With its 48-41 loss to Murray State on Saturday, the Eastern football team officially passed the midway point of its 2018 season and at 1-5 is not sitting with the record it expected to have before the season began.

Here is a breakdown of the key storylines on both sides of the ball that dominated the first half of Eastern’s season.

What is up with the defense?– Since a 55-20 week one loss to Arkansas, the main focus of every discussion around the Eastern football team has been regarding the struggles of the defensive unit. The defense has given up over 40 points in every game this season except one; they gave up 38 in a win over Tennessee Tech, and to this point in the season has been the Achilles’ heel of the team. 

The poor play of the defense this season has prompted some hard-hitting quotes from people around the program:

“We either got to get better coaching or we have got to get better players, one of the two,” Head Coach Kim Dameron after the team’s 48-41 loss to Murray State in week six.

“We may have to change completely everything we do defensively. We may have to go to a … well, I don’t know. We played odd this week quite a bit which is our 3-4 package type stuff, but we had a safety on the weakside, he wasn’t physical enough. We’re just going to have to look at defending the run better, I know that. We have to do a better job,” Dameron after a 55-41 loss to Indiana State in week three. 

“We were pitiful tackling and had guys getting out of gaps at times, but I just thought our tackling was really bad,” Dameron after the Indiana State loss.

“I don’t know, at some point it just has to be a mindset that we go out and practice every day, give our effort, we prepare the right way. I mean, something has got to change though obviously, and we thought we changed something this week, and it didn’t work. I really don’t know what the difference is, we all give our 100 percent effort, we’re all strong, tackling obviously is an issue, from everybody, myself included and … I don’t know,” Linebacker Joe Caputo after a 41-40 loss to Tennessee State in week four.

The defense has given up 47 points per game this season and 546 yards per game, including 658 to Murray State, the third most ever given up in school history. 

The air-raid offense works- Eastern’s new air-raid offense was a huge topic of conversation prior to this season but has since taken a back seat to the defense as a conversation. But, all things considered, the new offense has been working and has been everything the team hoped it would be. 

The Eastern offense, run by new offensive coordinator Scott Parr, averaged 487 yards per game in the first half of the season, the second-most in the OVC, and also led the OVC with 482 plays ran on offense. The sheer volume of plays coupled with Eastern conference-leading 2053 passing yards, goes to show the air-raid offense this season has been doing exactly what it was designed to do. 

Eastern’s two-quarterback system has been working this season. Johnathan Brantley is first in the OVC with a 67.2 completion percentage, second in the conference with 1245 yards and 10 touchdown passes and recently just set Eastern’s school record for most consecutive passes without throwing an interception. His counterpart Harry Woodbery has also played well when under center; he has 808 yards passing with nine touchdowns and two interceptions. 

Wide receiver Alexander Hollins has been the biggest bright spot for an offense full of shine this season. The senior leads all of FCS football with 12 touchdown catches and is third with 733 receiving yards. 

JJ Bullock can be reached at 581-2812 or jpbullock@eiu.edu.