Eastern Michigan Athletics
Destination U: Finding a Home with EMU Football
10/7/2021 10:00:00 AM | Football, General
Author T.C. Cameron tells the story of Ben Bryant’s journey to Eastern Michigan
After 18 months like none other in American history, traditional fall football is back, and on college campuses homecoming celebrations have returned, too.
In Ypsilanti, for Ben Bryant anyway, homecoming came long before the snow thawed. This is the unique story of a boy who used to play in Rynearson Stadium's bleachers and ask Mom and Dad for cotton candy, who transferred to EMU and is now the Eagles' starting quarterback.
In the late 1980s, Bryant's father, Sean, played for Eastern as a long snapper. In 1990, Sean Bryant earned the Harold E. Sponberg Award and the co-winner of the Outstanding Special Teams Award in 1990. It was at EMU that Sean met Laura, Ben's mother, where they both graduated long before son Ben spent afternoons in the bleachers or the Rynearson Stadium turf.
By the time Ben was considering college football as an option for himself, he was a four-star prospect by ESPN.com, and the No. 6 rated player coming out of Illinois. But no matter what a player's recruitment status was, all players learn college football is not what they thought it would be during recruitment. Bryant turned down reported offers from Wisconsin, Georgia, Indiana, Ole Miss, and West Virginia in picking Cincinnati.
Despite relieving starter and American Athletic Conference Rookie of the Year Desmond Ridder at the end of 2018, Bryant qualified for a redshirt. He played in 15 games in 2018-19, including starting the 2019 regular season finale at Memphis.
But after positioning himself to graduate from Cincinnati in three years, Bryant decided to transfer by the middle of the 2020 season, but his entry into the transfer portal was complicated by the truncated COVID-19 schedule. In a normal season, there is a month or so between the last regular season game and a bowl game, but Bryant had just a week between Cincinnati's final game of the regular season and the Chik-Fil-A Peach Bowl to make his destination decision.
"I'd spoken at length with Coach (Luke) Fickell and my father about entering the portal, but I low-keyed it and didn't post anything on social media," Bryant said. "At the same time, we're going into the AAC title game and Des (Desmond Ridder) is talking about declaring early for the NFL draft. There's an unbelievable amount of uncertainty when you make this decision."
Looking through the transfer portal amid roadblocks created by COVID-19, the roadmap to EMU looked nothing like his high school recruitment.
"The first day you're in the portal, your phone blows up, but things are happening at every school you're talking to, so when someone else commits, that school doesn't have interest and just ghosts out," Bryant said. "It's crazy because I had to intuitively read a virtual room and react."
Enter Chris Creighton, a coach already known within major college football as unconventional, not obsessed with X's and O's or what an athlete can do for him and the program. Instead, relationships drive Creighton's recruiting decisions, and after three years at Cincinnati, Bryant sought opportunity to compete over a guarantee to play from dozens of other schools.
What Bryant sought was culture.
"I'd never talked to a coach for 10 minutes like I talked to Coach Creighton," Bryant said. "We talked for an hour, and I thought, 'This guy really cares about his players.' That was the deal-maker for me."
During his initial phone call with Bryant, Creighton did not sell the program …he sold truth. With an already strong stable of quarterbacks, at a school that has had good quarterbacks for a long time, Bryant would have to compete to play, notably with returning starter Preston Hutchinson.
"They (Bryant and Hutchinson) both have their strengths, and they will both serve our team well," said Creighton. "Coming off of last year, we really felt that we needed to add more experience and depth at the position, and we feel we have addressed that this season."
At Eastern, the title 'starting quarterback' reads like a title printed on a business card. Recent success has featured two capable quarterbacks. In the 2016 Bahamas Bowl season, Brogan Roback split time with Todd Porter. Tyler Wiegers and Mike Glass shared the 2018 Camellia Bowl season, while Glass and Hutchinson led EMU into the Quick Lane Bowl in Detroit.
The NCAA granted an extra year of eligibility to all players in 2020 due to COVID-19. Entering 2021, EMU lost just six players while 53 letterwinners returned, including 23 starters.
The Eagles also added seven transfers, Dimitri Douglas, Dexter Manior, Jarrett Paul, Thomas Shorack, Dennis Smith, I'Shawn Stewart, and Ben Bryant. The list includes multiple players with 'Power Five' stops, and the second four-star quarterback to enroll at EMU in program history. Another five players transferred to Eastern from Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) schools.
Playing football at Eastern Michigan might look like college football's version of Pleasantville — the gray turf a stunning off-set to the traditional color and pageantry of college football — but at EMU being tougher physically and mentally, and overcoming obstacles are the primary tenants of the program.
There's value in overcoming what blocks your success. Barriers turn into building blocks. This is the grit that attracted Bryant and others to Ypsilanti. Practices are "opportunities" under Creighton. For the first time in decades, there's legitimate optimism … and disappointment in losing is omnipresent, which would be odd for a program coming off a 2-4 season if not for a confluence of events that have created this unlikely talent infusion.
The buzz surrounding Eastern Michigan is welcome – ESPN recognized Eastern Michigan as one of college football's Top 10 Most Stable Programs – but the stability has been consistent since Creighton arrived in 2014; it's simply more noticeable since EMU earned three bowl games in four seasons (2016-19) and defeated three straight Big Ten schools.
Now the Miami RedHawks visit Saturday for one the most anticipated homecoming football games – and the 100th in school history. With great anticipation comes expectations. Accolades given in the summer are college football's version of sweet nothings if you do not win in the fall.
"That was really the main reason I came here — to win." Bryant said, "Coach Creighton and the character he brings, how he leads this program is what got me here. I am excited to be here now and to be working with these guys. Now it's time for us to win."
— T.C. Cameron is the author of Miracle Maples (2019) and Navy Football: Return to Glory (2017). A 1995 graduate of EMU, he's lived in Annapolis, MD since 2009. Follow him on Twitter: @ByTCCameron.
In Ypsilanti, for Ben Bryant anyway, homecoming came long before the snow thawed. This is the unique story of a boy who used to play in Rynearson Stadium's bleachers and ask Mom and Dad for cotton candy, who transferred to EMU and is now the Eagles' starting quarterback.
In the late 1980s, Bryant's father, Sean, played for Eastern as a long snapper. In 1990, Sean Bryant earned the Harold E. Sponberg Award and the co-winner of the Outstanding Special Teams Award in 1990. It was at EMU that Sean met Laura, Ben's mother, where they both graduated long before son Ben spent afternoons in the bleachers or the Rynearson Stadium turf.
By the time Ben was considering college football as an option for himself, he was a four-star prospect by ESPN.com, and the No. 6 rated player coming out of Illinois. But no matter what a player's recruitment status was, all players learn college football is not what they thought it would be during recruitment. Bryant turned down reported offers from Wisconsin, Georgia, Indiana, Ole Miss, and West Virginia in picking Cincinnati.
Despite relieving starter and American Athletic Conference Rookie of the Year Desmond Ridder at the end of 2018, Bryant qualified for a redshirt. He played in 15 games in 2018-19, including starting the 2019 regular season finale at Memphis.
But after positioning himself to graduate from Cincinnati in three years, Bryant decided to transfer by the middle of the 2020 season, but his entry into the transfer portal was complicated by the truncated COVID-19 schedule. In a normal season, there is a month or so between the last regular season game and a bowl game, but Bryant had just a week between Cincinnati's final game of the regular season and the Chik-Fil-A Peach Bowl to make his destination decision.
"I'd spoken at length with Coach (Luke) Fickell and my father about entering the portal, but I low-keyed it and didn't post anything on social media," Bryant said. "At the same time, we're going into the AAC title game and Des (Desmond Ridder) is talking about declaring early for the NFL draft. There's an unbelievable amount of uncertainty when you make this decision."
Looking through the transfer portal amid roadblocks created by COVID-19, the roadmap to EMU looked nothing like his high school recruitment.
"The first day you're in the portal, your phone blows up, but things are happening at every school you're talking to, so when someone else commits, that school doesn't have interest and just ghosts out," Bryant said. "It's crazy because I had to intuitively read a virtual room and react."
Enter Chris Creighton, a coach already known within major college football as unconventional, not obsessed with X's and O's or what an athlete can do for him and the program. Instead, relationships drive Creighton's recruiting decisions, and after three years at Cincinnati, Bryant sought opportunity to compete over a guarantee to play from dozens of other schools.
What Bryant sought was culture.
"I'd never talked to a coach for 10 minutes like I talked to Coach Creighton," Bryant said. "We talked for an hour, and I thought, 'This guy really cares about his players.' That was the deal-maker for me."
During his initial phone call with Bryant, Creighton did not sell the program …he sold truth. With an already strong stable of quarterbacks, at a school that has had good quarterbacks for a long time, Bryant would have to compete to play, notably with returning starter Preston Hutchinson.
"They (Bryant and Hutchinson) both have their strengths, and they will both serve our team well," said Creighton. "Coming off of last year, we really felt that we needed to add more experience and depth at the position, and we feel we have addressed that this season."
At Eastern, the title 'starting quarterback' reads like a title printed on a business card. Recent success has featured two capable quarterbacks. In the 2016 Bahamas Bowl season, Brogan Roback split time with Todd Porter. Tyler Wiegers and Mike Glass shared the 2018 Camellia Bowl season, while Glass and Hutchinson led EMU into the Quick Lane Bowl in Detroit.
The NCAA granted an extra year of eligibility to all players in 2020 due to COVID-19. Entering 2021, EMU lost just six players while 53 letterwinners returned, including 23 starters.
The Eagles also added seven transfers, Dimitri Douglas, Dexter Manior, Jarrett Paul, Thomas Shorack, Dennis Smith, I'Shawn Stewart, and Ben Bryant. The list includes multiple players with 'Power Five' stops, and the second four-star quarterback to enroll at EMU in program history. Another five players transferred to Eastern from Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) schools.
Playing football at Eastern Michigan might look like college football's version of Pleasantville — the gray turf a stunning off-set to the traditional color and pageantry of college football — but at EMU being tougher physically and mentally, and overcoming obstacles are the primary tenants of the program.
There's value in overcoming what blocks your success. Barriers turn into building blocks. This is the grit that attracted Bryant and others to Ypsilanti. Practices are "opportunities" under Creighton. For the first time in decades, there's legitimate optimism … and disappointment in losing is omnipresent, which would be odd for a program coming off a 2-4 season if not for a confluence of events that have created this unlikely talent infusion.
The buzz surrounding Eastern Michigan is welcome – ESPN recognized Eastern Michigan as one of college football's Top 10 Most Stable Programs – but the stability has been consistent since Creighton arrived in 2014; it's simply more noticeable since EMU earned three bowl games in four seasons (2016-19) and defeated three straight Big Ten schools.
Now the Miami RedHawks visit Saturday for one the most anticipated homecoming football games – and the 100th in school history. With great anticipation comes expectations. Accolades given in the summer are college football's version of sweet nothings if you do not win in the fall.
"That was really the main reason I came here — to win." Bryant said, "Coach Creighton and the character he brings, how he leads this program is what got me here. I am excited to be here now and to be working with these guys. Now it's time for us to win."
— T.C. Cameron is the author of Miracle Maples (2019) and Navy Football: Return to Glory (2017). A 1995 graduate of EMU, he's lived in Annapolis, MD since 2009. Follow him on Twitter: @ByTCCameron.
Players Mentioned
QB
/ Football
OL
/ Football
QB
/ Football
DL
/ Football
DB
/ Football
DB
/ Football
WR
/ Football
WR
/ Football2025 Football Week 7 Hype vs. NIU
Friday, October 10
EMU Football Pregame Press Conference: Week 7 vs. NIU
Monday, October 06
Football Falls in Overtime at Buffalo
Saturday, October 04
2025 Football Week 6 Hype vs. Buffalo
Friday, October 03