With a season filled with high expectations, Eastern football delivered in the first game of the season, beating the Dayton Flyers 24-14 Thursday night at O’Brien Field.
Eastern (1-0) trailed 7-3 at halftime, and outscored Dayton (0-1) 21-7 in the second half.
Here are four takeaways from the game.
- The Panthers dominated in the run game.
Redshirt sophomore quarterback Cole LaCrue rushed for 193 yards on 26 attempts for an average of 7.4 yards a carry and 3 rushing touchdowns. He broke the program record for rushing yards in a game by a quarterback in his full college football debut.
“He runs up and down the field on us. We believe in him anytime he takes the ball into his own hands,” Redshirt sophomore defensive back Christopher Sharp said.
Redshirt junior running back Charles Kellom ran for 133 yards on 30 attempts. Kellom transferred into Eastern this spring from the University of Akron where he rushed for 352 yards last season.
The offensive line showed huge improvement from last season, allowing the Panthers to rush for a total of 336 yards.
“Our offensive line and our ability to move the line of scrimmage especially in the second half and the fourth quarter. If you want to have the chance to compete for a championship you have to be good up front,” head coach Chris Wilkerson said.
- Defense stopped the run
Coming into the game, Wilkerson emphasized how important it was to stop Dayton’s running game.
Dayton had six yards of rushing going into halftime and finished with 31 yards on 19 attempts.
The Panthers recorded seven tackles for a loss. Graduate defensive end Drake Van Hyfte and senior linebacker Tylan Foster had two tackles each. Junior defensive end Samuel Robles and redshirt junior defensive tackle James Collins finished with one.
“We’ve been preparing for this all week, coach yelling at us, ‘Hey, we got to stop the run, we got to be the more physical team,’ and I think that’s what we wanted to come out here and do and we came out and executed,” Sharp said.
- Passing game showed up in the second half
Eastern struggled to move the ball through the air in the first half with LaCrue completing two of his first nine passes for seven yards and the offense went 2-9 on third down conversions.
The passing game showed up in the second half, however, gaining 122 yards with a chunk of them coming with a 47 yard pass from LaCrue to Graduate receiver DeAirious Smith that set up the Panthers at Dayton’s one yard line allowing LaCrue to sneak it in for his second touchdown of the game.
Despite the struggles early on, Wilkerson remains confident in LaCrue.
“Cole [LaCrue] is a capable passer,” Wilkerson said. “He can make every throw in the playbook we’ve just got to get more repetition and he’s gonna get more comfortable with the cast of characters that’s gonna be around him.”
- Eastern remained strong despite allowing big plays
The Panthers defense allowed 156 passing yards in the first half, with 48 of them on a touchdown pass from Dayton’s redshirt sophomore quarterback Bryce Schondelmyer to junior receiver Gavin Lochow.
Besides that big play, Eastern’s secondary didn’t allow any other big plays in the first half with
three other Dayton receivers being held to 35 combined yards.
“We had a couple of explosive plays, couldn’t get off the field on third down, very correctable things,” Wilkerson said.
The Panthers’ secondary was solid in the third quarter as well, only allowing 10 yards. But another big play happened in the fourth when Schondelmyer completed a 67-yard touchdown pass to redshirt sophomore receiver Michael Mussari that brought Dayton to within three points of Eastern, trailing 17-14.
“We started off slow, we gave up some stuff but our guys worked really hard we were stopping it at first, we gave up a couple but stuff happens, we got some amazing DB’s [defensive backs] and everybody just fly around,” Sharp said.
The Panthers will travel to Terre Haute, Indiana to play Indiana State next Saturday.
Kickoff is set for noon.
Cameron Thomas can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected].
