Tate Omli, Kasey Teegardin reshaping EMU defense with a simple abbreviation
The Eagles went in house and promoted two assistants to co-DCs, and are liking the results through the spring.
Ypsilanti — Tate Omli and Kasey Teegardin are trying their best to be two men speaking with one voice.
Such is the challenge for the new co-defensive coordinators for Eastern Michigan, as they marshal a defense through spring practice and install their scheme. They need to coach in tandem, and not contradict each other. If a player has a question about a play or technique, he needs to get similar if not the same answers from both the coaches about it, lest confusion swell.
So far, the reviews are good.
“It's all one common line of communication,” defensive back Bryce Llewllyn said. “So one thing Coach T tells me is probably the same thing coming from coach — not even probably, it will be the same thing from Coach Omli.”
Omli and Teegardin are taking over the Eastern Michigan defense with big improvements needing to come after a disastrous 2025 campaign on that side of the ball. With Teegardin coming from a background more familiar with the front seven and Omli coming from the back end, their skillsets have blended nicely and fellow coaches and players attest to their seamless working dynamic. And at the core of what Omli and Teegardin want to do is instill a new philosophy with a simple abbreviation: T.T.E.
“When we say T.T.E. it’s takeaways, tackling, and effort,” Omli said.
Omli and Teegardin — both on staff at EMU in 2025 — took on the defensive coordinator role over the winter, when head coach Chris Creighton told the two that, if they could make it work, he wanted to make them co-coordinators on defense. They had six days to figure it out and report back.
And when they got together and each wrote on the whiteboard their handful of basic concepts or schemes they’d want to deploy, they found out they were in close alignment. It also helps, Omli said, that the two have gotten along as good friends for a number of years now.
“So from that point on, it really wasn't — hasn't been that difficult. It's just about, ‘Hey, maybe I call it pineapple, you call it pizza,’” Omli said, noting how they’ve unified their defensive terminology. “And so, honestly, it's been seamless.”
Omli and Teegardin’s alignment in the winter has manifested in the T.T.E. philosophy that they’re trying to instill in the players so far this spring.
“And our goal is that we can put them in a position where they can play as fast as they possibly can and think about those things,” Omli said. “The ball and effort, where they're not thinking too much about the call.”
And as Omli and Teegardin have taken to the practice field to coach and lead the defense, the players have been impressed with how well the two work in alignment.
The pairing also plays well off each other, by most accounts.
Teegardin is a lot like Creighton, and does little to stow away the fiery intensity brewing beneath the surface. All it takes is about two sentences of direction and he’s impassioned, yelling out the points.
Omli is equally as intense in his own right, but in an overall more stoic package.
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But what neither coach has apparently done so far is contradict the other, or take a backseat by any means.
“It almost feels like, you know — I'm thinking like a Batman and Robin, except like they're both Batman,” graduate defensive lineman Jefferson Adam said.
Being on the same page as each other has been the most important task for Omli and Teegardin, arguably, this spring. For as much as they need to teach and instill their new defense and mindset, they need to do it consistently from front to back.
And while they do have their areas of affinity, be it the front seven or the back seven, both Omli and Teegardin have impressed the defenders with the way that they’ve been clear and consistent in communicating with players.
“I think they've done a great job of just communicating as coaches and then bringing it to the field so the players can understand it as well,” Llewllyn said. “They meet a lot behind the scenes. They're together 24-7, I'm sure.”
On balance, what will really matter for Eastern Michigan is what happens in the fall when the games start to matter.
But through the winter and most of spring practice, the early returns on the Omli-Teegardin pairing at defensive coordinator are solid, as two men try to find the voice that leads EMU to a defensive resurgence.
