Eastern Washington travels to Cal Poly in search of first Big Sky win

As recently as two weeks ago, opponents like Weber State were calling Eastern Washington a desperate and dangerous football team.

The Eagles were winless in conference play then, and winless they remain.

Saturday, they get another chance to earn their first Big Sky victory of the season, and they will look to do so against the Cal Poly Mustangs, also seeking their first conference victory.

“No matter how desperate they are, I know every guy on our team is as well,” Cal Poly junior quarterback Spencer Brasch said of EWU on Wednesday. “Them being a desperate team does not change the fact we’re a 1-5 team and we’re extremely desperate for the win.”

That’s the added challenge this week for the Eagles (1-5, 0-3 Big Sky), who for the first time since their season opener will face an opponent that doesn’t have a winning record.

“They’re gearing up for the same conference victory that we are,” EWU coach Aaron Best said during his Tuesday news conference. “Advantage them: They’re at home.”

The Eagles haven’t played in San Luis Obispo since 2019 when they held on for a one-point victory. The Mustangs scored a touchdown with 5 minutes left but opted to go for two instead of settling for a point-after attempt. They didn’t convert, and Eastern won 42-41.

Eastern also won the most recent matchup, in spring 2021, and it did so much more convincingly (62-10) behind big games from Eric Barriere as well as Gunner Talkington – who completed 6-of-9 attempts for 132 yards and two touchdowns – and an overall offensive output of 683 yards.

But the Mustangs, who were then playing just their third game with Beau Baldwin as head coach and canceled the rest of their season after that loss, are a much different program now as the former EWU coach has continued to convert the Mustangs from a triple-option offense to something much more Eagles-like.

Baldwin said the Mustangs (1-5, 0-3) are “worlds apart” now from the team that played 19 months ago in Cheney.

“I know the results – the win-loss record – is not reflecting that right at the current moment necessarily,” Baldwin said on Wednesday, “but in terms of our size and strength and our ability, we’re in a different stratosphere.”

Cal Poly is 1-13 in conference games under Baldwin, but the Mustangs have demonstrated this year that they can move the ball through the air, something they didn’t do for a long time. In 2019, the Mustangs ranked second in the Big Sky in rushing and were last in passing. Through six games this year, they rank 10th in rushing (with 93.2 yards per game) and are first in passing at 344.3 yards per game.

That’s 60 more passing yards per game than any other Big Sky team and 100 more than the Eagles are averaging this season.

Consider also that the highest-ranked Big Sky defense the Mustangs have played is the Sacramento State Hornets’ (ranked fifth in total yards allowed), whereas that Hornets’ defense is the lowest-ranked unit that the Eagles have faced in their three conference games so far.

Call this, then, the equalizer, as the Mustangs and Eagles rank 11th and 12th in the Big Sky, respectively, in total defense.

Brasch, who took over as Mustangs starting quarterback in Game 3 of the season when redshirt freshman Jaden Jones was injured against South Dakota, leads the Big Sky in passing at 279.4 yards per game, though he also has thrown a conference-high eight interceptions.

Cal Poly has moved the ball well against opposing teams, but it has struggled in the red zone. In 20 trips inside its opponents’ 20-yard line, Cal Poly has come away with 10 touchdowns and one field goal, the lowest scoring percentage (55%) in the Big Sky.

“We’ve been really productive in a lot of things on offense,” Brasch said, “but once we get to the red zone, (we’ve made) a lot of mental errors.”

Eastern is one of three Big Sky teams with fewer red-zone drives this season, but the Eagles have been more successful, scoring 11 touchdowns and making one field goal on 15 trips to an opponent’s red zone.

Brasch also said every week the Mustangs are just “one missing piece” from a victory, evidenced by their nine-point loss at Idaho State last week and a two-point loss at Northern Arizona the week before. While the Eagles’ past two Big Sky losses haven’t been as close – they lost to both Sacramento State and Weber State by 24 points – they were certainly one drive away from beating Montana State on Sept. 24.

“We’ve just got to find a little bit more of a groove,” Best said.

They’ll look to find that against a team coached by someone Best knows well. Best was an EWU assistant during Baldwin’s entire head coaching tenure at Eastern Washington from 2008 to 2016.

Best said before the game he was sure the two would share some thoughts and smiles, and that during their years on the same coaching staff they built many memories, including a national championship at the end of the 2010 season.

“But you forget about all that stuff once it’s the ’22 version of the Eagles and the ’22 version of the Mustangs,” Best said.

“During the 60 minutes, (our time together) won’t be a thought at all.”