John Blanchette: Fireworks all around the Big Sky, but none more so than in Cheney

Say, did someone mention that the Big Sky is stupid?

North Dakota, everyone’s new warm fuzzy toy, blows a two-score lead at home Saturday and loses to Idaho State. Montana – looking more and more like a one-hit wonder (or one-Stitt wonder, if you prefer) – faceplants at home against Weber State. UC Davis – 0-5 and on its way to a school record for “Good try, guys” – beats up Northern Arizona.

And Portland State buries its second FBS opponent of the season, North Texas – which dismisses its coach before the custodian can unplug the scoreboard.

That’s right. Portland State. Got a guy fired.

And not their own guy.

Meanwhile in Cheney, Eastern Washington surrenders a subdivision of rushing yards, plays defense on 94 snaps, trails by 15 points with six minutes to go – and wins.

Did we say stupid? Upgrade that to crazy stupid.

“I agree,” said EWU coach Beau Baldwin, who said it laughing.

Of course, the crazy, the improbable, the antic and angst-sodden – all have become commonplace on the blood stain in Cheney, and the 42-41 overtime escape against Cal Poly will inevitably suffer in the memory as an early October amusement compared with playoff swashbuckling or Griz game drama.

Also: Cal Poly’s really in the league?

We know commissioner Doug Fullerton has annexed every school in the West except DeVry, so it’s hard to keep track. Plus, the Mustangs run that very un-Big Sky triple option stuff, so they’re always going to seem like an outlier. Maybe if they changed their nickname to the Unsaturated Fats it would be more in the league’s wacky spirit.

Actually, for a good portion of Saturday’s festivities, they looked to be out of Eastern’s league.

But here’s the thing about triple-option football: it had better work pretty much all the time. Against the Eagles, in particular, two touchdowns is never going to be enough of a lead – even on a day when catch-everything-in-sight Cooper Kupp is swallowed up in a cloud of defensive backs.

So the Eags scored all they needed when they needed it, helpfully aided by four flags against the Mustangs on the crucial drives, including the rarely seen defensive delay of game on fourth down and a hold that wiped out a likely game-saving interception on the tying two-point conversion. Then Kendrick Bourne turned a short slant in overtime into a sensational 25-yard touchdown, leaving it all up to Eastern’s defense.

That’s right, the defense. Flash floods and other diversions were unavailable.

Not all that much earlier, the Mustangs had shown virtually no regard for the Eagle “D” on a couple of fourth-and-more-than-1s in Poly territory, a virus that seems to be going around. Statistical wounds – Poly’s 503 rushing yards, a 36-to-24 edge in possession minutes – had not yet scabbed over.

But there was this: Eastern had forced Poly to punt on its first two second-half possesions, more than a little victory with the Eagle offense still needing a jump start.

“Without that, we would have been done,” Baldwin admitted. “They would have been able to really bury us.”

The defense had done it again to get the Eagles the ball back for the OT-forcing scores. There was even a gutty stand in overtime, though the officials awarded Poly quarterback Chris Brown a touchdown he still hasn’t scored. Maybe that’s what gave Mustangs coach Tim Walsh the idea he was holding hot dice.

“When the TD was under review, the coaches brought us over and said ‘Get your mind ready for the two-pointer, because they’re going to want to win this right now,’ said safety Todd Raynes.

But the Eagles had Brown’s counter sniffed out – Raynes was squared up to take on pitchman Kori Garcia when Brown’s flip bounced off his fingertips.

After 94 snaps, it was Poly’s offense that broke, not Eastern.

“That’s something our players have prided themselves on,” said defensive coordinator Jeff Schmedding. “They have a great reset button.”

No one more so than Raynes. In his first action after missing two games with a hamstring pull, he had 14 tackles – even without the saving one. He also had a cause: as EWU staged Breast Cancer Awareness Day, Raynes pocketed the memory of his aunt, Kellie Conwell, who fought the disease for six long years before passing away in 2010 at the age of 49.

“This was pretty emotional,” he said. “I lost it a little bit after the game.”

And the Eagles’ cause? Maybe just to be themselves.

“We have the ability to win any game on the schedule,” Baldwin said, “and get beat by anybody, too. That’s the 2015 team. We’re not the ’12 team or the ’13 team. That’s just the truth. We have to own that and be humble about it.”

Humble? In the crazy stupid Sky, humility is only a Saturday away.