The first week of college football is done and the Gators are one of just six teams left without a win or a loss (the others being Army, Cincinnati, Kansas, South Alabama, and, of course, Idaho). Turned out that more blitz came from the sky than from the Gator linebackers. The storm that terminated the first-ever Florida-Idaho match-up before the second play was run will be one of the more interesting and unique footnotes for future fans reading the history books. For fans of today, we are left rather disappointed. Still, the outcome was probably for the best. Florida is now scheduled to play the Vandals in 2017. The programs could have rescheduled the game for their mutual open date later this year, October 25, however, the Gators were not prepared to sacrifice their valuable week off before the Georgia game. Apparently, Florida is betting they'll win the SEC East (or at least have a good shot at it), as they did not decide to reschedule the game for championship game weekend (as Oregon State did when the Nicholls State game was suspended in 2012). Thus, Florida and Idaho will both play an old-fashioned 11-game schedule, a practice abandoned among FBS teams after 2005. Like last year, Florida will only play six home games in lieu of the usual seven, plus two other games in-state.
The new season-opener for the Gators will be played against the Eastern Michigan Eagles of Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti. Classes began at Michigan State Normal School in 1853. It was the first teachers' college to operate outside the original 13 states. The school became Michigan State Normal College in 1899 and Eastern Michigan College in 1956. After the graduate school was founded in 1959, EMC became today's Eastern Michigan University. Today, EMU enrolls over 23,000 students and nearly 19,000 undergraduates. Eagles teams wear green and white uniforms.
The Eagles won their 2014 season-opener 31-28 against
FCS-team Morgan State. The game wasn't easy; even the
cinder block-wall gave far more trouble than expected.
College football has been played in Ypsilanti since 1891, though the sum of successes there have been modest in the time since. Just over six miles from the winningest program in college football history, the University of Michigan Wolverines, EMU has always remained in its shadow. The team from Michigan State Normal began calling itself "the Hurons" (after a local Indian tribe) in 1929. The Hurons claimed a total of nine championships playing in various regional conferences until 1976, when they joined the Mid-American Conference. The Hurons had a miserable start to the 1980s – from 1980 to 1984 the Hurons won only five games while losing 46 (plus three ties). However, under the leadership of coach Jim Harkema, Eastern Michigan won four games in 1985 and then six in 1986. The following season is widely considered the greatest in EMU history; the 1987 squad won 10 games (including every home game), the MAC conference championship, and the California Bowl. To this day, the 1987 Hurons are the only Eastern Michigan team to win either a bowl game or the MAC championship. Their only losses were to Akron and bitter in-state-rival Central Michigan. Then, in 1988 (under recommendation from the state Department of Civil Rights), it was decided that the school would stop using its Native American nicknames. Eastern Michigan teams began using the name "Eagles" in 1991 and have only had one winning season (6-5 in '95) since. Meanwhile, rival Central Michigan kept their Indian nickname (with the consent of the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe) and have won four MAC championships and three bowl games in that same span.
The Eagles play in the 30,200-seat Rynearson Stadium, west of the main campus and built in 1969. A shortage of space has never been a problem for EMU, as the largest crowd (26,188 in a 56-52 win over Central Michigan in 2008) was still far short of capacity.
The Gators and the Eagles have only played once before in their history. The 2004 game was also a season-opener for the Gators and the second-game for Eastern Michigan. The over-matched Eagles were trounced 49-10 in front of 90,000 spectators. Eastern Michigan has never defeated a team from the Southeastern Conference (though they have had only six opportunities). Florida, meanwhile, has a 12-1 all-time record against teams from the MAC (the only loss being against Miami of Ohio in the 1973 Tangerine Bowl).
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