Eagles soar into playoffs

The chartered airplane lifted off before dawn this morning, taking Eastern Washington to what the school hopes is more than a one-stop or one-year destination.

The Eagles’ 14th-ranked football team is headed for a showdown with top-ranked Southern Illinois in the first round of the I-AA playoffs Saturday afternoon in Carbondale, Ill.

For Eastern, it’s more than a football game.

“It validates our program, what we’ve been doing,” fifth-year head coach Paul Wulff said. “We’ve tried to stay true to our values as coaches and kids. … It feels good that all the hard work and the philosophies we have in place are really showing up on the field now.”

There is excitement on campus with the football team in the playoffs just months after the men’s basketball team made its first appearance in the March Madness of the NCAA Tournament.

“I think some of the very same tangible and intangible things come from a season like this,” athletic director Scott Barnes said. “For us, athletics is a rallying point for our community and reaches our alumni on a national level.”

Unlike the NCAA tournament when the basketball team went to Kansas City, Eastern fans who don’t make the trip for the football game can’t watch it on television.

“That’s because I-AA is not positioned relative to television like the NCAA Tournament,” Barnes explained. “There is a little less media coverage so there is a little less pop that way. But in the hearts of our alumni and what we think championship football can do for Eastern, this is as important in terms of what we get from it.

“Paul Wulff has done it the right way. Eighty percent of the players are in-state kids, that kind of grows on you. And the way Paul has operated the program, with character and integrity, people want to hitch their wagon to that sort of thing.”

EWU’s fourth appearance in the playoffs is the reward for an 8-3 record and sharing the Big Sky Conference championship, only the third since Eastern joined the league 18 years ago.

Unlike the school’s other three playoff berths – in 1985 (as an independent), 1992 and 1997 – the hope is that the Eagles can go from consistent winners – six straight winning seasons – to consistent post-season contenders.

“By no means are you going to win championships every year,” Wulff said. “Our goal is to be solid every year and have a chance to win championships every year.”

That translates into trying to be like rival Montana, which has a string of 19 straight winning seasons heading into its I-AA record 12th straight playoffs. The Grizzlies have won or shared every Big Sky title since 1995, the lone exception being Eastern’s 1997 championship.

“I think it’s realistic providing we get a tremendous amount of fund-raising dollars and facilities to match,” Wulff said. “It will be unrealistic until we can build the resources comparable to any team that is a champion team year-in and year-out at any level.”

That is really the case for all of the Eagle athletic programs. Eastern’s total athletic budget is about $5.5 million, $2 million less than the average budget in the Big Sky Conference and well below Montana’s $9 million, which is bolstered by a 23,117-seat stadium.

“Until we can improve our fund-raising dollars and (out-of-state) scholarship dollars we’ll never be at the very, very top all the time, but very few people are anyway when they have all the resources in the world,” Wulff continued. “Too many things happen, nobody wins all the time. But we will do our very best to maximize all the resources we have and get the most out of what we have.”

Eastern has upgraded facilities, especially for football, in the last three years with a new football office and locker room and renovations to Woodward Field that increased seating capacity to 7,000 with room for 4,000 temporary bleachers. That has closed the gap in recruiting battles but hasn’t narrowed the disparity in such areas as recruiting dollars and staff size.

“I know what we work with at this university, I know our resources, and I think the bang for the buck is as good as you’re going to get anywhere,” Wulff said. “I’m very proud of what we do. … It’s been a tough road but we’re turning the corner. That monkey is off our back.”