Wulff feels Central offers Eagles a good measuring stick

Few expected the Eastern Washington University football team to open the season with anything other than a 0-2 record.

Beating Oregon State was a long shot, beating sixth-ranked West Virginia next to impossible.

The big concern was the physical and mental toll facing consecutive I-A teams would have on the I-AA Eagles.

Those concerns are tested tonight when Eastern faces Division II Central Washington at Woodward Field.

“It’s not a play day – it’s a game we need to win. That’s all that matters,” EWU coach Paul Wulff said. “The 2006 football team has not won a game.”

Physically, the Eagles are in better shape now than they were at the same point last year against lesser competition, although junior quarterback Chris Peerboom, who started the season opener, will miss his second game recovering from a concussion.

Mentally, the jury is out, but Wulff saw marked improvement from the 54-17 loss at OSU to the 52-3 loss at West Virginia.

“I don’t know how easy it is to tell exactly where we’re at based on those two football games,” he said. “I thought I’d have a little bit better idea but it’s tough to judge yourself in those situations. I was hoping to be a little further along in some areas. This game is going to give us a lot closer idea of where we’re at as a football team.”

To that end, Wulff does not expect his team to take CWU lightly.

“We are not done making improvements,” he said. “We have to get better this week. We’re going to treat it like a league game.”

He has specific goals for his team.

“Offensively, we have to finish drives – score touchdowns,” he said. “We have to find a way to go on 10-play drives and score when we’re inside the 5. Defensively, we have to be able to make plays, force turnovers, force some three-and-outs.”

Central should be a good test.

The Wildcats (1-1) return nine starters on defense and have a quarterback, sophomore Mike Reilly, who originally went to Washington State.

Reilly has passed for more than 300 yards three times in his brief career, surpassing 200 11 times. He had 238 in the season-opening 28-14 loss to North Dakota, which upended Northern Iowa, the third-ranked I-AA team, 35-31 last weekend.

The defenders include sophomore defensive back Brandon Kennedy from Gonzaga Prep, who has returned an interception for a touchdown this season, and senior linebacker Chris Burch from Inchelium, the Wildcats’ leading tackler.

Reggie Ford and Chris Anderson, who were at EWU last year, are backups at wide receiver and fullback, respectively.

One thing Wulff won’t do is resort to gimmicks, such as pointing out next week’s Big Sky Conference opponent, Montana State, that lost to D-II Chadron State after beating I-A Colorado.

“We’ve got our own battles,” he said. “We have to spend more time looking at what we’re doing, rather than what other people are doing and how scores come about. We have to take care of our own issues.”