GAME RECAP: Long Island Chomps Down on Eastern Michigan, 28-23
There’s always the classic thought whenever you see any FCS team take down an FBS team. Did the FCS team sneak out with a win? Did they keep it close and get it to the 4th quarter where anything can happen? That’s always the way these games go, right?
Not a chance. LIU trailed for 0:00 of this football game. It’s probably something of a gift that Eastern Michigan made it look as close as they did. If the Sharks and the Eagles were still playing at the factory today- whatever day it is that you read this- Long Island would still be winning this football game.
There weren’t answers for Ethan Greenwood. And if there aren’t answers against MAC teams, you really have to start to wonder if there’s going to be answers for the talented signal caller in Northeast Conference play.
The first drive of the game read like the Sharks were playing a team that simply hadn’t done their homework, hadn’t prepared, or hadn’t taken the buildup to this one seriously. We saw Ethan Greenwood make defenses look silly throughout the second half of last year, but his 65 yard rushing touchdown (after previously converting a 3rd down with his legs) to break open the game looked like the team hadn’t realized just how hard Greenwood is to defend if you’re not able to match him athletically and schematically. You can’t go into a game against the Sharks playing vanilla defense- it really doesn’t matter who you are. Coach Creighton is one of the most respected head coaches and program builders in the nation, though, so I find it hard to buy that it’s any sort of coaching oversight- whatever you may hear from EMU fans in the aftermath of this one.
More than anything else, I think it’s just awfully hard to get a guy like Greenwood on the scout team. And when so much of what he does appears unscripted, well, how do you script it? Maybe there’s just no way to adequately prepare for what he brings.
Nor can you really figure out how to defend when Luca Stanzani- that is, the other Sharks quarterback- is catching the ball for 74 yards, making up the bulk of Greenwood’s passing total on the day (105 yards on 3 completions). Stanzani rushed for 2 TDs in addition to the 2 Greenwood TDs, with the latter rushing for an almost pedestrian 91 yards.
Stanzani added on 67 rushing yards, was 12 of 18 through the air, and threw for 143.
No truth to the rumors that they’re still trying to figure out who to make player of the week between two quarterbacks on the same team over at the NEC’s offices. Right?
Rafael Fasolino, whom we were very excited for heading into the season, came up clutch when needed as well- the Sharks did play defense in this game, too. On a 4th and 1 deep in their own territory, EMU chose to go for it and Fasolino stopped the ballcarrier at the line of scrimmage. Stanzani ran it in on the next play to make it a two score game.
One more absolutely mind-boggling stat here. The Sharks gave up a score on the next drive, but following that were able to put together a slow, methodical drive that took 16 plays to go 75 yards to drain 9:44 off the game clock. The NEC team bullied the Eagles, pushing them off the block again and again to gain the advantage back to two scores. While the Eagles scored again- like I told you, the game wasn’t as close as the score indicated- there wasn’t enough time and the Sharks came out of Ypsilanti with a win.
Coach Cooper is pretty close to objectively a top 3 coach all-time at Eastern Michigan (he was the HC there in the early 90s before taking the Louisville job), and so there’s no revenge game aspect here. Coach was as successful as anyone had been in Ypsilanti up to that time and moved on; certainly there were no hard feelings here. But Long Island played as though they fired him on the tarmac.
Craig D’Amico and I had this conversation before the season- there’s no longer a feeling of NEC teams being non-competitive outside of conference play anymore. You expect the NEC to compete with the Youngstown States and EMUs of the world now. But going into The Factory and coming out with a win? Well, get ready for your new reality. But there’s no resting on laurels in New York City.
After the game, Coach Cooper said "We played an FBS program on the road and I feel good about our effort. We played hard, we played together, and we fought through adversity. We need to enjoy this win right now and then move forward to next week."
This was the 3rd all time NEC over FBS win and the 2nd in just two seasons.
Enjoy the win. LIU opens up at home with Sacred Heart this Saturday. We’ll be watching, and hopefully poll voters do the same.
