Ewu’S Wulff Plays Waiting Game At Qb

Eastern Washington coach Paul Wulff will make a game-time decision on his starting quarterback for Saturday night’s 6:05 Big Sky Conference matchup against Montana.

Junior Fred Salanoa, who has started all four games for the 3-1 Eagles, suffered a concussion late in the first quarter of last Saturday’s 27-24 double overtime win over Weber State and did not practice Monday or Tuesday.

He was cleared to practice Wednesday afternoon, but Wulff said he will wait to name a starter.

“We’ll see how it goes (with Salanoa), but we probably won’t decide who’s going to start until right before game time,” said Wulff, whose Eagles sit alone atop the Big Sky standings at 2-0 heading into Saturday’s George Gee Governor’s Cup clash at Albi Stadium. “We just don’t know yet.”

Montana (2-1, 0-0), will be playing its first league game of the season and will have to be prepared for either Salanoa or junior Chris Samms, who relieved against Weber and threw for 177 yards and two touchdown.

Samms took nearly every practice snap on Monday and Tuesday, but shared time with Salanoa on Wednesday.

Ticket run

As of late Wednesday afternoon, close to 7,500 tickets had been sold for Saturday’s Montana-EWU game, according to Eastern officials. That is nearly 3,000 more than were pre-sold for last year’ Albi Stadium matchup against Idaho, which ended up drawing 9,694 - the second-largest crowd to watch an Eastern game at Albi.

The largest crowd to witness an Eagles game at the 28,000-seat facility was 10,213 for a 1984 showdown against Idaho. An Eastern representative said the school hopes to break that mark on Saturday, with an expected crowd of between 12,000 and 13,000.

Get your rah-rahs out

Bands and cheer squads from Montana and Eastern Washington will participate Friday in a 5 p.m. pep rally that will take place at Main and Wall in downtown Spokane.

The public is invited to attend the rally, which will be held in conjunction with Saturday’s game.

Quick kicks

Idaho State is averaging 49.5 points and 509 yards of total offense per game at home in Holt Arena, but only seven points and 245 yards of total offense on the road… . Portland State’s Terry Charles leads all Division I-AA receivers in receiving yardage with an average of 149.3 per game, while Northern Arizona running back Marcus King leads the country in scoring with an average of 16.7 points per game. … First-year Eastern Washington coach Paul Wulff has the best overall (3-1, .750) and conference (2-0, 1.000) records among Big Sky coaches. Montana first-year coach Joe Glenn ranks second overall (2-1, .667), but has yet to coach a Big Sky game, leaving third-year Northern Arizona coach Jerome Souers (10-7, .588) with the second-best Big Sky winning percentage.