Pass defense becomes concern No. 1 for EWU

The passing numbers Portland State put up in last Saturday’s 47-36 upset win over Eastern Washington University were sick – or sickening, if you happen to be a member of EWU’s young secondary, which was shredded for 623 yards and five touchdowns by Vikings quarterback Drew Hubel.

Portland State hasn’t been the only the only team this fall to knock the Eagles’ defensive backs on their heels. Heading into Saturday’s Big Sky Conference game against 12th-ranked Montana (4-1, 0-1 Big Sky), Eastern has allowed an average of 421.1 passing yards per game – a number that has them ranked last in the conference in pass defense and well behind eighth-ranked Portland State, which has given up an average of 313.0 yards per game.

Opposing quarterbacks have completed 67.1 percent of their passes.

Even Adam Perry, from Division-II Western Washington, burned the Eagles for 349 yards and two touchdowns in a 52-31 loss.

It is not surprising that Eastern’s inability to defend the pass has become a major concern for coaches and players as they attempt to come up with ways to stop the hemorrhaging.

Nor it is surprising that there seems to be no easy fix.

“It’s been frustrating,” junior free safety Kevin Hatch said. “Everything has kind of played a role in it.”

Everything from the inexperience brought on by the graduation losses of starters Bryan Jarrett, Ira Jarmon and Anthony Dotson from last year’s secondary to the new schemes and techniques implemented by first-year head coach Beau Baldwin and his staff.

“Other than Ryan Kelley and Hatch, there’s no guys back there with experience,” said defensive backs coach Torey Hunter, a former standout in the secondary at Washington State University. “Lonnie (Hosley) has a little bit, because he platooned with Ryan last year, but now he’s hurt (ankle).

“You lose a Jarrett, you lose an Ira Jarmon, and then you bring in a new system where we’re asking a little bit more from our DBs and teaching them different types of techniques and fundamentals, and you can get a game like last Saturday’s, unfortunately, although you never expect to give up 600 yards.”

What Hubel did against Eastern was startling.

The 6-foot-5 sophomore completed 44 of 73 passes and came within a yard of matching former Weber State standout Jamie Martin’s Big Sky record of 624 passing yards in a single game.

“He came out and hit a few passes early and definitely got into his rhythm,” Hatch said of Hubel. “And they really had some good route concepts, too, so if one guy wasn’t open another guy was ready to make the play.

Hunter said he felt so helpless watching Hubert pick apart his secondary from the press box that he wanted to get down on the field and try covering someone himself. But he said the majority of the blame – in this instance, at least – falls squarely on the shoulders of the coaching staff and the schemes employed against PSU.

“As coaches, we take ownership and preach about being accountable,” Hunter said. “And I don’t know that we always put our players in the best positions last weekend.

“It wasn’t missed assignments as much as it was bad alignments. We put ourselves in some situations where we couldn’t make up (ground) and, again, as their coach, I’ll take that and stand in front of the bus for my kids. (Portland State) figured out the weak spots in our coverages and just kept going back to the well.

“And then, unfortunately, we missed some tackles, too, and that’s something the kids can take ownership in and be accountable for. Because in watching the film, you could see where we were close in a lot of instances, but just didn’t make the plays.”

Hatch agreed the video of the PSU loss showed there was plenty of blame to go around.

“A lot of it was scheme,” Hatch said. “There were a couple of times they had great plays called and our defense wasn’t ready for what was coming at us. But there were also times when we were right there and just didn’t make the plays we need to make.”

Kelley, a senior cornerback and transfer in just his second season at Eastern, echoed Hatch’s sentiments.

“Their quarterback did a really good job of finding the open receiver, and then their players did a good job of doing something with the ball after they made the catch,” he said. … The coaches took the blame for it, as far as schemes go, but when you go back and watch film, we were there. We just weren’t making plays, whether it was a missed tackle or not having your head around, you know, good eyes.”

Hunter said that the game plan for the Eagles’ secondary against PSU might have been a bit too deeply rooted in reacting to what the Vikings were doing rather that playing to their own strengths.

“We’re going to go back to what we were doing early in the season,” he said. “We need to get back to the basics, re-establish a defensive identity and work off that. We’re not going to do some of the stuff we did last week against Montana, that’s for sure.

“I guess I wouldn’t be so upset if we weren’t capable, but we are. We just need to put our guys in better situations scheme-wise, and we’re going to do it.”