Despite weather, Eagles impress in scrimmage
Eastern Washington University football coach Paul Wulff liked what he saw Wednesday morning in Eastern’s final scrimmage of fall camp, but that didn’t apply to the weather.
When they open the season next Thursday versus Nicholls State in Thibodeaux, La., in a matter of a week the Eagles will go from rainy and cold playing conditions to hot and humid.
“It’s surely not good for having to play next week in Louisiana,” said Wulff after his team played for the fourth-straight day in unseasonably cold and wet weather. “This weather has thrown everybody off, and we had to play today in a driving mist. But it was a good day. ”
Eastern’s offensive squads moved the ball well, scoring two touchdowns and generating 191 yards in just 31 plays. The performance was in stark contrast to a week earlier when the No. 1 offense accounted for 130 of the 159 yards the offense generated in 45 plays.
“All the groups moved the ball, which was good to see for our offense,” Wulff said. “I said last week that the defense was way ahead of the offense, but the offense was going to catch-up. The offense has definitely made some big strides since the last scrimmage.”
“Our pass rush was poor because of the field conditions,” he added. “The defense wasn’t able to put on the pressure that they have all camp.”
Quarterback Erik Meyer completed 4 of 5 passes for 51 yards on a 10-play, 65-yard scoring drive to open the scrimmage. He capped the drive with a 20-yard scoring strike to Richmond Sanders.
The No. 2 offense drove the ball well on the next series of plays but didn’t score as freshman Chris Peerboom completed 2 of 3 passes for 39 yards. The No. 3 offense capped the scoring with an eight-play, 45-yard scoring drive capped by a 3-yard touchdown run by Gavin Smith.
The Eagles also scored twice on a pair of first-and-goal situations from the 5-yard line, with true freshman Toke Kefu scoring both on a pair of short runs. Kefu was used extensively in the scrimmage, finishing with 10 carries for 30 yards. Senior Reggie Witherspoon added a pair of rushes for 11 yards and caught a pass from Meyer for 22 more yards.
“You could tell with some of the runs he had today that when he lowers his pad level and comes downhill he can deliver a blow and give us that tough yard,” Wulff said of Kefu, who rushed for 5,439 yards and scored 79 touchdowns in his career at San Mateo, Calif., High School.
“Reggie hadn’t been live all camp, but his quickness has always been a factor for us,” Wulff said of Witherspoon, who led the Eagles with 766 rushing yards and nine touchdowns a year ago. “He’ll continue to progress and improve through the season as long as he continues to get quality reps. He still needs the reps to get in a little bit better condition because he missed a decent amount of football this fall because of a hamstring injury.”
Both sides of the ball had several starters sit out the scrimmage as Wulff rested his veterans in order to watch his new players more closely. Safety Javid Shoemaker and linebacker Jake Young each had five tackles to lead the defense, and safety Brett Bergstrom added a pass broken up.
“We’ve had a real physical camp so far, and we have a lot of players nicked up,” he said. “We wanted to continue to play some of the younger players and see where they are. We did the best we could under the circumstances with injuries and the field conditions.”