Adult beetle, staphylinid family. Some are called rove beetles. There's a lot of them though! The balls of goo could be eggs, but definitely from something bigger if they are.

Thanks for the lead. Based on your lead, Gauropterus fulgidus looks like a very good candidate.

Glad you were able to find it. I probably would have settled for calling it "Long skinny beetle". :P

Fully adult rove beetle, yes.

I prefer Philonthus rufulus in a different tribe because of much wider distribution and smaller head size than G. fulgidus.

https://bugguide.net/node/view/345926/bgimage?from=1824

That one never even showed up when I did my photo search by family but as you mentioned it has many more reported sightings that my original guess, and close to home as well - Iowa and Indiana. Thanks for the feedback!