Given Proper Frame Of Mind, Coaches Try To Avoid Big Picture

As anxieties build among the fan bases at both schools, Eastern Washington’s Mike Kramer and Montana’s Mick Dennehy wrestle with the temptation to consider the implications of Saturday’s critical Big Sky Conference showdown in Missoula.

A conference title could hang in the balance; an at-large Division I-AA playoff berth, as well. Yet neither coach can afford the luxury of thinking what it might mean, should their team walk out of Washington-Grizzly Stadium as a winner this weekend.

“I think for any of us to look further down the road beyond this weekend would be a major, major error,” said Dennehy, who has his Grizzlies ranked No. 4 in the country with an overall record of 5-1 and a Big Sky mark of 4-1. “The league has shown that on any given weekend anyone is capable of beating anyone, so our focus had better be just on Eastern Washington and not on what might lie beyond.”

Kramer, whose Eagles (4-3, 3-1) have won three straight league games to stay within a half-game of Montana and Portland State (5-2) in the Big Sky race, agrees with Dennehy’s philosophy, but for different reasons.

His team is coming of a tougher-than-expected 45-38 win over last-place Idaho State in which the Bengals amassed 31 first downs and 604 yards of total offense.

“I don’t feel like that has even entered our thought process,” Kramer said, when asked to assess the importance of Saturday’s game, which will kick off at 1:05 p.m. (PDT) in front of a sellout crowd of almost 19,000 and a regional Fox Sports Net television audience. “It would be nice to consider, but it seems like every week we play, we’ve got a particular area on our football team that is so fundamentally unsound that we spend the whole week trying to make fundamental corrections.

“We have not, as a staff or even as a team, been able to focus on the overall conference situation. We haven’t even considered what the implications are for the playoffs or anything like that, because we’re coming off a game where we gave up 600 yards.”

Fortunately, fans can indulge themselves in implications - which in this case are numerous.

For openers, the winner of Saturday’s game could emerge as the only once-beaten team in the Big Sky, should PSU - which has already beaten both Eastern and Montana - stub its toe at Weber State.

And both teams have legitimate chances to run the table the rest of the way.

Eastern plays two of its final three games at home - against Cal State Sacramento (4-3, 2-3) and Weber State (3-4, 2-2) - with a difficult road trip to Montana State (3-3, 1-2) sandwiched in between. Montana’s final two Big Sky games are on the road at Idaho State (2-5, 0-5 and arch-rival MSU. And while nothing is certain, both teams appear to have a much easier road than Portland State, which has the upper hand in a tiebreaker with either EWU or UM, but still has tough road games at Weber State and Northern Arizona (3-3, 1-2), along with a Nov. 6 home matchup against Cal State Northridge (3-3, 2-2).

In addition, the winner of the Eastern-Montana game has gone on to win the Big Sky title the past four years.

Working in Eastern’s favor is recent history. The Eagles have won three of the last four games played in Missoula - including a 40-35 thriller in 1997 en route to the conference championship and an eventual berth in the I-AA semifinals. Neither coach can explain EWU’s recent success in the hostile environment of Washington-Grizzly Stadium.

“I would suspect that a lot of it has to do with coaching and preparing their kids,” Dennehy said. “Our crowd is a little bit different than most, but for some reason - mainly by the way they’ve played - Eastern has been able to take the crowd out of it and not allow it to become a factor.”

“Our three wins in Missoula have had one thing in common in that the game was close in the fourth quarter and, by some means, we were able to make a run at them behind our offensive line,” Kramer said. “All three times the game, regardless of the score, was in doubt at the start of the fourth quarter and then our offensive line and running game was able to make things happen.

“It’s the same plan we use against every team - don’t fracture early, get to the fourth quarter and give ourselves an opportunity to use either the run or the play-action pass to gouge you. And it isn’t going to change this weekend.”

Regardless of the implications.

Another grounded Eagle

Eastern Washington has lost the services of Patrick Edwards for the remainder of the season after the freshman free safety suffered a testicular injury during last Saturday’s win over Idaho State.

Edwards, who made his first start against the Bengals in place of Alvin Tolliver (ankle sprain), sustained the injury early in the game but continued to play. The pain worsened after the game, however, and he underwent emergency surgery early Sunday morning.

“It was a traumatic injury,” explained Kramer, who added that one testicle was torn, along with the sheath that separates it from the other. “I’ve never seen anything like it, but the doctor told me it was the same type that he’s seen on jet pilots when they eject.

“He hurt it on the second play of the game but he played the whole way. You could see him staggering to his feet after every play, but he didn’t know what had happened.”

What have you done to me lately?

Southern Utah, a Division I-AA independent based in Cedar City, Utah, has long been lobbying for membership in the Big Sky Conference.

There has been no offer forthcoming, but the Thunderbirds certainly meet all of the league’s criteria as far as unpredictability is concerned.

Last year, for instance, coach C. Ray Gregory’s team beat eventual conference champion Montana 45-35, but lost to last-place Idaho State 50-33. The Thunderbirds also lost to runner-up Cal State Northridge 44-17 but thumped Eastern Washington 43-21. Then last Saturday, in their first 1999 matchup against a Big Sky opponent, they clubbed Weber State 39-7 to raise their record to 4-3. The win was the first over the Wildcats in 12 meetings and prompted Gregory to wonder if his team might have sent the wrong message.

“Tonight, we said, `If you let us in this conference, you may not like the result of what is going to happen,”’ Gregory said after the lopsided win.

Eastern at Montana Saturday, 1:05 p.m.