After a 2023 season filled with close calls, Eastern Kentucky football is ready to rebound

The 2023 season for Eastern Kentucky football was one filled with close calls. And most of them didn’t go the way of the Colonels.

As part of a disappointing 5-6 campaign, EKU played a whopping seven games that were decided by six points or less.

For comparison, UK and Louisville combined to play only five games last season that were decided by that margin.

EKU went 3-4 in its games that were decided by six points or less, a contributing factor as head coach Walt Wells’ team missed the FCS playoffs after making the national postseason in 2022.

One of the games in this category — a 27-24 defeat at Central Arkansas on Nov. 11, the penultimate week of the regular season — was particularly controversial due to the clock management by officials on the game’s final drive: Central Arkansas threw a 46-yard touchdown pass with 1 second remaining to win.

That loss at Central Arkansas also marked a second straight loss for EKU that came on the game’s final play. The week prior, EKU lost at home in overtime to Austin Peay on a walk-off touchdown pass in overtime.

After a season of disappointment that was filled with an extraordinary amount of close calls, the Colonels are looking to leave no doubt in 2024, not only by winning games, but by doing so with a healthy margin on the scoreboard.

“Definitely a lot of anxiety,” sixth-year linebacker Kyle Kelly, who began his career at Ohio, said of last season’s tight finishes.

“A lot of those games in the fourth quarter, it felt like every game was a game-winning field goal or a game-winning field goal miss. Or a game-winning play or whatever it was. But, obviously want to be able to come out on top by a little bit more and be comfortable at the end of the game and stuff, not just be fighting for the last play or the last drive or whatever.”

EKU football will have a new starting quarterback

While optimism surrounds EKU — as it does for most college football programs at this stage of the preseason — Wells will have question marks to address as he enters his fifth season as the Colonels’ head coach.

Top of that list is the quarterback position. Legendary six-year signal caller Parker McKinney — who amassed 12,751 passing yards at EKU, the 11th-most in FCS history — is gone, and the battle for his replacement in Richmond is down to two players.

Grad student Matt Morrissey (who threw for 1,981 yards last season at Western Illinois) and redshirt sophomore Cameron Hergott (a 2020 Kentucky Mr. Football winner and three-time state champion at Beechwood) are the top QBs on the depth chart.

“The other coaches are going to be focused in on timing and all the things that matter to play the position,” Wells said during EKU’s media day in early August of the starting quarterback battle. “For me, it’s going to be who affects our football team and who moves our football team to score touchdowns.”

Whomever takes over for McKinney has big shoes to fill, and their first games as the EKU starter will come against FBS opposition: EKU opens the season Aug. 31 at Mississippi State and then plays at Western Kentucky on Sept. 7 in a “Battle of the Bluegrass” matchup that’s being played for the first time since 2017.

Wells said he expects both Morrissey and Hergott to play in the season opener against the Bulldogs.

“One thing I told the young guys (is) our job is to protect whoever is back there. It could be anybody,” fifth-year offensive lineman John Stone said. “Whoever it is, we’re going to have confidence in that.”

Something else that needs addressing at EKU is last season’s porous defense.

In 2023, the Colonels’ defense struggled to the tune of allowing 33.2 points, 163.9 rushing yards and 312.5 passing yards per game.

This nullified an impressive EKU offense that averaged 29.5 points, 161.6 rushing yards and 275.7 passing yards.

“I would say our effort and energy are the number one things that we need to improve,” defensive lineman Darrian Baker — a fifth-year player who was part of Wells’ first recruiting class at EKU in 2020 — said of his position group. “Just everybody running to the ball, just getting there. And when we arrive, we have to have violence. Really finish plays.”

Wells expressed confidence that fifth-year defensive coordinator Jake Johnson, who is also EKU’s inside linebackers coach, would be able to turn around these statistics.

“If you break everything down, it was explosives. We were awful (against) explosive (plays),” Wells said. “We’d play great, great, great. Then, boom. They got us. And we didn’t respond from that. ... How can we finish games? And how can we stop the explosives? We won’t eliminate them. ... If we cut them in half, just think where we would go statistically.”

Once again, Eastern Kentucky football begins season with FBS opponents

Something else abnormal about the number of close games EKU played last season — remember, seven contests were decided by six points or less — was that they all came during the final nine games of the 2023 season, after the Colonels had lost at FBS opponents Cincinnati and Kentucky.

EKU begins the 2024 season in a similar way with the Mississippi State and Western Kentucky games. After those, the Colonels jump straight into the contests that will decide whether or not EKU secures another FCS postseason berth.

“The first two games, they’re big games. Obviously, we want to win them,” Kelly, the sixth-year linebacker, said. “But the most important games we play will be obviously our conference games. That’s really what we want to focus on, mostly. The first two games kind of get us ready for that.”

“It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” Stone, the fifth-year offensive lineman, added. “... Just having that mindset that, we’re working for something past the regular season. Those games aren’t everything. We kind of know that as a team already, but obviously, yeah, we’re going to fly down there and we want to win.”

Eastern Kentucky begins United Athletic Conference (UAC) play in week three by hosting West Georgia on Sept. 14, a game that doubles as the Colonels’ home opener at Richmond’s Roy Kidd Stadium.

After two more nonconference home games in the following weeks against Morehead State (Sept. 21) and Robert Morris (Sept. 28), EKU plays seven straight UAC contests to end the season.

And if you ask around at EKU, the Colonels would prefer that most of these games don’t come down to the wire, again.

“I can’t even remember when our last blowout (win) was,” said Payton Collins, a sixth-year offensive lineman who Wells described as a 2025 NFL draft prospect.

“I assume it would be nice, but I don’t remember the feeling.”

EKU has a new athletics director for the 2024 football season

The 2024 EKU football season will also be the first under new athletics director Kyle Moats, who began that role at Eastern Kentucky on July 1.

Previously, Moats spent 15 years as the athletics director at Missouri State. Moats replaces former EKU athletics director Matt Roan, who left this spring for the same role at James Madison.

“He seems like a great person. I’m pleased that he’s here, glad that he’s here,” Wells said, adding that he’s started to build a relationship with Moats in recent weeks.

Part of this initial bonding came when Moats attended an EKU team cookout at Lake Reba Park in Richmond, which served as a kickoff event to EKU’s preseason camp.

“Just starting to understand his vision and what he wants,” Wells said. “Looking forward to his leadership and direction.”

Wells was hired at EKU by interim athletics director Mark Sandy in December 2019. Roan was the athletics director at EKU for each of Wells’ four seasons as head coach.

Moats’ contract as EKU’s athletics director runs through June 2028 and includes a guaranteed base salary of $215,000 for Moats each year.

2024 EKU football schedule

Home games in all capital letters.

Aug. 31: At Mississippi State, 6 p.m.

Sept. 7: At Western Kentucky, 7 p.m.

Sept. 14: WEST GEORGIA, 6 p.m.

Sept. 21: MOREHEAD STATE, 6 p.m.

Sept. 28: ROBERT MORRIS, 2 p.m.

Oct. 12: At Southern Utah, 4 p.m.

Oct. 19: At Abilene Christian, 4 p.m.

Oct. 26: UTAH TECH, 3 p.m.

Nov. 2: At Tarleton State, 7 p.m.

Nov. 9: CENTRAL ARKANSAS, 2 p.m.

Nov. 16: At Austin Peay, 2 p.m.

Nov. 23: NORTH ALABAMA, 2 p.m.

This story was originally published August 23, 2024 at 9:30 AM.

Cameron Drummond

Lexington Herald-Leader

859-242-5257

Cameron Drummond works as a sports reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader with a focus on Kentucky men’s basketball recruiting and the UK men’s basketball team, horse racing, soccer and other sports in Central Kentucky. Drummond is a second-generation American who was born and raised in Texas, before graduating from Indiana University. He is a fluent Spanish speaker who previously worked as a community news reporter in Austin, Texas. Support my work with a digital subscription