Eastern Michigan loses season opener to Army, 27-14

Army running back Patrick Mealy barely touched the ball against Eastern Michigan Saturday night, only having his number called five times throughout the game; just once in the second half.

He made the most of it, rushing for 109 yards and a touchdown, leading the Black Knights to a 27-14 win at Rynearson Stadium in what was a battle of first-year head coaches as Army’s Rich Ellerson, who coached at Cal Poly from 2001-2008, won his FBS debut at the expense of coach Ron English’s first game at Eastern.

English has put up signs and billboards around Rynearson stadium and campus that read “Embrace the Process”. Saturday, part of the process was only managing 223 yards of total offense and being penalized nine times for 60 yards.

The Eagles had more penalties (6) than first downs (4) in a mistake plagued first half, and failed to enter Army territory after managing just 54 yards of total offense.

“You can’t expect to win if you get that many penalties, and you can’t expect to win if you get no points from the five, and if you turn it over inside the ten. It’s hard to win that way,” said English.

After trailing 13-0 at the half, Eastern’s defense held Army to a three and out to start the third quarter. On the ensuing drive, the Eagles had a first and goal at the 10 yard line, but three straight runs to Dwayne Priest brought up fourth and five and a Joe Carithers 21-yard field goal attempt sailed wide right.

“I am not going to second guess what we did there,” said English.

Andy Schmitt lobbed a floater for Trey Hunter for a 20-yard touchdown pass to put the Eagles on the board at 13:58 in the fourth quarter, but Army answered with an eight-play 52 yard drive to go up 21-7. Schmitt was 18-of-31 passing with a touchdown and an interception.

“It was a hard fought game. We did some really good things, we also did some things that we won’t get away with again,” said Ellerson. Ellerson’s triple option offense produced 300 rushing yards and just eight passing.

“We’re going to be more balanced than that. I’m much more concerned about the score and where the opportunities lied,” he said. “We had a couple opportunities in the pass game that we squandered.”

Eastern (0-1) will travel to Northwestern next week, and will play at the University of Michigan the following Saturday. (Box Score and player stats) Pete Cunningham covers sports for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at petercunningham@annarbor.com, or by phone at 734-623-2561 and follow along on Twitter @petcunningham.