Fantastic, Functional, Forgettable: Chris Creighton nabs win No. 200, WMU controls fate, MSU loses again

It was a busy stretch of football the last week, starting with some MACtion and followed up with a trio of Saturday games as four teams from the Mitten won.

Western Michigan is leading the MAC and in the driver’s seat to make the conference title game after beating Ohio, 17-13, on Tuesday. Central Michigan’s defense beat up on Buffalo in a 38-19 win as the Chippewas are in the MAC title hunt after that Wednesday win. 

And on Saturday, Michigan survived a near total meltdown and five turnovers to win, 24-22, against Northwestern as Eastern Michigan went to Ball State and hammered the Cardinals, 24-9, in a meaningful win for head coach Chris Creighton. 

Capping the week, Michigan State hosted Penn State and hung around until eventually giving way for a pair of late touchdowns in a 28-10 loss. 

Let’s dig in to all the week held. 

Fantastic

Chris Creighton, Eastern Michigan post bye: Tip of the cap to the head ball coach in Ypsilanti, who earned career win No. 200 as a head coach on Saturday as the Eagles went to Ball State and won in comprehensive fashion, 24-9, on Saturday. Creighton has emphatically repeated that Eastern Michigan plans to play its best football in November, and that’s happening, as the Eagles are 2-0 this month. 

It will ultimately likely be remembered as a disappointing season — had EMU showed this form earlier, a bowl berth wouldn’t have been out of the question — but Creighton and Co. never faltered and the results have started to follow. And after spoiling Bowling Green’s bowl hopes and eliminating Ball State from MAC title contention, the Eagles can end the season with a win over Western Michigan to really shake up the MAC race. 

A whole mess of receivers: Central Michigan’s Langston Lewis, Eastern Michigan’s Jamarien Wheeler, Michigan’s Andrew Marsh, and Western Michigan’s Tailique Williams all came through with big-time production for their respective squads in wins. Starting with Marsh, the Wolverine set the Michigan freshman records for receptions and receiving yards with 12 for 189 as Michigan scraped past Northwestern. Marsh did have a fumble on a rush attempt, though. 

Lewis came up with another long touchdown catch and run for the Chippewas, and went over 100 yards and scored a touchdown in back-to-back games. Wheeler put together six catches for 131 yards and a touchdown — he entered Saturday with 109 career receiving yards. And Williams only had one catch, but it went for an improbable 71 yards and set up one of Western Michigan’s two rushing touchdowns in a key MAC win over Ohio. Some great receiving performances across the board. 

Jordan Marshall: Marshall, prior to getting injured late in the game, looked good once more for Michigan. The sophomore tailback carried 19 times for 142 yards and two touchdowns, and helped Michigan be the better team than Northwestern on a down-to-down basis. Moreover, Marshall looked more explosive than he perhaps any other time in his Michigan career. His long run of 65 yards stands out, even if he doesn’t quite have the breakaway gear. 

Justice Haynes had been on a meteoric pace prior to an injury derailing the latter part of this season, and Marshall managed to be as effective, albeit it in a different way. If he and Haynes can’t play against Maryland, though, the Wolverines start to get awfully thin at running back. 

Central Michigan’s defense: Defensive coordinator Sean Cronin deserves a lot of credit for the way the Central Michigan defense has played this season. And it helps that he’s cooking with good ingredients, as the defense is chock full of upperclassmen who carried the day as the Chippewas forced five turnovers on Buffalo in a win and could’ve taken it away, realistically, seven times.

Cronin has been unafraid to get exotic and mix and match looks to make life difficult if not impossible for opposing offenses at times. And it’s a style that plays into the fact that Central Michigan has lots of veteran defenders, like senior defensive lineman Michael Heldman and senior linebackers Dakota Cochran and Jordan Kwiatkowski. The latter two scored defensive touchdowns for CMU on Wednesday, too, as Heldman continued a level of play that will get him looks from NFL teams. 

Western Michigan’s defense: Defensive coordinator Chris O’Leary should be getting some Broyles Award attention. Full stop. The first year defensive coordinator has marshaled a unit that terrorizes opposing pass protection and clogs up the run game. The Broncos are No. 12 in the nation in total defense, No. 17 in scoring defense and No. 10 in team sacks. Edge rusher Nadame Tucker, who transferred in from Houston, is a real weapon and should be a MAC defensive player of the year candidate as he’s tied for the national lead in tackles for loss with 16, and tied for third nationally with 10.5 sacks. 

And that defense held Ohio to 13 points and quarterback Parker Navarro under 100 yards passing in a win on Tuesday. Navarro did some damage with his legs, but the Broncos got that under wraps late with the game on the line. And with the secondary, by head coach Lance Taylor’s estimation, play its best ball of the year against the Bobcats, the Western Michigan defense is rounding into championship form.

Functional

CMU QB Joe Labas: The Central Michigan quarterback threw a pair of interceptions, one on him and the other some bad luck as his receiver stumbled out of a break, but he was otherwise sterling, again, through the air for the Chippewas. And Labas has been accurate as a passer, perfectly layering in a throw to Lewis for the long touchdown and firing some darts down the middle to receivers on deep crossers. 

Labas finished 18-of-24 for 247 yards and two touchdowns, showing up as fellow quarterback Angel Flores missed another game due to injury and the game script necessarily changed to some more dropbacks for the senior. It continues a season of high-efficiency passing for Labas, who is completing 72.2% of his passes (96-of-133) for 1313 yards, 10 touchdowns and four interceptions. 

EMU RBs Dontae McMillan, Tavierre Dunlap: Dunlap and McMillan combined for 131 yards and a touchdown on 29 carries to power the Eagles run game in a win. McMillan was the high-volume runner, taking 21 carries for 80 yards, though he did not find the end zone. Dunlap carried eight times for 51 yards, and scored a touchdown on a 36-yard scamper. 

The running back duo provided much of what the Eagles likely hoped for when Dunlap transferred in from Michigan and McMillan returned after a broken leg last year. And the ability to turn and hand it off to a 1-2 punch provided balance to an offense that’s now fueled two-straight wins. 

Michigan State’s rush defense: The Spartans made Penn State work and work and work for it all afternoon and evening in a loss on Saturday. The problem is that Penn State ultimately has some better players than Michigan State, particularly at running back and the line of scrimmage. And that talent won out eventually as Penn State ground down the game with a long scoring drive in the fourth quarter, almost entirely on the ground. 

Michigan State didn’t allow a rush longer than 14 yards until Penn State’s final scoring drive, up two scores with less than three minutes to play. And while the end stats aren’t flattering — Kayton Allen finished with 25 carries for 181 yards and two touchdowns — Michigan State’s run defense really gave the Spartans a chance to win for much of the game against the Nittany Lions. 

Michigan’s defense: Michigan’s defense didn’t play poorly, really, against Northwestern. And down-to-down the Wolverines were largely shutting down the Wildcats to the tune of 61 net rushing yards and 184 passing yards for Preston Stone on 13-for-27. And the defense got put in some tough spots as the offense and special teams turned it over five times. 

But Michigan didn’t really manage to alter the game on defense other than getting stops — no sacks, two tackles for loss, no takeaways. Just minimal gains allowed and holding Northwestern to 2-of-12 on third downs. Pair that with giving up a rash of explosive passing plays, and what was a generally dominant defensive performance gets clouded amidst a game Michigan was probably lucky to win.

WMU’s offense: Western Michigan could be in a very different position were it not for Williams’ heroic long catch and run against Ohio. But as it has often this season, the Broncos offense found a way. And as has been the case since he became the full-time starter, Broc Lowry led the way, carrying 18 times for 92 yards and a touchdowns along with a 9-of-14 for 126 yards passing line. 

Running back Jalen Buckley added 82 yards and a touchdown on 14 carries to round out the ground game. The Broncos didn’t do much through the air outside of Williams’ big play, but Lowry was on time and on target when called upon to convert with his arm. With the defense playing at the level it’s been playing, the Broncos have an offensive formula to play complementary football and strangle games. 

Forgettable

UM’s turnovers: Michigan turned the ball over five times and somehow won, and without the defense or special teams creating a takeaway. It’s safe to say Michigan got away with one Saturday at Wrigley field, as Marsh, Semaj Morgan and Bryson Kuzdzal all fumbled. Bryce Underwood contributed a bit on the Kuzdzal fumble, as they bungled an exchange on 4th and short. 

And Underwood, after starting to see the matrix passing in the first half, threw a pair of interceptions in the second half, including one where he failed to identify the safety coming into a window on what appeared to be an RPO read. Either way, the turnover issues were a group project, and one that nearly sunk the Wolverines on Saturday.

UM’s attention to detail: Michigan failed to put away a Purdue team last week that is among the worst in the Big Ten. It followed that up by blowing a 21-9 lead over the Wildcats and nearly losing, were it not for some late game rushing success and Dominic Zvada playing hero with a walk off field goal. 

It’s not surprising that a young team would be mistake prone or have spells of sloppy play, but it keeps creeping up on the Wolverines. And on top of the mistakes, the subtler details that help teams put away games seem to need more attention, from play calling to execution. Michigan’s talent edge showed up again, but better competition awaits, and the hope would be for this team to show improvement on these things later in the season. 

MSU’s coverage bust, pass rush: Michigan State only gave up 127 yards, but gave up 76-yard touchdown on a coverage bust as Malik Spencer and Armorion Smith failed to pass off a post and couldn’t do much to make Ethan Grunkemeyer, a quarterback making his fourth college start, uncomfortable. He finished 8-of-13 and added a second touchdown pass on a jet pass to cap off Penn State’s long, game-killing drive in the fourth quarter. 

The Spartans managed to sack Grunkemeyer twice, but didn’t do much at all to cause disruption consistently with the pass rush, and the young Nittany Lion quarterback calmly took his time dropping back and occasionally escaping the pocket to scramble. Penn State’s passing offense hasn’t been much since Drew Allar got hurt, but managed to burn MSU on Saturday. 

UM as a serious College Football Playoff threat: Michigan has a path to be an at-large consideration, beating Maryland and Ohio State to end the year 10-2. But the best win for Michigan would be Ohio State and then probably Washington. After that it’d be… Maryland? At Nebraska? Basically, the losses won’t ding Michigan, presuming Oklahoma and USC don’t crumble late, but the wins outside of the Buckeyes don’t do much. 

Ultimately, Michigan just doesn’t pass muster right now when one watches this team play. The potential is evident, from the quarterback to Marsh and the tailbacks, though Marshall and Haynes are both now hurt to varying degrees. Some young defenders have shown promise, too. But for reasons mentioned above, and based on how the Wolverines have struggled to play convincingly for long stretches, this just doesn’t feel like a team that has the juice to do much in the CFP. 

MSU’s bowl chances, the 2025 season: This season can still have value to the Spartans, for developmental reasons and the like, but with seven losses in a row and at 3-7, Michigan State won’t be going to a bowl game and many would probably like to mercifully let this season fade into the crescendo of basketball season. 

MSU’s bowl chances have fizzled out as it’s become evident that this team doesn’t have the health and depth of talent to succeed in the Big Ten of late, though it’s impossible to deny this team is still coming out and playing hard. It just might not matter if it never translates into winning football at the end of the day. And the most pertinent questions in the coming weeks revolve around keeping young talent from hitting the transfer portal.