A Sloppy Win Can’t Cover Up Scars From Past

Years ago, they turned no respect into an art form at Eastern Washington University.

Football fed off it. The Eagles took teams to the postseason which - allegedly or in fact - had been dissed and dismissed, had tormented rivals who had taken them lightly, overcame fan indifference and the administration’s disdain. Sometimes it all seemed to be the very blood of the program.

Now there is new blood: Self respect.

No one seems so concerned with convincing the doubters anymore, possibly because nobody harbored as many doubts as the Eagles themselves.

And still they are unconvinced, even after Saturday’s 20-13 victory over Montana State at Woodward Stadium established the Eagles as one of the hottest items in Division I-AA football, whether the pollsters deign to acknowledge it or not.

“We won, but we can’t be satisfied with the way we won,” insisted defensive tackle Damion Caldwell, unimpressed by his two sacks.

“Not happy at all,” said free safety Maurice Perigo, mourning his two interceptions.

“When it got down to the nitty gritty, we needed to step up and we couldn’t,” complained defensive end Steve Mattson, who did a Deion and caught another touchdown pass as an extra tight-end in a goal-line formation.

OK, so it wasn’t art. So with EWU’s statistical superiority and MSU’s dogged fidelity to its Paleozoic playbook, the score could well have been 40-13 - though it would have tested the durability of the victory cannon being manned by some eager ROTC gunners who felt it appropriate to set off charges after opposing touchdowns, kickoffs, TV timeouts, you name it.

Easy there, Beetle. Save some for Saddam.

Well, the cannon is an Eastern tradition, alas, like ACL surgery.

This time it was the starting quarterback, Harry Leons, whose season apparently came to an unhappy end when he ripped up a knee at the end of a first-quarter scramble. EWU’s Plan B, Spokane freshman Griffin Garske, was just spectacular enough to minimize any immediate impact, though at this point the EWU staff has no Plan C.

You guessed it: Eastern’s season now rides on a wing and a prayer.

And its defense.

You read that right. The same burn victims from last November’s torch job have suddenly turned into the stingiest hombres in the Big Sky. Consider that the Eagles are on a pace to allow fewer points all season that they yielded in the last three games of 1995, with virtually the same personnel in uniform.

Well, maybe not the same.

They are a year older, a year wiser, a year stronger. Mattson is up 25 pounds from his playing weight of 1995, linebacker Derek Strey 12. Coach Mike Kramer points out that experience makes them faster, simply because they know where to go.

“Plus there’s an attitude now that we can do something on defense that has a lot to do with the outcome of the game,” said defensive coordinator Jerry Graybeal. “When you’re 4-7 and 3-8 like we were the past two years and something goes wrong, it’s easy to let your attitude be, ‘Oh, no, here we go again.’ Now it’s, ‘B.S., we’re going to do something about it.

“The Boise game (a 27-21 win in Week 2) was the first time with this group of guys that I’ve seen them attack an offense and say, ‘We can do something about this.”’

OK, so they had an accomplice Saturday in the Bobcats. Until MSU’s stubbornly retro coach, Cliff Hysell, opened up the offense and deployed four wideouts in the desperate moments of the final 10 minutes, the Bobcats had exactly zero yards passing and no drive longer than 19 yards. Trailing 7-0 with the ball at midfield and a minute to play before halftime, Hysell mysteriously kept calling dives into the line.

All of which made this the weird stat of the day: the Bobcats averaged 6 yards on every first-down running play, meaning they were second-and-4 almost all day. No wonder Graybeal was chewing nails - and butts - at halftime.

Well, the Eagles should be good at self-examination by now.

“We were not vilified by anybody but ourselves last year,” said Kramer, “but we went through a tumultuous off-season self-evaluation and our conclusion was what we were doing was right. It was just a matter of waiting for our players to develop.

“It takes about four years here for us to get a player ready - to be a good player. It’s just a fact that most of our guys aren’t good players until their fourth year on campus. Kurt Schulz, Kevin Sargent, Ed Simmons - they all shared that weaning process.”

And a 4-1 start doesn’t magically complete that process.

“We have to understand that it’s a mission unfulfilled,” Kramer said. “We still have to revisit some of the carnage of last year. The truth is, October and November have been Death Row for us.

“We’re trying to absolve something. We’re performing our own exorcism.” , DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review