Seven players leave EWU football program
Two former Greater Spokane League standouts are among seven players to leave the Eastern Washington football team at the conclusion of the academic year in June.
Quarterback Josh Powell (Shadle Park) and linebacker Derek Brown (North Central) were academic casualities.
“They didn’t meet academic qualifications to be eligible,” head coach Paul Wulff said of the two redshirt freshmen.
Powell, also a standout baseball player in high school, is expected to switch sports and transfer to a junior college in California.
The other scholarship player departing is offensive lineman Cody Bogar. Bogar, from Dreary, Idaho, decided he didn’t want to play anymore.
Walk-ons Casey Willis (K), Joe Alford (WR, JC transfer) and fullback Ryan Murphy (FB, from Gonzaga Prep) have decided to just be students.
Michael Land, a standout high school lineman from Walla Walla, is going to redshirt. He was injured during practice for the 2005 all-state game and didn’t enter school until winter quarter, which means he still has a redshirt season.
Grizzlies favored
Montana is heavily favored to win the 2006 Big Sky Conference championship but after that the coaches and media differed greatly on the upcoming season.
Eastern Washington was picked second in the coaches poll and sixth by the media. However, no coach voted EWU No. 1, with the lone non-UM vote going to Idaho State, which ended up fifth.
The Eagles got one first-place vote from the media with 28 going to the Grizzlies.
For complete voting results, see Scoreboard below.
Three Eagles honored
Three EWU players were recognized on the preseason All-Conference team picked by selected members of the media.
All-American junior guard Matt Alfred was a unanimous selection and is joined on offense by tight end Tim Calhoun. All-league safety Bryan Jarrett was picked on defense.
Montana State offensive tackle Joe Hirst, a senior from East Valley, was also a unanimous pick on offense.
For complete preseason All-Big Sky selections, see Scoreboard below.
Big Sky to video stream
The Big Sky Conference signed a three-year contract with Sportscast Network (SCN) of Salt Lake City to video stream league football, volleyball and men’s and women’s basketball games on the Internet.
Beginning this fall, all league football games, as well as volleyball and men’s and women’s basketball games played in league arenas will be available for viewing around the world on the Internet at www.bigskytv.org.
SportsCast Network and the Big Sky Conference are creating www.bigskytv.org, a web site devoted entirely to video streaming. For a fee, fans will be able to log on, watch their favorite games live, or watch archived events at all hours of the day. During events, fans will also be able to interact with other viewers via a live chat room. They will also be able to listen to radio feeds of their home team, and potentially have state-of-the-art real-time stats at their disposal.