Fall Easterns 2025

Mama?s Trade in MLC for Better Competition

October 25-26, Edwardsville, IL

Hello HoosierMama? Nation,

In a radical shift, the Mama?s decided to avoid MLC this year in search of stronger out of region competition. Lately, the Colorados and Carletons of the world have stopped going to MLC, leaving us with a lot of Illinois, Purdue, ND, and Chicago match ups at MLC. We wanted to find not only better teams to play, but also just something different. As a result, we journeyed to Wilmington, NC for Fall Easterns!

Leaving early Friday morning, most of the team rolled into Wilmington around 10-11 pm. Our last car came in at 4 am. Nonetheless, we were up bright and early to get the bodies warm after sitting in a car the full day prior. So much sitting.

We were traveling to the tournament with most of the team. I think we had 22 or 23 healthy and cleated up. Notably, captain Conner "Rodman" Blalack was out due to a sprained ankle that week at practice. A few other o-line names you'll certainly hear this year were also missing, such as Drew Galle, Truman Daleke, and perhaps rookie Ben Rimington will make a name for himself this year.

I'll just rip the band-aid off here and say we went 0-4 on Saturday. Our scores were as follows:

• Appalachian State 13 - Mama?s 11
• Alabama 13 - Mama?s 9
• UNCW Alumni 13 - Mama?s 6
• East Carolina 13 - Mama?s 11

With the exception of the Alumni game, all of those games were winnable (Xavier Maxstadt for the alumni did some throws that left our boy's jaws on the ground). 

Simply put, we were not sharp on Saturday. We had more unforced errors than anyone we played. Hard to beat teams when you just give them the disc for free a lot.

For our o-line, with Truman and Rodman out, a lot of the team was forced to step up into a role they'd not filled often before. What that led to was an offense that did not move with a lot of conviction. There was a general indecisiveness that plagued us. However, one must pass failure on the way to success and these sort of opportunities for our o-line depth, I'm sure, will prove invaluable come later in the season.

D-line has a lot of athletic rookies right now who, frankly, don't have enough experience to consistently maintain proper defensive positioning. That was a pain point where we would stop the first cut more often than not, but then give up position on the following cut and get beat. Or our marks (which very much still need work) would too easily allow the opposing offense to play from either side of the field, forcing our rookies to constantly orbit and re-position, which they would eventually miss and get beat on. But those things can best be learned through experience and getting beat, and I saw noticeable improvements from game to game for so many of our rookies. Rookies like Blake Fraley, Evan Bananis, and a rookie whom I will only refer to as "Cigs", will 100% be names you hear again.

Not counting the alumni game, d-line managed at least 3 breaks in each game (yes, you can do the math and realize how many breaks that meant we gave up as an o-line). Most importantly, they converted their chances at a rate I'm happy with for the fall. We just need to focus on generating more Ds or 'coverage sacks' to pump those break numbers up

After losing all our games on Saturday, we unfortunately fell into the bracket that had UNC and UNCW's B teams, plus App State. I was hoping for a rematch against them to prove we were the better team.

After dispatching UNCW B 13-0, we ended up playing UNC B who beat App State on UP. While still a B team, the B team for one of the top programs in the country is a different breed than what we have in the Great Lakes. Anyways, we beat UNC B 13-7.

I was incredibly proud of how the team responded to a tough Saturday. We played with joy on Sunday. We had far fewer unforced errors. We played up to our potential and not down to who we were playing. We looked more like the team I know we can be. All things that made the 12 hour drive home much easier.

Lord knows there's still much work to be done, and we've been back in the lab working on the fundamentals. This team has all the natural athletic tools needed to be great, but we have to be much sharper if we're to be a contender in what I think will be a very tough Great Lakes region this year.

- Connor 'Pretty' Regan