Eagles Aren’T Looking Past Idaho State
At first glance, tonight’s Big Sky Conference football opener against Idaho State might seem like the perfect cure for Eastern Washington’s early season offensive woes.
Kickoff is set for 6:05 at Woodward Stadium, and ISU comes in as nearly everyone’s preseason pick to finish in or near the basement of the Big Sky standings. In addition, the Eagles’ offense should be able to draw some confidence from having torched the Bengals for 504 yards in last year’s 45-38 win.
But first-year coach Paul Wulff has watched enough video of this year’s Idaho State team to know better.
“In a lot of ways, they’re more dangerous than Oregon State,” Wulff said of the Bengals, who opened their season last Saturday by amassing 608 total yards in a 58-10 rout of Montana Tech.
The main reason is the return of senior quarterback Shane Griggs, who missed all but two games of the 1999 season because of a knee injury. The 6-5, 200-pounder threw for 1,823 yards and 18 touchdowns as a freshman in 1996, but transferred to South Carolina the following year. He returned to ISU in 1998 and redshirted, only to have his junior season cut short by the injury. He’s healthy now, however, and getting more comfortable with every snap he takes.
“He’s one of the best quarterbacks in the country that no one has heard of,” Wulff said of Griggs, who completed 18 of 30 passes for 309 yards and two touchdowns against Montana Tech. “He’s a potential draft-choice kid and he’s a very good player.
“His ability to throw the deep ball, midrange ball and short ball is outstanding. He’s extremely accurate and he can break contain, get outside the pocket and make things happen. We’ve got to do a good job of closing windows and not allowing anybody to cut wide open, because if they do, he’ll hit ‘em.”
Second-year Bengals coach Larry Lewis, a former Washington State assistant, said Griggs started slowly against Montana Tech, but improved immensely as the game wore on.
“That first half, Shane just wasn’t clicking,” he explained. “I think it just took him a little time to get used to seeing things back there.”
Making Griggs even more dangerous is the Bengals’ running back tandem of Nick Whitworth and Trevor Bell. Whitworth, a 5-9, 182-pound senior, rushed for 1,106 yards and scored 12 touchdowns last season. Bell, a 5-10, 175-pound junior, got the majority of the carries against Montana Tech and responded with 92 yards and two TDs.
ISU still has some question marks on defense, but Lewis seems to have patched up most of the holes with an assortment of redshirt freshmen and junior college transfers.
“They’re much improved on defense from last year,” Wulff said. “The kids have been in the system a year longer. They understand what they’re doing, and they’re doing it quicker and reacting better.”
Eastern will counter with an offense built behind the running game. The Eagles would like to get the passing game going, too, but the yards won’t come easily against ISU’s veteran defensive secondary and lightning-quick linebacking corps.
“They don’t have a lot of big guys on defense, but they have a lot of speed,” said Eastern quarterback Fred Salanoa. “Idaho State might have been picked to finish last this year, but they’re going to surprise some people.
“And if we’re not ready coming into this game, they might surprise us.”
Notes
Kevin McCarthy, who stepped in at quarterback after Griggs was injured last season, threw for 477 yards and three touchdowns in the Bengals’ 45-38 loss against Eastern last year. … Allen Salanoa, who coaches tight ends for ISU, is the older brother of EWU quarterback Fred Salanoa… . The Bengals’ quarterbacks coach is Aaron Price, the son of Washington State coach Mike Price and a former Cougars assistant. … Eastern has moved linebacker Travis Calloway, a 6-2, 215-pound redshirt freshman from Tacoma, to tight end to help compensate for the loss of Danny Curley, who will miss the rest of the season after undergoing knee surgery. Curley, a senior, has not had a redshirt season and will probably return next year.