Eastern corners talented bunch
If anyone thought replacing mighty mites Isaiah Trufant and Jesse Hendrix in the Eastern Washington University secondary would be easy, that notion has been squashed in recent weeks.
The Spokane Shock are headed to the af2 championship game this weekend, thanks in no small part to the play of Trufant and Hendrix, who joined the arena football team in midseason and spent the previous four autumns as the usual starters at cornerback for the Eagles.
“Jesse and Isaiah were really both good,” EWU senior DeNique Ford said. “Me and the other young corners had a chance to learn a lot from them. … We’ll be ready, I know we will. I’m really excited. I’ve been waiting since I was a sophomore for this. As far as the responsibility, this is my senior year. I want to be a leader out there.”
Junior Ira Jarmon, expected to start on the opposite side of Ford, concurred.
“They set a very good example and they raised the bar high for everyone on the team,” he said. “We’re the sleepers. Nobody knows what we can do.”
There are a couple of big differences between the Ford-Jarmon combination, and the speedy Trufant-Hendrix duo.
The first difference is experience, as both Ford and Jarmon saw time last year when Trufant was injured.
“The nice part of it is we’re not dependent on freshmen,” said head coach Paul Wulff, who threw Trufant and Hendrix to the wolves in 2002. “DeNique and Ira have played a lot of football for us. They’re the leading candidates and they’re playing well.”
In addition to the experience, they’re both a couple of inches taller and 20-30 pounds heavier than the 5-foot-7, 160-pound Trufant and 5-9, 165-pound Hendrix.
“They’re different types of guys than the guys we had before, but I think that’s going to add something to it,” defensive coordinator Jody Sears said. “They’re more physical. They have more strength.
Their backups are untested but talented.
Redshirt freshman Brett Igbinoba out of Cheney – “the surprise of camp,” according to Wulff – probably has the No. 3 spot secured because of an outstanding fall camp.
E.J. Whitley, a junior transfer from UNLV, redshirt freshman Kevin Hatch from Freeman and freshman Lonnie Hosley, who sat out last year for academics, are also in a battle for the second team. Whitley has the better size and speed, but is still learning the system. Sophomore Adam Macomber would be in the mix, but he has rarely practiced this fall because of a virus.
“I like the way they’ve progressed,” Sears said of all the cornerbacks. “They’re athletic enough to play the position, no doubt about it. It’s a matter of getting them reps, getting live bullets fired at them. I love the way they practice. … They compete. They’ll fight you to the bare knuckles. That’s a plus for us. They’re confident and they’re very, very competitive.”
The young players will be on display this morning when the Eagles have their final scrimmage before next week’s opener at Oregon State.
Wulff said the team would go through about an hour of practice, beginning at 9 a.m., before a 40-play scrimmage starts about 10 at Woodward Field.
The scrimmage will be mostly 2-on-2s and 3-on-3s with some starters, mostly underclassmen, spotted in. Both candidates for starting quarterback, Chris Peerboom and Matt Nichols, will see time with the twos.
It is the next step to see how good the depth is at cornerback.
“We feel like we have kids there that need to keep playing,” Wulff said. “They’re all doing a good job. It’s just going to take time. As the season progresses we’ll have a better feeling.
“They have to prove it in ball games. Do we think they can do it in ball games? Absolutely. But until they do it we’re going to keep pushing them. We’ve got to gain confidence in all of them, but they’re extremely capable.”