EWU wavers on bye
Need to heal trumps eagerness to play
Bye weeks during the college football season make for wonderful conversation tinder.
Is the timing good? Is the timing bad?
In some cases, it would seem the timing can be both.
Take Eastern Washington University, for example. The Eagles (0-2), who are facing the first of two bye weeks on their 2008 schedule, are coming off back-to-back losses to Football Bowl Subdivision heavyweights Texas Tech and Colorado in which they acquitted themselves quite well.
On the emotional side, there is a collective desire among Eastern’s players to kick it off again, immediately, to help numb the pain from the past two weekends – and especially from last Saturday, when they built a 21-7 halftime lead against Colorado, before falling 31-24 on the road in Boulder, Colo. But on the physical side, there is an obvious need to let some key players heal up from the pounding they’ve taken while having to play up a level for two weekends in a row.
“I think everyone’s kind of mad right now that we’ve got to wait two weeks to play another game,” junior quarterback Matt Nichols said prior to Tuesday’s practice. “After a loss like Saturday’s, I want to play the next day and get it over with.”
Instead, Nichols and his teammates must wait until Sept. 20, when Division II Western Washington University comes to Woodward Field for a 6:05 p.m. game, to try to wash away the bad taste of their 0-2 start.
“So maybe it’s a good thing to be able to have that taste in our mouths for so long before going into the Western game, because then you know everyone is going to be ready to play,” Nichols said.
The physical aspect is a different issue, according to EWU’s first-year head coach Beau Baldwin, whose Eagles suffered a rash of minor injuries in their loss to CU.
“Ultimately, it’s a good time for a bye for us,” Baldwin said. “We’re a little dinged up, and we’re hoping to take some bangin’ off our kids’ shoulders this week, while still trying to keep them mentally sharp.
“The only day we’ll pad up is Thursday, and even then, we’re going to be smart about what we do.”
Several of Eastern’s starters, including defensive tackle Lance Witherspoon and linebacker J.C. Sherritt, suffered injuries during the CU loss that kept them on the sidelines. But Baldwin expects all of those players to be ready to go when Western comes calling.