EWU focuses on task at hand
There hasn’t been much mention of the upcoming NCAA Football Championship Subdivision playoffs around the Eastern Washington University locker room this week.
Eagles coach Paul Wulff put the subject off limits to his players more than a week ago.
“I told them I was done with it,” Wulff said when asked how much he is using the possibility of an at-large playoff berth to motivate his team for Saturday afternoon’s 2:05 regular-season final against Big Sky rival Weber State. “If we earn it, we earn it. That’s it.
“But if we spend too much time looking ahead to that, we’re ultimately going to take time away from us and what we’re trying to accomplish first, which is getting a clear-cut second-place finish in the Big Sky Conference. That’s our immediate goal.”
Eastern (7-3 overall, 5-2 in the Big Sky) has played for its playoff life the past three weeks and will do so again Saturday when WSU (5-5, 4-3) invades Woodward Field in hopes of upsetting the 15th-ranked Eagles and earning a share of second place in the conference standings.
EWU has managed to string together three straight wins since losing to Brigham Young University on Oct. 20 and leaving itself with no margin for error during its playoff run, but not all of them have been pretty.
The Eagles staggered past Sacramento State and Northern Colorado, the bottom two teams in the Big Sky, before thumping Northern Arizona 52-24 last Saturday. Wulff seems convinced that all of the premature playoff talk that had been echoing across campus prior to last weekend was at least partially to blame for his team’s struggles against weaker competition.
“I think we lost some focus talking about something that was way out there, and still is,” Wulff said. “We aren’t good enough to play poorly and win. If we lose any kind of focus and our mind isn’t right, then we’re going to stub our toe.
“There was too much of that (playoff talk) going into the Sac State and Northern Colorado games. We won the games, but we didn’t play as well as we should have.”
Playoff field due Sunday
The NCAA’s 16-team FCS playoff field will be revealed Sunday at 12:30 p.m. on ESPNU. Eight teams will receive automatic bids by virtue of winning their conference championships, while eight other receive at-large bids.
Teams that have already clinched automatic bids include Montana (Big Sky Conference), Northern Iowa (Gateway), McNeese State (Southland), Delaware State (MEAC), Eastern Kentucky (Ohio Valley), Fordham (Patriot) and Wofford (Southern).
The remaining automatic bid, from the Colonial Athletic Conference, will be decided this weekend.
Eastern Washington (7-3) is considered a bubble team, but could bolster its chances of obtaining an at-large bid by beating Weber State on Saturday.
The Big Sky Conference has sent at least two teams to the playoffs 21 of the last 22 years, with the lone exception being 1998 when Montana was the league’s sole postseason representative.
Quick kicks
Portland State and Montana State combined for 57 fourth-quarter points in last Saturday’s Big Sky game that was won by MSU 50-36. … Sacramento State amassed 312 rushing yards in its 20-17 win over Northern Colorado and had two running backs gain more than 100 yards on the ground as Bryan Hillard ran for 168 yards and Travon Jones for 130. … Weber State has outscored its last three opponents 73-68, 52-37 and 48-3 after scoring only 110 points in its first seven games. … Idaho State’s Josh Barnett needs only 16 yards in Saturday’s game against Sac State to become the Bengals’ all-time leading rusher. … With his two sacks against Idaho State last Saturday, Montana defensive end Kroy Biermann boosted his season total to 15 but remains four behind the single-season Big Sky record of 19 set by former Grizzly Andy Petek in 2000.