YPSILANTI, Mich. — Coach Chris Creighton’s secret sauce for turning around the Eastern Michigan football team may be his desire and ability to break down both his players’ games and their personal lives.

“Coach Creighton knows my girlfriend,” Eagles middle linebacker Terry Myrick said laughing. “He knows my Twitter handle. He knows my mom’s name, my dad’s name. When we did our in-home visit, he loved the pound cake we gave him. His demeanor is always the same.”

Starting center Mike Van Hoeven says Creighton preaches family atmosphere when he recruits players and when players arrive on campus they discover “that’s 100 percent who he is.”

“He really loves everyone on this team,” Van Hoeven said.

Since Creighton took over in 2014, the often cellar-dwelling Eagles have steadily improved their ability to compete as a Bowl Subdivision team. They are 3-1 going into Saturday’s Mid-American Conference opener at Central Michigan.

When Creighton guided the Eagles to a 7-6 record and a trip to the Popeyes Bahamas Bowl in 2016, it marked the first over-.500 season for the school since 1995. From 2006 to 2015, the Eagles had a cumulative record of 23-97. This season, EMU knocked off Illinois to run Creighton’s record to 3-0 against Big Ten teams. The Eagles are also trying to earn a bowl bid for the third time in four seasons. Before Creighton arrived, the Eagles hadn’t been to a bowl since 1987.

“The vision for me internally has always been making playing football at Eastern Michigan, or Drake or Wabash or Ottawa one of the most incredible experiences of my players' lives,” Creighton said. “Not the most because that would be pathetic.”

Creighton, 50, was at Ottawa (Kansas), Wabash and finally Drake before coming to Eastern and never made it his objective to coach in FBS. But when he considered the possibility of taking the EMU job, he was intrigued to explore whether his family atmosphere vision and coaching style would work at a program in one of the 10 top conferences.

“The coaching philosophy is that love, and positive reinforcement, are ultimately more powerful than hate, fear, negativity and intimidation,” Creighton said. “I’m not saying I get an ‘A+’ in this all of the time, but that’s who I’m supposed to be, loving the players and coaches and believing in them. Good comes from that.”

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Before Creighton took the job, he had questions for EMU executives; primarily, he wanted their take on why several talented coaches had been unable to win at Eastern.

“I knew, and still do, that I wasn’t special,” Creighton said. “The solution has to come from a lot more people than one. I’m old enough and smart enough to know that you don’t hire one person and things change. There was probably something systematic.”

But during the interview process he became satisfied that the Board of Regents, president and athletic director were all on the same page and he knew that would go a long way in turning around Eastern’s program.

“We don’t want to be a flash in the pan,” Creighton said. “For this to come to fruition, we have to sustain it.”

The only wonder is how the Eagles have managed to keep Creighton, whose success presumably has garnered attention.

“I absolutely love being here,” Creighton said. “The way I live my life is not trying to make strategic decisions about my career. So I am going to be here until I’m asked to leave or I’m called to something else.”

Meanwhile, the family atmosphere and self-confidence continues to help the Eagles find success. Last week, the Eagles, on the verge of being upset by Central Connecticut, blocked a punt to pull out a win in the closing seconds. Van Hoeven said this is a team that believes it can win close games.

"Eastern has always been a blue collar, left-out program. People don’t even know who we are,” said Myrick who is from the Atlanta area. “I never heard of Eastern until I got an offer from them.”

Myrick said it irritates him and family that it’s difficult to find Eastern Michigan football sportswear for sale, even in the Ypsilanti area. Myrick said his dad tells him, “You guys need to impose your will on the MAC and college football in general to get yourself known.”

Today, Myrick believes the Eagles are a bigger story on campus than they’ve been in years. At their last game, nose tackle Desmond Kelly, with the cooperation of his coach and teammates, proposed to his now fiancée Daria Johnson.

“It’s about real relationships,” Creighton said. “I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of Eastern Michigan guys standing up in his wedding. I feel as though that’s why we have a chance. It’s the relationships.”