Return of the MAC: The Ypsilanti Yeti
Eastern Michigan's Terry Lockett Jr. is an interesting name to keep in mind for 2025.
I want to be the best at what I do. I've got many big goals I'm trying to achieve, and it takes more than being 50 percent in.
- Maxx Crosby, NFL football player
Now you may be wondering what exactly I mean by the nickname ‘Yeti’ in the headline of this article. No abdominal snowman here, I just think it sounds cool, and it also happens to start with the letter ‘Y’, which is a remarkably difficult letter to find synonyms for words like ‘stud’ or ‘star’.
But make no mistake about it, Eastern Michigan’s Terry Lockett Jr. is a star. Google tells me that the Yeti holds a significant place in the folklore and traditions of indigenous Himalayan communities; it represents the spirit of the mountains, symbolizing nature's wild and untamed essence.
That’s cool and all, but have you seen EMU’s greyed out field? There’s something positively mysterious happening in Ypsilanti, Michigan, and I’m not talking about an undercover Connor Stallions perusing the sidelines. That’s for lesser programs—you won’t find any hijinks like that happening over here. This is a proud program. A gritty program.
And sure, Chris Creighton and his crew may not have produced a boat load of CFF assets during his tenure, but there have been a few. Many will remember Samson Evans’ productive run during MACtion 2022. Or how about QB Preston Hutchinson during the COVID season? They even had a nearly 100-catch receiver in Hassan Beydoun in 2021. And another 1000 yard tailback in 2015.
Terry Lockett Jr. was EMU’s best receiver last year. He caught 46 of his 83 targets for 660 yards and five scores. Not impressed? That’s OK, consider this: around Lockett Jr. was 103 target receiver Oran Singleton, and 73 target receiver Markus Allen. Both of those players have moved on elsewhere this offseason, vacating a total of 176 targets.
While EMU will lose starting QB Cole Snyder, they gain one Noah Kim, formerly of Michigan State and Coastal Carolina. The MSU connection is a particularly interesting one as Lockett Jr. himself began his career there as well.
He even signed an NIL deal that is—from what I can tell—in collaboration with EMU alumni Maxx Crosby. This feels like a good omen to me.
Terry Lockett Jr. (5’11, 185)
2024 RECEIVING STATS: 46 (83) - 660 - 5 (12.5 ppg)
I must confess that during the 2024 season as I rostered Lockett in CFFNate’s 24-team dynasty league, I had no idea Lockett was a smaller, slot-sized receiver. For whatever reason, I had this notion in my head that he was a 6’3 inch tall boundary receiver. Perhaps because he didn’t play in the slot for EMU last year, that was 5’9 Singleton’s role.
Lockett was a three star coming out of St. Paul, Minnesota. He committed to MSU in the class of 2020 over offers from the likes of Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota. He did not hold an offer from Ohio State but the Buckeyes did apparently express some level of interest per 247 Sports.
Beyond his football talents, Lockett was a heralded basketball player who won two state titles in the Gopher state.
Unfortunately, TLjr. failed break through at the P4 level with the Spartans, and transferred to EMU in the 2023 offseason. He didn’t play much in his first year on campus, only catching three passes.
This past year he broke out as the Hurons’—excuse me—the Eagles’ WR1 by yardage and TDs. EMU had three separate players accumulate 600+ yards, and now two out of three are gone.
Does that mean it’ll all go to Lockett? Unlikely. This staff will find replacements, but at least some of it should go to him. Lockett will also presumably be a better version of himself in his second year as a starter.
With that being said, let us take a closer look at the patterns of the staff.
Coaching & System
WR1 PPG AVERAGE — HC: 10.8 — OC: 10.51 (half PPR)
You won’t be blown away by the output numbers of EMU’s WRs over the past six seasons as shown in Table 1. The highest scoring season during that timespan. was 13.4 PPG in half PPR formats, or over 17 PPG in full PPR formats. I’d say the WRs in this system are much better in full PPR leagues compared to other formats.
To my surprise, the WR1 in this offence has actually averaged over 25% target share twice in the last four years, and over 20% share three times in the last six full seasons. One of those receivers averaged 10(!) targets per game.
Below I have provided a second table that looks at EMU’s WRs from 2018 to now at a more granular level. If you just focus on the target numbers, the picture looks quite rosy. Three receivers since 2021 have seen 104 targets or more. Another three have seen at least 83 targets.
The roles of which receiver occupies the WR1 and WR2 fluctuate, suggesting there isn’t a go-to position in this system.
What has let the WRs down in terms of CFF production is the output end of the equation. For all the targets, no player has scored double digit TDs in the sample. Another problematic feature is that the WR1 and WR2’s numbers are fairly similar every year.
This has its benefits in terms of real football but is a bummer from a CFF perspective because if the numbers were more consolidated into one player, the target volumes from this program are commensurate with potential CFF gold.
If you just took a quarter of Singleton’s 104 targets and funnelled them over to Lockett Jr., my man probably would have been a CFF viable player in every format last year.
This pattern is problematic because it suggests that despite the fact that two out of the top three target getters are leaving, there will probably be an emphasis on replacing those players with someone else, potentially continuing the wide distribution of opportunities.
However, as things currently stand, there is a dearth of talented and/or proven options behind Lockett. We’ve seen multiple players hit 100+ targets in this program, and Lockett feels likely to be the next one to join the club in 2025. He would only need 17 more from last year to hit that mark.
And hopefully the regular readers know the rule by now: if someone is coming off a 100 target season, or appears extremely likely to join the club the upcoming year, they are automatically enrolled in the feature list of VP articles.
Creighton’s OC, Mike Piatkowski, only just took over that role last season, so there isn’t much to discuss on him.
Creighton as a coach averages a 47/53 split in favour of the run game, and his offence is pretty standard in terms of pacing. They usually run somewhere between 65 and 70 plays per game, but last year, with Piatkowski calling plays as OC, they ran more with an average of 74 plays per game.
Closing
It’s tempting to look at the target numbers and say something along the lines of “Lockett seems like a yardage and TD positive regression candidate” but there is such a pattern of underperformance of the output metrics relative to the input volume at EMU that that just seems like the way things are done over there.
Likely, many of these targets are short yardage or near the line of scrimmage… I don’t know. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around what’s going on when we see six players with 80+ targets since 2018 but only one receiver going over 1000 yards, and none with double digit scores.
Perhaps one explanation is that the QB play hasn’t been great, and therefore a lot of these targets are not actually caught. After all, only two players have actually caught more than 60 passes since 2018. So maybe that’s something to keep in mind.
I’m interested to see what happens here with Lockett in 2025. I feel like with Noah Kim moving down a level, the QB play could be pretty good for MAC standards, and we already know Lockett’s ability is above average in this conference.
I look at a player like Georgia State’s Ted Hurst, who neither surpassed 1000 yards (961) nor double digit scores (9) in 2024, yet averaged over 17 PPG in PPR formats (12 games). Hurst caught about 50% of his targets too (56 receptions on 103 targets), which is only 10 more catches than Lockett on 20 more targets, yet over 300 more yards and four more scores registered.
Lockett could be a similar commodity in 2025, where he almost certainly won’t surpass 1000 yards nor double digit scores, but where he could take a chunk of the offloaded targets from Singleton and Allen and coral those into a solid season.
He averaged 7.95 yards per target in 2024. Taking 20 out of the vacated 176 targets and migrating them over to Lockett., he’d end up with around 820 yards in 2025, and let’s just say he scores once more with the additional volume—with 820 yards receiving, six scores and (assuming 50% catch rate) 10 more receptions onto his 46, he’d average just under 15 PPG in full PPR formats.
That would make him viable in most formats. Bonus points could be added to the profile if the QB play is upgraded with Noah Kim (or whoever else). ◾
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Sample of 2018-2024 excluding 2020.