Eagles can’t rest while leaving Sky

It might seem to some that Eastern Washington’s non-conference football game against Southern Utah Saturday offers the Eagles a splendid opportunity to ease back into the late-season portion of their schedule following a much-needed bye week.

The Thunderbirds’ 4-5 record is not intimidating. Neither is their 2-2 Great West Conference mark. In addition, they are coming off a 45-21 road loss to South Dakota, and they’ve dropped their last two meetings in their series with EWU by lopsided margins of 49-14 and 49-21.

Eastern (6-3, 5-2 Big Sky) is riding a two-game winning streak that has kept it ranked in the Top 20 of nearly every Football Championship Subdivision poll in the country and trying to keep its postseason playoffs hopes alive.

Still, the Eagles are approaching Saturday’s noon game in Cedar City, Utah, with an obvious sense of caution and due respect for a Southern Utah team that is 4-0 at Eccles Coliseum, where they have outscored their opponents by a margin of 165-68.

“They’re really a good football team,” Eagles coach Beau Baldwin said of the Thunderbirds, who are led by senior quarterback Cade Cooper, an Oregon transfer, who has thrown for 2,379 yards and 25 touchdowns. “Obviously, they’ve played their best football at home, but even with some of their road games – you look at their three-point loss at Northern Arizona and their one-point loss at Cal Poly – it’s easy to see that they’re a team that could easily have six or seven wins if a couple of other things had gone their way.”

Eastern’s senior free safety Kevin Hatch compares Southern Utah to Big Sky rival Montana, which can clinch the conference’s regular-season title and an automatic FCS playoff bid by beating Northern Colorado Saturday.

“They’re just a real solid team,” he said of the T-Birds. “There’s no one who really stands out, but everyone is a good, solid football player, so it’s going to be a real challenge for us.”

According to Hatch, the Eagles will stick with the same defensive plan they used to silence Portland State’s spread passing game in a 47-10 romp past the Vikings in Seattle two weekends ago.

“They’ve got a senior quarterback and some good, big receivers, who are really physical,” he said.

Bye week not wasted

Last week’s bye week had a little different feel to it for the Eagles, who used their down time to refresh themselves physically and mentally.

“We had several goals going in, one of which was to practice with a purpose, which isn’t always easy this late in the season,” Baldwin said. “But I thought we were able to do that.”

Baldwin said his players also made good use of the training room to help heal some minor hurts, while lifting extensively to keep from breaking down physically this late in the season.

“We tried to make it seem as much like a normal game week as we could, while limiting the banging so some guys could heal up,” he said.

Nichols near record

Eastern’s senior quarterback and four-year starter Matt Nichols needs to accumulate 303 yards in the Eagles’ last two games to become the Big Sky Conference’s all-time leader in total offense.

Nichols, who already holds every important career passing and total offense record at EWU, has amassed 11,985 yards and needs 43 to move past former Idaho quarterback Doug Nussmeier (1990-93) into third place on the BSC’s career list. He is 221 yards behind former Montana State quarterback Travis Lulay (2002-05) and 302 short of breaking the 17-year-old record of 12,287 set by former Weber State quarterback Jamie Martin (1989-92).

Quick kicks

The Big Sky is ranked third among FCS conferences in the Sagarin Ratings. … Montana quarterback Andrew Selle had his string of 177 pass attempts without an interception snapped during last Saturday’s 12-10 win over Idaho State. … Despite having a bye week, Eastern Washington moved up from 21st to 18th in this week’s Sports Network poll, which has Montana ranked No. 2, behind Southern Illinois. Montana moved up to No. 1 in the FCS Coaches’ poll. … After falling behind 31-0 in last Saturday’s game against Sacramento State, Northern Colorado scored five second-half touchdowns – all on drives of at least 73 yards that took no longer than 2 minutes, 59 seconds – but still lost 38-35 in Greeley, Colo.