Eastern Washington travels to Portland State with opportunity to gain first-round bye in FCS playoffs

For eight consecutive fall football seasons, Eastern Washington has ended its regular season with a game against Portland State.

That streak continues at 2 p.m. Saturday, when the No. 5 Eagles (8-2, 5-2) will play the unranked Vikings (5-5, 4-3) in Hillsboro, Oregon, hoping to bolster their playoff resume. A victory likely secures a first-round bye for the Eagles, who are poised to reach the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs for the third time in Aaron Best’s five seasons as head coach.

But the Vikings are going to be hungry, Best said this week, and the game serves as a tipping point for Portland State – a victory would give PSU its first winning season since 2015, Bruce Barnum’s first as head coach there. The Vikings could finish as high as third in the Big Sky standings.

“There’s always something on the line, and this time it’s on the line for both teams,” Best said. “They’re out to make noise for themselves.”

Portland State boasts the fifth-best offense in the Big Sky, and much of that yardage has been gained through the air. Senior quarterback Davis Alexander leads an offense that averages 281.5 passing yards per game, third most in the conference behind Sacramento State (288.1) and Eastern (407.4).

Historically, this matchup has produced plenty of offense. In 2019, their most recent meeting, the teams combined for 99 points and 1,119 yards in a 53-46 victory for Eastern Washington.

The year before, in Hillsboro, the Eagles put up 74 points, their most against another Division I school. Eastern has won seven of the previous eight matchups, the lone loss by three points in 2015.

Eric Barriere, who last week became the Big Sky’s all-time leader in career passing yards, is looking for his third victory against Portland State and is also chasing the program’s single-season passing record, held by Gage Gubrud (5,160, in 2016). Through 10 games, Barriere has 3,937.

He is also still within reach of the FCS career total offense record of 16,823 yards, a mark held by Steve McNair (Alcorn State), provided Barriere has a few big playoff game performances. Barriere’s figure is 14,242 yards.

Barriere, who won his sixth Big Sky Offensive Player of the Week honor on Monday, is also vying for an honor that eluded him last spring: the Walter Payton Award, given annually to honor the best offensive player in the FCS.

“They have a quarterback who comes around every 10 or 20 years that everybody’s trying to contain,” Barnum said of Barriere. “We’ll put a package together and see what happens.”

Portland State’s defense couldn’t slow Sacramento State much last week when it allowed 543 yards to the Hornets at a clip of 8.5 yards per play. But the week before, the Vikings won 30-18 at Weber State, a team that came to Cheney and handed the Eagles a loss in October.

The Eagles are aware and wary of that reality, but they are also confident after their bounce-back 38-20 win at UC Davis last week.

“It was very important,” redshirt freshman tight end Blake Gobel said Tuesday.

“I mean, if we want to be deep in the playoffs, like we always talk about, we have got to start stacking up wins now. I think, hopefully, we’re getting back to our hot streak at the right time.”

A bye, too, would be huge, Gobel said, and it would give Eagles’ players a chance to go home and see their families over Thanksgiving and rest their bodies for a potential home game the following week.

But junior safety Keshaun King said the Eagles are being careful not to overlook the Vikings, either.

“We know that (Portland State) is a pretty good team this year, and they’re not going to be a pushover,” King said.

Alexander will play the Eagles for the fourth time in his career.

While Alexander hasn’t beaten the Eagles, he has generally had success throwing the football against them. In those three games, he has completed 58.1% of his throws for an average of 299 yards per game.

Against EWU, Alexander has thrown nine touchdowns but also six interceptions, and he has run for 152 yards and a touchdown.

“Their quarterback, he likes to scramble and create plays,” King said. “That’ll be the most challenging part of it.”

This will be the last year in the foreseeable (three-year) future when the Eagles and Vikings will end their regular season against each other.

Next year, the Eagles are slated to end with Northern Colorado and in 2023 against Northern Arizona. The Vikings aren’t even on their conference schedule for 2024.

That will rob Gobel, at least, of a trip home that season. But he certainly is looking forward to playing Saturday in Hillsboro, a place the Eagles traditionally draw many fans.

“There’s going to be a lot of home fans watching me play,” said Gobel, who played at Banks High School, about 13 miles from Hillsboro. “It’s going to be really exciting.”