Eagles in, will face McNeese State
His players were pretty well scattered, but Eastern Washington University football coach Paul Wulff and his staff of assistant coaches found a way to huddle together at Wulff’s home and watch Sunday afternoon’s NCAA Football Championship Subdivision playoff selection show on ESPNU.
“It was exciting to watch,” said Wulff, who ordered the selection telecast up on Dish Network. “But five minutes after it ended, we were all headed back to our offices.”
Which, in this case, is as a good thing for all those concerned, because it meant the Eagles, after finishing 8-3 overall and alone in second place in the Big Sky Conference standings with a 6-2 league record, had managed to carve out a spot in the 16-team FS playoff field as an at-large invitee.
“I was hoping it was just a formality,” added Wulff, whose Eagles will travel to Lake Charles, La., to take on unbeaten Southland Conference champions and No. 2-seeded McNeese State University (11-0) in a first round playoff game that kicks off at 5 p.m. in Cowboy Stadium on Saturday. “I just felt we were one of the better teams in the country, and I thought our season, and who we played, proved that.
Eastern, which made the playoffs in 2004 and 2005 before finishing a disappointing 3-8 last fall, thumped Weber State 38-16 on Saturday to cap a remarkable turn-around season that obviously caught the attention of the FCS selection committee.
And now the Eagles get a chance to build on the four-game winning streak they used to close the regular season.
Sophomore quarterback Matt Nichols, who threw for 256 yards and four touchdowns in Saturday’s win over Weber, watched the selection show with several family members and teammates at the rented house of his fellow sophomore and favorite wide receiver Aaron Boyce.
Among the others in attendance were Nichols’ mom, dad, aunt and uncle, who had made the trip up from his hometown of Cottonwood, Calif., for Saturday’s regular-season finale, and teammates Rocky Hanni and Toke Kefu.
“All of us were really nervous and excited to see where we were going – or even if we were going,” Nichols said. “It was relieving to hear we were actually in, because none of us want to quit playing right now. We want to keep winning some games for our seniors, so we’re going to prepare for this next one as best we can.
“I think some teams are going to be shocked by the way we play and learn that Eastern Washington is for real.”
In McNeese State, the Eagles have drawn a senior-laden team with a rich FCS playoff history. The Cowboys have never won a national championship, but they have made it to the title game on two different occasions, losing to Youngstown State (10-9) in 1999 and Western Kentucky (34-14) in 2002.
“They’re a good football team and they’ve been traditionally good over the years,” Wulff said of the Cowboys, who are 11-12 in their previous 12 playoff appearances. “They’re certainly talented, and they’re undefeated, but it’s a game – if we go down there, execute and take care of the football – that we can win.
“I like our odds, I like our resiliency and I like our ability to attack adversity. I think we’ll go down there and play well.”
Wulff said he also likes the fact that the seniors on this year’s team have been a part of two other postseason playoff ventures, adding, “It’s not like this is our first rodeo.”
Nichols, while making his first playoff appearance, hardly seems overwhelmed by the challenges of the immediate future.
“We feel like we’ve got a team that is playing well and can beat anybody right now,” he said. “We really didn’t care who we played. We were just worried about getting in, because if you want to win a national championship you’ve got to beat the best, so we wanted a chance to play against the best.
“And now we have it.”
Wulff said he and his assistant coaches plan to spend the next couple of days evaluating video of McNeese State. The Eagles will hold a light practice this afternoon, before getting back at it in earnest on Wednesday.
The team will practice Thursday morning before taking Thanksgiving afternoon off and then fly to Lake Charles on a chartered jet on Friday morning.
“We’re one of the few teams in America with the opportunity to still be playing at this point,” Wulff said, “and we need to seize that opportunity.
“It was a great relief to see our name up there. It makes you really proud and it makes you appreciate the hard work tha went into getting there. It’s all about the kids from now on, because this is something they can take with them for the rest of their lives.”