After last week’s 31-14 loss to Illinois State, Eastern Michigan head coach Ron English said his team was not only fighting each other, but fighting the coaches as well.

As if a road trip to West Lafayette, Ind. for a road game against Purdue this Saturday wasn’t a big enough challenge, English must also find a way to get his team back on the same page.

As if a road trip to West Lafayette, Ind. for a road game against Purdue this Saturday wasn’t a big enough challenge, English must also find a way to get his team back on the same page.

“We do have some good football players on the football team. The main thing is to get their attitudes back where we need them,” English said in a teleconference Monday. “Where they are listening and they want to improve.

“After that is to get more caught up and more excited about the improvement than the results, and then after that phase the results will come.”

EMU kicks off at noon on Saturday at Ross-Ade Stadium. (TV: Big Ten Network, Radio: 89.1 WEMU)

The Eagles entered the season with optimism after finishing last season with a 6-6 record and 14 returning seniors in their lineup this season. But after stumbling out of the gate in the first two games, English said his team has some issues it needs to work through.

The biggest issue comes on offense, where the running game has not lived up to expectations. After finishing last season with one of the top running offenses in college football, averaging 218.3 rushing yards per game, the Eagles have managed just 149 yards per game this season. Quarterback Alex Gillett leads the team in rushing averaging 65 yards per game.

Although the offensive line contains three of the most experienced players on the roster, English says they need to start from scratch.

“What I’ve instructed our offensive line coach is to do is, go right back and start over. Don’t assume anything. He had a bunch of guys out there that have played a lot of football here, but we’re not performing, not across the board.”

While English was critical of his defense after losing to Ball State to open the season, English said his defense played much better last week in a losing effort against Illinois State. “I thought they did a nice job in that they really fought. They were put in some very bad situations in both halves,” English said after the game. “I was proud of some of the things the defense did.”

Although the Eagles enter the game with Purdue as heavy underdogs, English is eager for his team to get back on the field and continue working towards improvement.

“It’s a good Big Ten football team. We’re going to be excited to go up there and our focus is simply improving on the area we need to improve in knowing that we’re going to be back in league play here in three weeks,” English said.

After nearly upsetting Notre Dame on the road last week, Purdue enters the contest 1-1 on the year. Head coach Danny Hope said he was aware of EMU’s slow start, but was weary of the Eagles nonetheless.

“I think we match up with them very well, but again, we’re going to have to be sure because they present some challenges,” Hope said during his weekly press conference. “They’re a football team that maybe hasn’t started off as fast as they would like to, but they certainly have some upside to them and they can be potentially dangerous if we’re not ready to play.”

Purdue enters the game averaging 32.5 points and 417.5 yards of offense per game. Senior wide receiver Antavian Edison has already caught three touchdown passes this season, including two last week against Notre Dame.

Purdue quarterback Robert Marve tore his the ACL in his left knee and will not play on Saturday, but Caleb TerBush - who was originally the starter before being suspended during the offseason - isn’t a step down for Purdue.

Despite the struggles of the EMU offense, Hope was especially concerned with the experience on offense for the Eagles. He said that his team must focus on understanding their assignments on defense if they want to contain the EMU running game.

English certainly hopes his team can cause some headaches for the Boilermakers, but for the fourth year coach, continuing to grow is most important.

“I’m still learning this team. It’s a completely different team than last year. I think it’s going to take us another couple weeks to really figure out who we are coaching,” he said. “And that’s interesting because we do have a lot of guys returning, mixed with some new guys. I always expect them to perform; we coach ‘em that way. But I’m not going to know until we get out there. I do expect us to improve and get better.”

Matt Durr covers sports for Annarbor.com. Follow him on Twitter @mdurr84. Reach him via email at mattdurr@annarbor.com