Peach continues fruitful season

With his Eagles having the weekend off, Eastern Washington University coach Beau Baldwin didn’t field many game-related questions from the media during Tuesday’s weekly conference call for Big Sky coaches.

He was asked, however, about the play of senior defensive end Greg Peach, who may have emerged as a leading candidate for the Buck Buchanan Award given annually to the Defensive Player of the Year among Football Championship Subdivision schools.

Baldwin was quick to heap praise on the 6-foot-2, 250-pounder from Vancouver, Wash., who leads all FCS players with an average of two sacks per game.

“I haven’t seen anything quite like this from a D lineman,” Baldwin said of Peach, who has recorded 11 sacks and 14 tackles for losses in EWU’s four Big Sky games, running his career sack total to a school-record 311/2. “I mean, it’s special. He just continues to play with relentlessness – that’s what I see more than anything. Besides the great talent he has, he just keeps coming and keeps coming and keeps coming.

“Even on those plays where it might seem like a coverage sack and some guys have kind of given up figuring the ball is gone, he doesn’t. He practices that way, as well, so he does it all week long. Anything that’s coming to him, he’s worked hard for it and he deserves it.”

Peach had three sacks in last week’s big road win over Montana State.

Payton list adds Higgins

Weber State sophomore quarterback Cameron Higgins has been added to the official Walter Payton Award Watch List, from which this year’s FCS’s Offensive Player of the Year will be selected. Higgins, who leads the nation with 2,551 passing yards and 25 touchdown passes, has the Wildcats off to one of the best starts in school history.

Eastern Washington’s junior quarterback Matt Nichols is also on the list.

Northern Arizona cornerback K.J. Gerard has been added to the Buck Buchanan Award Watch List, from which the FCS’s Defensive Player of the Year will be determined.

Big game in Flagstaff

Any midseason game between the co-leaders in the Big Sky Conference title race usually includes Montana, but the Grizzlies (6-1, 2-1) won’t be a part of such a contest this time around.

Instead, the biggest conference game of the year – up to this point, at least – will involve co-leaders Northern Arizona (6-1, 4-0) and Weber State (6-2, 4-0), who square off Saturday in Flagstaff, Ariz., with the outright Big Sky lead as the reward for the winner.

Neither of the head coaches involved is downplaying the importance of the matchup.

“It’s got to be one of the bigger games we’ve ever played in,” said WSU coach Ron McBride, whose 16th-ranked Wildcats have won three straight since losing at Utah on Sept. 27. “And that’s fun. That’s what you want to do. You want to play every week for something that’s going to be important.”

NAU’s Jerome Souers, whose 15th-ranked Lumberjacks have won six straight since opening the season with a 30-13 road loss to Arizona State, backed away from labeling the game the biggest of his career.

“I think it’s really difficult, year to year, to rank games,” he said. “But this is a big game for us, because of its implications. And more importantly, it’s going to be a great opportunity to see two football teams that are emerging and find out who’s the best.”

UM players plead not guilty

Three University of Montana players, facing felony charges stemming from an assault that left a fellow student with a broken jaw, have pleaded not guilty.

Andrew Douglass, 18, is charged with felony assault for his alleged involvement in an incident that took place last month and was reportedly captured on an on-campus surveillance camera. Justin Montelius, 19, and Cody von Appen, 18, are both charged with aiding and abetting an aggravated assault.

All three student-athletes, who were redshirting this fall, remain enrolled in school but are no longer practicing with the team. The university is bringing expulsion proceedings against the three, who have also been restricted from certain parts of campus.

A court affidavit, The Missoulian story said, claims the surveillance camera video shows von Appen punching the alleged victim, Jesse Johnson, 18, in the back of the head, knocking him to the ground. Douglass then hits and kicks Johnson while he is on the ground, according to the affidavit.

Quick kicks

Montana, leading the FCS in home attendance, has drawn an average of 25,298 to the four games it has played in Washington-Grizzly Stadium this fall. … Montana, at No. 4, heads a list of three Big Sky teams ranked in the top 12 in this week’s FCS Jeff Sagarin Computer ratings. Weber State checked in at No. 5 and Northern Arizona sits at No. 12. … Northern Arizona’s six-game winning streak is the second longest among FCS schools, trailing only Elon’s seven-game streak. … Idaho State’s 11-game losing streak is the third longest in the nation, behind Indiana State (21) and Columbia (13).