes. He hit Joshua Long for 30 yards in the second quarter, and he found Harold Mack for a 12-yard score in the third. Long caught seven passes for 84 yards. Benson Prosper caught two for 39. Bryce Llewellyn made 10 tackles, Juan Salas made eight, and Zach Mowchan added seven. Zach leads the team with 58 for the season.
And this is a team that has learned to win. We beat Sacramento State 28-17 in our opener. We won 38-14 at UMass and 25-23 at Akron. We beat Lindenwood 29-3. Kim has 1,678 passing yards and 11 touchdowns, and Quincy Byas has four sacks. We're one loss into conference play, and the season is very much alive. Toledo was a bad shift at The Factory. It wasn't a plant closure.
Why I Love The Factory
Let me tell you about our home, because a road week makes me homesick. Wikipedia says Rynearson's field went artificial in 1991, became FieldTurf in 2005, and got its gray FieldTurf before the 2014 season. Gray! Everybody else has green. We have the color of a Michigan November sky, and we wear it proudly. The biggest crowd in Rynearson history, 26,188, came on Nov. 28, 2008, when Eastern beat Central Michigan 56-52. Fifty-six to fifty-two! That's the kind of afternoon that keeps a fan coming back for decades.
And our name has a history, too. Wikipedia says Eastern's teams were the Normalites from 1899 to 1928, then the Hurons, and then the Eagles starting in 1991. We grew up. We got wings. That's what a bright future looks like.
Part 2: A Road Trip to Athens
Saturday, 4 p.m. Eastern, ESPNU, Eastern Michigan visits Ohio at Peden Stadium.
Let me be gracious first. Ohio is 5-2 and 3-0 in the MAC, and AP says the Bobcats have won four straight. They just beat Sacramento State 48-7. Duncan Brune scored twice on Saturday, Irving Brown ran for 87 on eight carries, and Will Hryszko made a 50-yard field goal. Ohio runs for 207 yards a game, 24th in FBS. And Wikipedia says Ohio won the 2024 MAC championship. That's a real program.
Now let me pull up the Bobcats' stat sheet, from AP's preview, and point out a few things.
Ohio's passing offense ranks 126th in FBS, at 164.3 yards a game. Nick Poulos has thrown for 503 yards all season. Five hundred and three, in seven games. Kim threw for 214 on Saturday alone, in a loss.
And Ohio's defense ranks 106th on third down, letting opponents convert 42.1% of the time. Our offense converts 41.9% of its third downs, 56th in FBS. That's where we win this thing. Keep the chains moving, keep Kim upright, and make Ohio throw it.
Also, I'd like to gently remind Athens about Oct. 3. Ohio beat Kent State 13-10. Kent State, which AP ranks 138th in FBS in scoring at 12.0 points a game. Ohio needed everything it had to get past Kent by three. And South Alabama scored 41 on Ohio in September. This defense can be had.
To be fair to the Bobcats' defense, Michael Molnar leads them with 52 tackles, Ike Ackerman has 4.5 sacks, and Barry Dillon intercepted a pass on Saturday. They allow 22.1 points a game, 57th in FBS. And AP says both of us are among the least penalized teams in FBS: Ohio is 18th in penalty yards and we're 15th. So nobody's going to give this one away with flags. It'll be decided on the field, which is how I like it.
The history isn't in our favor lately, and I won't pretend. CollegeFootballData.com says Ohio has won the last five meetings, including 28-21 in Ypsilanti last year. But the last time we played in Athens before 2024, in 2016, Eastern Michigan won 27-20. We've done it at Peden.
About That Stadium
Wikipedia says Peden Stadium has been home to the Bobcats since 1929 and is the oldest college football venue in the MAC. And here's my go-to Peden fact. It was originally called "Ohio Stadium." Not to be confused, Wikipedia helpfully adds, with Ohio Stadium in Columbus. So Ohio University's stadium was named after Ohio State's stadium. Even the building wanted to be somewhere else.
Tales From Two Towns
Ypsilanti. Ypsi, as we call it, is a city of 20,648 on the Huron River. Wikipedia says it's named for Demetrios Ypsilantis, a hero of the Greek War of Independence, and his bust stands at the base of our Ypsilanti Water Tower, built in 1890 on the highest point in town and 147 feet tall. Eastern Michigan was founded here in 1849 as Michigan's first normal school, a teachers' college. We have historic Depot Town, the old Detroit–Chicago Road, and Ford Lake. And during World War II, Ford's Willow Run Bomber Plant, which Wikipedia says the city is closely associated with, built more than 8,500 B-24 Liberator bombers. Ypsilanti doesn't just make teachers. It made the arsenal of democracy.
Athens. Athens, Ohio, is a pretty town of 23,849 on the Hocking River in Appalachian Ohio. But Wikipedia says it's known as the "World Capital of Halloween," and Athens has been cited as one of the 10 most haunted cities in America. It throws a Halloween Block Party that Wikipedia calls an international spectacle. I'm sure the Bobcats are very brave. But we're coming down the weekend before Halloween, and I'm not saying their defense is a ghost story, but third downs keep disappearing on them.
And notice the names. We named our town after a Greek hero. They named their town after a Greek city. Then they named their school Ohio and their stadium Ohio Stadium. Somebody in Athens really needed a thesaurus.
Imogen's Notes From the Corner Table
1. Protect Kim. Six sacks is too many. 2. Run the ball enough to keep Ohio honest. Thirty-four yards won't do it. 3. Make Ohio throw. 503 passing yards in seven games is a gift.
Gray turf, bright future.
My call: Ohio Bobcats 31, Eastern Michigan Eagles 19.