Eastern Michigan Eagles vs. No. 9 LSU Tigers football preview

Just as the weather started to cool down and October on its way, Eastern Michigan lost their third home game of the season. The Army Black Knights against this rushing defense ended up being a bad mismatch gone wild.

Eastern Michigan has allowed a nation-worst 1,493 rushing yards and 18 rushing touchdowns this season. They play Leonard Fournette this week

— Kevin McGuire (@KevinOnCFB) September 27, 2015

*deep sigh*

This isn't a mystery to anybody. People all over the nation have treated this game between the 1-3 Eagles and the ninth-ranked LSU Tigers as an upcoming public execution. People are getting paid to write in newspapers and say on television that Heisman hopeful Leonard Fournette should just hangout at home and play Majora's Mask instead. This is a giant man whose quarterback last week should've been sacked on their own 28-yard line until he had the bright idea to pitch it to this man, this second-coming of Herschel Walker, and he took the pass play into a huge run to get the Tigers into the red zone. He's literally the best thing cable has to offer.

Coach Miles on Sat's game: There's a quality opportunity for Leonard to get carries, but we want to keep him fresh. We have capable backs.

— LSU Football (@LSUfball) September 30, 2015

The Eagles defense was already hurting. It's been hurting for a while. Pat O'Connor's season-ending shoulder injury hurts the most. Then there's linebacker Hunter Matt who isn't playing this year. This team needed to have their depth so losing those two seniors makes things a little bit harder. Great Ibe and Anthony Zappone are still doing well as inside linebackers and I've noticed Anthony Brown, JUCO transfer, is probably the ideal player to have at Rover. All things considered, this was considered to be the best group of linebackers in the conference. One look to look for out of the linebackers: cause fumbles and turn the ball over to your offense.

The line is so young. Jeremiah Harris was out with an injury last week, but he's a defensive end that's coming off of a true freshman season. Kwanii Figueroa is a true freshman that's been earning some starts, then Luke Maclean is a transfer redshirt-sophomore that leads the team with 4.5 tackles for loss. In a 3-4 scheme, these guys have to have a more finesse, athletic approach than your typical lineman. Good opportunity to learn how good their moves are.

This offensive line, also a young unit, will have their hands full with Davon Godchaux and Lewis Neal on the other side. With good running backs, it'll be worth seeing if this group will be able to keep up the pace and create more holes for them on the run blocking.

The best offensive talent EMU has is running back Darius Jackson. He's already got 407 rushing yards and has only carried the ball six times in the second half of the last two games. A good mix of speed and strength, I wonder how much we'll see from him and Shaq Vann.

Brogan Roback's played well with Reggie Bell still sidelined. The quarterback is completing 61 percent of his passes, but he's got four interceptions tagged against him. He loves throwing the deep ball, but he's going to need to string a bunch of short passes to get a drive going.