Purdue vs Eastern Michigan Game Day Vitals

Allow me to ramble on for a bit before getting to the game day vitals/info. I wouldn’t blame you for scrolling down to the bottom.

Having lived in Ann Arbor for 5 years, I can tell you first hand that Eastern Michigan and Ypsilanti are always looked down on. If you went east of US-23, you would be warned to be careful. Yeah, Ypsi wasn’t as safe compared to Ann Arbor, but it has its charm, and it is always happy to see you:

And yes, they own the fact that it looks like...well...a penis. But they don’t care. Flaunt it if you got it (well, with consent of course):

Perhaps my biggest regret before moving from Michigan is not buying this shirt. Guess I’ll have to get one when I visit in November.

My point is, Ypsi is a good place, has some great food, and is sometimes better than Ann Arbor. There are some great stores along Michigan Ave., and Depot Town is a nice place to hang out. But most A2 snobs wouldn’t bother to go down Washtenaw Ave. I would know, I used to be one of them before my ignorance was peeled away.

But if there is something EMU and Ypsi deserve crap for, it’s EMU’s mascot: the Eagles.

You see, Eastern Michigan used to be the Hurons, named after the local Native American Wyandot people that resided in Michigan before...uh, white people “discovered it”. Given the controversies around the name, Eastern Michigan decided to change their mascot in 1991, which was a good move (of course they backtracked in 2012 a bit, only to ditch it completely in 2015, but I digress).

They had a golden opportunity when it came to their mascot. As you know, Eastern Michigan’s acronym is EMU, which is also the name of the second-largest living bird by height. They may look like discount-ostriches, but they’re still from Australia, so they’re already kinda badass. And of course, no other D1 school uses an emu as a mascot, so Eastern Michigan becoming the EMU Emus would be unique and awesome.

Instead, EMU opted to go with the Eagles as their new mascot, a boring choice as it is the second most popular collegiate mascot in the country, only behind the Bulldogs (that’s right, Butler, you’re not that special).

Don’t get me wrong, eagles themselves are awesome and badass too, and represent our great country. But as a collegiate mascot, it’s so damn boring.

Granted, the one time I went to an EMU game (had to check out some Wednesday night MACtion), they had an eagle fly around the stadium during the national anthem. The eagle refused to land on cue, so the band had to hold the final note of the Star-Spangled Banner for an extra 30 seconds or so. Emus wouldn’t do that; they would just run and kick whoever is in their way.

So anyways, that is my rant on Ypsi and Eastern Michigan’s failure to become the EMU Emus. Onto the stuff you actually care about: