Season Preview: Eureka

Sam Durley. That is about all you need to say when it comes to Eureka College Football. The quarterback who gained national fame with his 736 yard record-breaking passing performance against Knox leads a Red Devil team that hopes to surprise some folks in the UMAC in 2012. Durley, who has been a starter since his sophomore season, has been running the same offense since his high school days. Reminiscent of Mike Leach's Texas Tech teams, the Red Devil offense has no aspirations of attempting to be balanced. They are going to put the ball in Durley's hands and pass 50 times a game.

Eureka returns a number of starters from last season's 4-6 squad, particularly on the defensive side of the ball. Offensively, they will need to replace all-conference receiver Wes Schmidgall and tight end Alex Hess. Schmidgall put up downright gaudy numbers last season, however, receivers Matt Dawson and Jordan Kindred will attempt to show that Eureka's strength is in the system rather than in a particular player. The biggest question mark for the Eureka offense lies in their offensive line which got torched last season by teams with strong defensive lines. Against Northwestern and Scholastica, the Eureka offensive line gave up a combined 11 sacks and lost by a combined score of 101-21. They will certainly have to figure that one out if they hope to compete with the big boys this season. Defensively, Eureka brings back 9 of 11 starters including its entire front 7. Of course, those 9 returners were only good enough to form the 6th best defense in the UMAC last season allowing 32.1 points per game. Still, you have expect improvements with this many familiar faces.

Prediction: Eureka is a bit of enigma. Last season they ranked 4th in offensive yards per game in the UMAC but only 7th in offensive points per game. They beat tough opponents such as Westminster and played Greenville very close but got clobbered by average opponents Northwestern and Morris and even lost to MacMurray. Which Eureka team is the real deal? I predict that Eureka will continue to build their program and will have a strong season maybe even pulling off a big upset or two. However, they have been inconsistent in years past and will most likely be inconsistent again this season. I do not anticipate a conference title, but a 4th place finish and a 6-3 record is definitely achievable.