EWU takes the field
At least it didn’t snow.
But Eastern Washington University’s opening day of spring football practice, which was delayed three days because of snow on the practice fields, certainly didn’t play out under ideal weather conditions.
The Eagles, who return 15 starters and 32 other letter winners from last season’s 9-4 team that advanced to the quarterfinals of the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision playoffs, held their first official practice under first-year head coach Beau Baldwin on a gray, cold and blustery Friday afternoon – which might have been a contributing factor in the high number of dropped and poorly thrown passes.
Still, neither the weather nor the sloppy execution seemed to repress the spirit of the moment.
“After a long winter and a kind of disappointing finish to last year’s season, everyone’s really excited to be back out here,” sophomore quarterback Matt Nichols said following the 2 1/2-hour workout. “Everybody’s out here ready to get better and start a new season with a new team.
“Obviously, the first day you have some little mistakes here and there – dropping the ball, bad passes, fumbles, whatever. But it’s more of first-day thing, I think, after not really handling the football for the last four months or so.”
Baldwin, who was hired in early January to replace Paul Wulff, acknowledged his offense didn’t look particularly sharp working against the No. 1 defense in just helmets, jerseys and shorts. But he didn’t sound like he was going to lose much sleep over it – for now, at least.
“I thought more than anything, these guys were excited to be out here,” Baldwin said. “They’re flying around, and their eager to be our here competing and learning again. I thought we were a little sloppy in certain areas – especially offensively, but I don’t think the makeup, mindset and attitude of this group is wrong at all.
“So, I’m not concerned at the moment, because I know they have the attitude and desire to get any problems we have fixed.”
Nichols, who was named the Big Sky Conference’s most valuable offensive player after throwing for 3,744 yards and a school-record 34 touchdowns last fall, was calling signals once again out of a no-huddle offense like Wulff and his first-year offensive coordinator Todd Sturdy installed last spring.
“It’s basically the same offensive this year,” Nichols said. “We’ve changed a lot of the terminology so people can’t pick up what we’re saying, so everything we call is called different. But it’s pretty much the same packaging, which is nice.
“I just think it’s a big thing to have a new coaching staff come in here and believe in what we’re doing and not change everything around again.”
The Eagles will practice again this morning at 10 and plan to work in 12 more sessions prior to their annual Red-White Game that will be held at 2 p.m. April 26 at Woodward Field.