It’s live and learn
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Debacle is the first word to come to mind, which isn’t surprising when your football team is on the wrong end of a 56-17 score in the season opener.
But after a long bus ride, a little sleep and the torture of watching the film, Eastern Washington University coach Paul Wulff isn’t looking at Thursday night’s loss to Oregon State that way.
“I think they were clearly a better football team, very experienced and talented and it showed up,” he said. “A team with 16 returning starters really exposed where our inexperience lies early with our mistakes and it allowed them to jump on us. Once we settled down, we played much better.”
It is a long season and the games that really count start in three weeks when EWU embarks on its eight-game Big Sky Conference season. That’s when four turnovers and a special-teams touchdown will hurt more than pride.
So Wulff and his coaches are using the ugly parts of the OSU loss as teaching tools and mining a few positive nuggets to boost spirits.
“There are a lot of things that are correctable (and) we have to address those things,” Wulff said. “We’re going to get on them for the mistakes they made, but we have to get better fast and clean those controllable mistakes up. If it’s something that’s uncontrollable (better talent, more experience), there’s nothing we can do about that.”
But when all is said and done, what can any coach say after a humbling loss to a middle-of-the-pack Pac-10 team when a nationally ranked Top-10 team is the next opponent?
“A loss is a loss, a win is a win,” Wulff said. “Bottom line is our kids played hard and were trying to get better as the game went on, and that’s all we can focus on.
“We could have played Western Oregon or Eastern Oregon and if you turn the ball over they’re going to score points on you fast. Those are the things you just can’t do. … Those are the controllable things we have to get better at. If we take care of the football and we do the right things, no team should be able to that to us.
“Are they that much better of a football team than us? I don’t believe that, but we gave them the points to do that. That’s how things go. If we don’t do that to West Virginia, they’re not going to beat us like that.”
Injury report
The main goal for the Eagles, probably more than winning, was to escape Corvallis injury free, but that didn’t happen.
Senior rover Nick Denbeigh, who has started 25 straight games, broke a hand and could face surgery, putting him out four weeks. Junior center Chris Carlsen sprained an ankle and knee but should not miss any more than a week, if that. Quarterback Chris Peerboom suffered a mild concussion in the third quarter.
Eastern was without senior defensive tackle George Lane, who was suspended for the game for a violation of team rules. Lane, who did not make the trip, was replaced in the starting lineup by sophomore Gene Piffero.
Quarterback battle
Neither Peerboom, who sat out the fourth quarter, or freshman Matt Nichols had a great day, so they will probably split time again next weekend.
“Matt had more … opportunities,” Wulff said. “It’s still too early based on the environment we played in, lack of protection and lack of receivers getting open to give one person a clear-cut advantage.”
The basic numbers were bad – 56 plays, 126 yards, 2.2 yards a snap – but that’s only part of it.
The Eagles’ last possession, eight plays for 38 yards, lasted 5 minutes, 10 seconds. It was the only possession of 15 that went for more than five plays. The second-longest possession was 2:22. Only one other possession lasted longer than 2 minutes. Six possessions went for negative yards.
Notable
The 56 points allowed and 39-point losing margin were the worst since the Eagles lost to Montana 63-7 in 1995. … The 56 points for OSU were the most in a home opener since beating Willamette 76-0 in 1931. … Eight extra points gave Beavers kicker Alexis Serna a streak of 69 straight. … Only three times has OSU held an opponent to fewer rushing yards than the minus-14 EWU got. The others came in 1946, 1966 and 2002.