Eastern Michigan Athletics
They Changed the Conversation: 2016 Eastern Michigan Football
10/9/2026 2:00:00 PM | Football
The season that changed Eastern Michigan football forever
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YPSILANTI, Mich. (EMUEagles.com) -- Ten years later, Eastern Michigan University Head Football Coach Chris Creighton still remembers the feeling.
The Eastern Michigan football team completed one of the most improbable seasons in program history. After years of difficult Saturdays, the Eagles had won seven games, finished with a winning record for the first time since 1995, and earned a postseason invitation for the first time in 29 years. On Dec. 23, 2016, Eastern Michigan walked onto the field at Thomas A. Robinson Stadium in Nassau, Bahamas, to play Old Dominion in the Popeyes Bahamas Bowl.
The Eagles ultimately fell 24-20, but the result could not diminish what they had accomplished. The trip to the Bahamas represented the culmination of a season that changed the trajectory of Eastern Michigan football and gave a group of student-athletes a memory that has lasted long after the final whistle.
As the 2016 team prepares to return to campus for a reunion at Eastern Michigan's Oct. 17 Homecoming game against Toledo, Creighton can look back on that season with the perspective that only time can provide. What stands out most is not one game or one statistic. It is the belief that developed within a team that spent years trying to change how Eastern Michigan football was viewed.
"I just remember joy," Creighton said.
That joy came after a period that had tested the program, and everyone associated with it. Eastern Michigan entered the 2016 season coming off a difficult stretch, and plenty of outside discussion focused on the future of football at the university. The noise was impossible to ignore, but inside the program, Creighton and his players continued to focus on the work in front of them.
The challenge was simple to describe and much harder to accomplish. Eastern Michigan needed to become a better football team, one day and one practice opportunity at a time. Creighton believed progress was being made even when the results had not yet caught up.
"As objectively as I can, we were taking major strides forward in the infrastructure and the foundation and the relationships, all of that," Creighton said. "But on Saturday afternoons, we weren't very good."
The Eagles had gone 3-21 over their first two seasons under Creighton, making the task of turning the program around seem even more daunting. Yet the players who stayed believed there was something worth building. That belief became the foundation for what happened in 2016.
Eastern Michigan opened the season with a dominant 61-14 victory over Mississippi Valley State, then followed with a series of games that began to shift expectations for the program. The Eagles defeated Charlotte, 37-19, and Wyoming, 27-24, before opening Mid-American Conference play against Bowling Green, the defending league champion.
On Oct. 1, Eastern Michigan defeated Bowling Green, 28-25. The victory moved the Eagles to 4-1 and provided one of the season's earliest indications that this team was different.
"That was a huge, huge win for us," Creighton said. "The defending MAC champs and to put us at four and one ... it really was a magical season."
The Eagles continued to show that they belonged in the conversation. Setbacks included losses to Toledo and Miami, but the team kept responding. The offense became one of the most productive units in program history, eventually producing 5,917 yards of total offense and 47 touchdowns.
Quarterback Brogan Roback became the offense's centerpiece. He threw for 2,694 yards and 18 touchdowns, while Todd Porter added 1,064 passing yards and seven touchdowns. Wide receiver Sergio Bailey II caught 60 passes for 868 yards and seven touchdowns, while Ian Eriksen rushed for 771 yards and nine touchdowns.
Several memorable individual performances stood out, too. Against Ball State on Nov. 8, Roback threw for 468 yards and three touchdowns in a 48-41 Eastern Michigan victory. Dieuly Aristilde caught six passes for 107 yards, while Eriksen rushed for 109 yards and two touchdowns.
The following week provided one of the season's biggest tests. Eastern Michigan traveled to Northern Illinois and built a 21-0 lead before the Huskies rallied to force overtime. The Eagles ultimately lost 31-24, despite rushing for 291 yards. Eriksen ran for 171 yards and two touchdowns, while Roback added 184 rushing yards and a touchdown.
That loss could have defined the final stretch of the season. Instead, the Eagles used it as another opportunity to respond.
They had one more game left, and it carried significance far beyond the standings.
Central Michigan came to Rynearson Stadium on Nov. 22, and the Eagles knew a victory would give them seven wins. For a program that had not reached that mark since 1989, the significance was hard to overstate.
The game delivered everything the rivalry promised. Eastern Michigan produced 538 yards of offense, with Roback throwing for 355 yards and two touchdowns. Bailey caught six passes for 104 yards, Aristilde added four catches for 92 yards and a touchdown, and Blake Banham rushed for 120 yards and a touchdown.
Still, with 2:34 remaining, Central Michigan took a 21-20 lead.
Eastern Michigan needed one more drive.
Roback led the Eagles down the field, and with 19 seconds remaining, he found Bailey in the corner of the end zone for the go-ahead touchdown. The Eagles took a 26-21 lead, and Jeremiah Harris sealed the victory with an interception on the final play.
The celebration that followed meant more than a rivalry win. Eastern Michigan finished the regular season 7-5 overall and 4-4 in the MAC. The seven victories marked the program's most in a season since 1989, and the Eagles had secured a winning record for the first time since 1995.
They were going bowling.
For the players who had endured the difficult years, the moment carried particular weight.
"To see our guys who ... stuck with us through ... three and 21 and the country talking about, you know, doing away with football at Eastern Michigan and then to go have the biggest tied for the biggest turnaround in the country and to go bowling for the first time in 29 years in the Bahamas," Creighton said, "that was something special."
The Bahamas Bowl provided the final chapter.
Eastern Michigan arrived in Nassau with an opportunity to cap its breakthrough season with a bowl victory. Instead, the Eagles found themselves in another close game. Old Dominion ultimately prevailed, 24-20, but Eastern Michigan's offense, led by offensive coordinator and future Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer, kept producing. The Eagles finished with 470 yards of total offense, including 300 through the air.
Roback completed 26 of 46 passes for 300 yards and two touchdowns. Aristilde caught seven passes for 80 yards, Eddie Daugherty had six receptions for 72 yards, Bailey caught five passes for 69 yards and a touchdown, and Johnnie Niupalau added four receptions for 31 yards and a touchdown.
The loss ended the season at 7-6, but the trip itself became a defining moment for the program. Eastern Michigan football had returned to the postseason for the first time since the 1987 California Bowl, when the Eagles won the Mid-American Conference championship and defeated San Jose State.
The 2016 team had created its own place in that history.
For Creighton, the significance went beyond the bowl invitation. The season showed what could happen when players kept believing in each other through difficult circumstances.
"I knew I was supposed to be here," Creighton said. "I have deep convictions about how to run a football program and how to run a very successful football program."
The season numbers tell part of the story. Pat O'Connor recorded 8.5 sacks. Kyle Rachwal led the defense with 109 tackles, while Jason Beck added 104. Jeremiah Harris finished with 69 tackles and four sacks. The offense broke the program's single-season record for total yards, surpassing the previous mark of 5,010 set in 2008.
But the statistics do not fully explain why the 2016 season remains so meaningful to the people who lived it.
Belief connected everything.
The Eagles spent the previous two seasons learning how to play together and withstand adversity. In 2016, those lessons finally translated into wins. Each victory added another layer of confidence, and each close game reinforced the idea that Eastern Michigan could compete with anyone on its schedule.
By the final week of the regular season, the conversation had changed. Instead of discussing whether Eastern Michigan could sustain a football program, people were talking about the Eagles going to a bowl game.
"That's the story of Eastern Michigan football to me," Creighton said. "I mean, to me, it goes to the depths of ... all things are possible."
That phrase has become an appropriate way to remember the 2016 team.
The season did not begin with guarantees. It did not end with a bowl victory. It proved that circumstances do not have to determine a program's future. The Eagles changed their own story through preparation, perseverance, and belief.
And they did it together.
The 2016 Eagles gave the program its first postseason appearance in nearly three decades. They established a new standard for what was possible. Most importantly, they showed future generations of Eastern Michigan players that the past does not have to dictate what comes next.
On that December afternoon in the Bahamas, the Eagles came up four points short.
But they had already won something much bigger.
They had changed the conversation.
And, as Creighton still remembers, they had done it by believing that all things were possible.
YPSILANTI, Mich. (EMUEagles.com) -- Ten years later, Eastern Michigan University Head Football Coach Chris Creighton still remembers the feeling.
The Eastern Michigan football team completed one of the most improbable seasons in program history. After years of difficult Saturdays, the Eagles had won seven games, finished with a winning record for the first time since 1995, and earned a postseason invitation for the first time in 29 years. On Dec. 23, 2016, Eastern Michigan walked onto the field at Thomas A. Robinson Stadium in Nassau, Bahamas, to play Old Dominion in the Popeyes Bahamas Bowl.
The Eagles ultimately fell 24-20, but the result could not diminish what they had accomplished. The trip to the Bahamas represented the culmination of a season that changed the trajectory of Eastern Michigan football and gave a group of student-athletes a memory that has lasted long after the final whistle.
As the 2016 team prepares to return to campus for a reunion at Eastern Michigan's Oct. 17 Homecoming game against Toledo, Creighton can look back on that season with the perspective that only time can provide. What stands out most is not one game or one statistic. It is the belief that developed within a team that spent years trying to change how Eastern Michigan football was viewed.
"I just remember joy," Creighton said.
That joy came after a period that had tested the program, and everyone associated with it. Eastern Michigan entered the 2016 season coming off a difficult stretch, and plenty of outside discussion focused on the future of football at the university. The noise was impossible to ignore, but inside the program, Creighton and his players continued to focus on the work in front of them.
The challenge was simple to describe and much harder to accomplish. Eastern Michigan needed to become a better football team, one day and one practice opportunity at a time. Creighton believed progress was being made even when the results had not yet caught up.
"As objectively as I can, we were taking major strides forward in the infrastructure and the foundation and the relationships, all of that," Creighton said. "But on Saturday afternoons, we weren't very good."
The Eagles had gone 3-21 over their first two seasons under Creighton, making the task of turning the program around seem even more daunting. Yet the players who stayed believed there was something worth building. That belief became the foundation for what happened in 2016.
Eastern Michigan opened the season with a dominant 61-14 victory over Mississippi Valley State, then followed with a series of games that began to shift expectations for the program. The Eagles defeated Charlotte, 37-19, and Wyoming, 27-24, before opening Mid-American Conference play against Bowling Green, the defending league champion.
On Oct. 1, Eastern Michigan defeated Bowling Green, 28-25. The victory moved the Eagles to 4-1 and provided one of the season's earliest indications that this team was different.
"That was a huge, huge win for us," Creighton said. "The defending MAC champs and to put us at four and one ... it really was a magical season."
The Eagles continued to show that they belonged in the conversation. Setbacks included losses to Toledo and Miami, but the team kept responding. The offense became one of the most productive units in program history, eventually producing 5,917 yards of total offense and 47 touchdowns.
Quarterback Brogan Roback became the offense's centerpiece. He threw for 2,694 yards and 18 touchdowns, while Todd Porter added 1,064 passing yards and seven touchdowns. Wide receiver Sergio Bailey II caught 60 passes for 868 yards and seven touchdowns, while Ian Eriksen rushed for 771 yards and nine touchdowns.
Several memorable individual performances stood out, too. Against Ball State on Nov. 8, Roback threw for 468 yards and three touchdowns in a 48-41 Eastern Michigan victory. Dieuly Aristilde caught six passes for 107 yards, while Eriksen rushed for 109 yards and two touchdowns.
The following week provided one of the season's biggest tests. Eastern Michigan traveled to Northern Illinois and built a 21-0 lead before the Huskies rallied to force overtime. The Eagles ultimately lost 31-24, despite rushing for 291 yards. Eriksen ran for 171 yards and two touchdowns, while Roback added 184 rushing yards and a touchdown.
That loss could have defined the final stretch of the season. Instead, the Eagles used it as another opportunity to respond.
They had one more game left, and it carried significance far beyond the standings.
Central Michigan came to Rynearson Stadium on Nov. 22, and the Eagles knew a victory would give them seven wins. For a program that had not reached that mark since 1989, the significance was hard to overstate.
The game delivered everything the rivalry promised. Eastern Michigan produced 538 yards of offense, with Roback throwing for 355 yards and two touchdowns. Bailey caught six passes for 104 yards, Aristilde added four catches for 92 yards and a touchdown, and Blake Banham rushed for 120 yards and a touchdown.
Still, with 2:34 remaining, Central Michigan took a 21-20 lead.
Eastern Michigan needed one more drive.
Roback led the Eagles down the field, and with 19 seconds remaining, he found Bailey in the corner of the end zone for the go-ahead touchdown. The Eagles took a 26-21 lead, and Jeremiah Harris sealed the victory with an interception on the final play.
The celebration that followed meant more than a rivalry win. Eastern Michigan finished the regular season 7-5 overall and 4-4 in the MAC. The seven victories marked the program's most in a season since 1989, and the Eagles had secured a winning record for the first time since 1995.
They were going bowling.
For the players who had endured the difficult years, the moment carried particular weight.
"To see our guys who ... stuck with us through ... three and 21 and the country talking about, you know, doing away with football at Eastern Michigan and then to go have the biggest tied for the biggest turnaround in the country and to go bowling for the first time in 29 years in the Bahamas," Creighton said, "that was something special."
The Bahamas Bowl provided the final chapter.
Eastern Michigan arrived in Nassau with an opportunity to cap its breakthrough season with a bowl victory. Instead, the Eagles found themselves in another close game. Old Dominion ultimately prevailed, 24-20, but Eastern Michigan's offense, led by offensive coordinator and future Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer, kept producing. The Eagles finished with 470 yards of total offense, including 300 through the air.
Roback completed 26 of 46 passes for 300 yards and two touchdowns. Aristilde caught seven passes for 80 yards, Eddie Daugherty had six receptions for 72 yards, Bailey caught five passes for 69 yards and a touchdown, and Johnnie Niupalau added four receptions for 31 yards and a touchdown.
The loss ended the season at 7-6, but the trip itself became a defining moment for the program. Eastern Michigan football had returned to the postseason for the first time since the 1987 California Bowl, when the Eagles won the Mid-American Conference championship and defeated San Jose State.
The 2016 team had created its own place in that history.
For Creighton, the significance went beyond the bowl invitation. The season showed what could happen when players kept believing in each other through difficult circumstances.
"I knew I was supposed to be here," Creighton said. "I have deep convictions about how to run a football program and how to run a very successful football program."
The season numbers tell part of the story. Pat O'Connor recorded 8.5 sacks. Kyle Rachwal led the defense with 109 tackles, while Jason Beck added 104. Jeremiah Harris finished with 69 tackles and four sacks. The offense broke the program's single-season record for total yards, surpassing the previous mark of 5,010 set in 2008.
But the statistics do not fully explain why the 2016 season remains so meaningful to the people who lived it.
Belief connected everything.
The Eagles spent the previous two seasons learning how to play together and withstand adversity. In 2016, those lessons finally translated into wins. Each victory added another layer of confidence, and each close game reinforced the idea that Eastern Michigan could compete with anyone on its schedule.
By the final week of the regular season, the conversation had changed. Instead of discussing whether Eastern Michigan could sustain a football program, people were talking about the Eagles going to a bowl game.
"That's the story of Eastern Michigan football to me," Creighton said. "I mean, to me, it goes to the depths of ... all things are possible."
That phrase has become an appropriate way to remember the 2016 team.
The season did not begin with guarantees. It did not end with a bowl victory. It proved that circumstances do not have to determine a program's future. The Eagles changed their own story through preparation, perseverance, and belief.
And they did it together.
The 2016 Eagles gave the program its first postseason appearance in nearly three decades. They established a new standard for what was possible. Most importantly, they showed future generations of Eastern Michigan players that the past does not have to dictate what comes next.
On that December afternoon in the Bahamas, the Eagles came up four points short.
But they had already won something much bigger.
They had changed the conversation.
And, as Creighton still remembers, they had done it by believing that all things were possible.
Friday, October 09
Friday, October 09
Thursday, October 08
Monday, October 05