New Year, New Faces For Eastern Kramer Faces A Lot Of Work With Greenhorns Aplenty

With his Eagles coming off an unprecedented 12-2 season that produced the school’s first out right Big Sky Conference football title and a berth in the semifinals of the Division I-AA playoffs, it would seem that this should be a relaxing spring for Mike Kramer.

By his own admission, his Eastern Washington program has “reached a performance plateau where we think we’ll be good every year.”

Yet these next four weeks could prove to be as demanding and important as any Kramer has faced in his four previous seasons as the Eagles’ head coach.

Along with having to coach up replacements for 15 departed starters, Kramer must also coach up his coaches four of whom are in their first year as full-time assistants at Eastern.

“Everybody will be starting from the ground up,” admitted Kramer, who will put his Eagles through their first of 16 spring practices Monday afternoon.

Nearly everything will be slightly different this spring. Four assistants left for Weber State and Kramer is scrambling to replace 15 seniors, who combined to earn nine all-conference spots and 28 individual All-American awards.

Still, he remains upbeat about the opportunities created by the losses.

“Those seniors will definitely leave a gigantic hole,” he admitted in reference to a group that included both the Big Sky offensive (quarterback Harry Leons) and defensive (tackle Chris Scott) players of the year.

“But because they’ve played so proficiently the last couple of years, we’ve spent a lot of time preparing and developing our other players. Now it’s their turn to shine.”

Top returnees include offensive linemen T.J. Ackerman, John Kane and Lance Knaevelsrud, and defensive backs Jimmy Lake, LeVar McClary and Ole Olesen.

Junior Griffin Garske will take over for Leons at quarterback and senior Mike MacKenzie, who rushed for 755 yards and six touchdowns as a backup last fall, should be ready to replace Rex Prescott, EWU’s all-time leading rusher, at tailback.

Of his new coaches - defensive coordinator Steve Kizer, quarterback coach Dave Telford, secondary coach Randy Hanson and defensive line coach Pete Kwiatkowski, Kramer says:

“It’s an exciting opportunity for an infusion of new blood into our program. Because we’re a team that returns only nine starters, it’s actually a positive situation with new coaches to go along with the new players.”

The Eagles will practice on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays the next four weeks, with Saturday scrimmages scheduled for April 25 and May. 2.

Spring drills will conclude with the annual Red-White Game on Saturday, May 9.