Eagles to tackle problems
With the disappointing season-opening loss behind them, the Eastern Washington Eagles are ready to tackle a new challenge.
The emphasis is on tackle.
The major complaint Paul Wulff had of his players after the 35-24 loss at San Jose State was their inability to finish off the Spartans when they had them in their grasp.
That’s not good news for the Eagles, who don’t have a game this week. Instead of looking ahead to the home opener against Western Oregon, it’s back to basics.
“We’re going to tackle until we get it figured out,” the coach said.
He didn’t heap all the blame on the players, however.
“Some of this was me as the head coach,” Wulff said. “We didn’t scrimmage a lot heading into this game. We wanted to do our best to get the kids to the game (healthy). We knew heading in we might be suspect because we didn’t have a lot of practice in live situations.”
In other words, the shortcomings from the loss that dropped the Eagles from fourth to sixth in the I-AA Top 25 poll can be spread around.
“We’ve got some corrections; we’ve got a lot of work in front of us,” Wulff said. “Starting with the defense. We had some miscues, got caught in a few situations schematically that we weren’t quite ready for because we had no video tape on them. Our play at defensive end needs to improve dramatically.
“Offensively our line showed flashes of good things, but was inconsistent. Our performance there wasn’t quite good enough. And we missed some throws here and there. Those are things we can’t do and expect to win.”
Injury report
Wulff expects defensive tackle Garrett Quinn (sprained knee) and offensive tackle Chris Perkins (sprained ankle) to be ready. It’s wait and see for backup QB Chris Peerboom (finger) and special teams player Chris Anderson (wrist).
Peerboom’s injury is problematic. Wulff and offensive coordinator/quarterback coach Beau Baldwin had already made the difficult decision of making true freshman Matt Nichols the No. 3 quarterback and moving redshirt freshman Alex Smart to receiver.
The hope was Nichols would redshirt, but that could change.
Cats scratch
Montana State’s high-powered offense was held to 254 yards, but that’s not surprising considering the Bobcats were playing at Oklahoma State. What is surprising is the MSU defense, which melted down last November by giving up 127 points in three games, held the Cowboys to 15 points in a 15-10 loss.
The Cats led 10-8 at halftime and reached the OSU 33 midway through the fourth quarter before losing.
“Where it’s a giant or a pipsqueak, if you lose, it’s a loss,” MSU coach Mike Kramer told the Bozeman Chronicle. “There’s no way around it. We let a giant off the hook.”
Wild Weber
Coming off the worst season in school history – 1-10 – Weber State opened the Ron McBride Era with its biggest shutout win. The Wildcats crushed Western State 61-0 in a game halted with 8:16 to play because of lightning.
Sky writing
Led by Weber, Big Sky Conference teams crushed Division II Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference teams 168-13. Northern Arizona hammered Adams State 52-13, despite leading just 7-0 at the half, and Montana drilled Fort Lewis 55-0. … The Sky went 0-4 against D-I teams, losing by a combined 132-51. Sacramento State trailed Cal 10-3 at the half before losing 41-3 and Portland State was down 20-7 at Oregon State at halftime before losing 41-14. … Nationally, I-AA teams were 1-11 against I-A. The exception was Northwestern State beating Louisiana-Monroe. I-AA was 20-2 when playing down … There are seven BSC games this week, four against D-1, three against I-AA. … WSU running back Adrian Conway, ISU defensive end Jeff Charleston and MSU punter Travis Lulay are the BSC players of the week.