Baldwin sees more work ahead
First-year coach Beau Baldwin continues to like the progress his Eastern Washington University football team is making this spring.
But following a spirited and sometimes sloppy scrimmage held Saturday, he was quick to note that there is still a long road to travel if the Eagles hope to become the national contenders many NCAA Football Championship Subdivision experts expect them to be next fall.
“All in all, I thought our guys played hard on both sides of the ball,” Baldwin said after putting his team through a 70-play scrimmage, complete with certified officials. “It’s just a matter of cleaning up the sloppiness, and I think more than anything, we just need to keep working to come together – especially offensively, since we have more new faces there.
“But that’s going to take some time, I know.”
Much of Baldwin’s focus this spring has been on the interior of the offensive line, where the Eagles must replace four starters – all of them four-year letterwinners – from last season’s 9-4 team that advanced to the quarterfinals of the FCS playoffs.
His concerns over replacing Matt Alfred, Rocky Hanni, Chris Carlsen and Zach Wasielewski have been heightened by the absences of Charlie Wulff (collar bone) and Julian Stewart (academics), a pair of projected starters who are not participating in spring drills.
But Baldwin insists he likes the young players he has battling for the vacancies on his offensive line.
“Right now, we’ve got five guys up there who have never really worked together,” he said. “But they’re working hard and they’re progressing, and I’m very confident of where they will be when it’s all said and done.
“I really believe that between now and the end of fall camp, that unit will improve more than any other unit on the team, just because of its … gains in continuity.”
The five who started on the offensive line in Saturday’s scrimmage were redshirt freshman tackle Brice Leahy, sophomore guard Ryan Forney, sophomore center Sean Rock, junior guard Bryan Smith and sophomore tackle Chris Thomas.
That group held up well most of the morning, even against the Eagles’ aggressive and veteran-laden No. 1 defensive unit. But the second-string offensive line had some major problems dealing with the outside pressure of defensive ends Greg Peach and Jason Belford.
“We go from raw to really raw real quick between our ones and twos,” said offensive line coach Aaron Best. “But there are a few guys who are playing better than we had envisioned after just eight practices. Right now, we have seven or eight guys that could play, if we had to play today, and a couple of them are real eye-openers.”
Best has been impressed with the play of Rock and Thomas, but he said the key to how it all fits together – at least for the remainder of spring drills – is Leahy, a 6-foot-6, 285-pounder.
“Let’s be honest,” Best said. “Even though he’s only going to be a sophomore, he’s going to be our anchor and the guy we really lean on up front. We expect him to be a three-year starter, and I’ll go on record as saying that. And if we can get a couple of other younger guys to follow in his footsteps and earn the right to play – not just play because of an injury to somebody else – we’ll be okay.
“With not as much experience as we normally return up front, the competition has been intense, and I think it’s been good for those young guys to realize there are opportunities to play and that they’re no longer sitting behind three- and four-year starters and all-American-type players.”
Scrimmage notes
Sophomore All-America wide receiver Aaron Boyce suffered a dislocated shoulder during the scrimmage and will probably miss the rest of spring drills. … Sophomore quarterback Matt Nichols completed 13 of 25 passes for 140 yards and threw a 3-yard scoring pass to Brynsen Brown during the red-zone part of the scrimmage. His backup, Alex Smart, completed 7 of 9 passes for 131 yards and connected with Ashton Gant and J.T. Leggin on scoring tosses of 44 and 20 yards. … Veteran ends Greg Peach and Jason Belford each recorded 2 1/2 sacks for the defense, while freshman cornerback Taiwan Jones picked off a pass and broke up two others. … Baldwin said Saturday’s annual Red-White game, which starts at 2 p.m. at Woodward Field, will be played as offense against defense. “We just don’t have enough bodies to divide into teams,” he said. “And we’re still not sure how the scoring is going to work. We’ll talk about that as a staff next week.”