Eastern Washington’s Brock Harrison to wear No. 4 this year – given annually to team leader
Heading into his second season with the Eastern Washington football team, Jaren Banks made two notable changes to his appearance.
He changed his jersey number to 6, and he’s sporting a new hairdo - a bleached mullet.
“I changed it probably two weeks before fall camp,” Banks said at the end of Thursday’s practice, the team’s first this preseason. “I’ve got a lot of respect for people with long hair now. It’s a lot more to manage than I thought it would be.”
Banks, who played previously at Rice, finished second on the team with 66 tackles last season even though he missed two games due to injury. He emerged as a leader on the team and earned the respect of his teammates.
All that is indicated by his switch this year to a single-digit number, after wearing 54 last season. A handful of the Eagles’ most respected players did the same over the offseason.
“(It was) our older guys who’ve been playing for two or three years now; a lot of those guys fly around and make plays,” senior Brock Harrison said. “A lot of it comes with seniority, but those guys are well respected.”
Harrison switched to No. 4 this year, a number that is given annually to the player who most embodies grit, toughness, effort, leadership and academic success. He wore No. 44 last year, when safety Anthany Smith donned No. 4.
“Going into my fifth year now, I’ve seen a lot of guys come through here now who’ve worn the No. 4, and they set the standard high for that number,” said Harrison, a defensive end . “You’ve got to rise to the occasion with that number, and I’m excited to wear it.”
Harrison – who said he does not plan to follow Banks’ example and do anything special to his hair – had two of the team’s 14 sacks a year ago, a figure that ranked 11th among the Big Sky’s 12 teams. That’s a figure the team would like to increase as it looks to bounce back from a 3-8 season.
Three other defensive players switched to single -digit numbers and thus figure to be important pieces of the unit this fall.
Senior cornerback Marlon Jones Jr., a preseason All-Big Sky selection, switched from No. 20 to No. 1 after co-leading the team in interceptions (three) a year ago and breaking up a team-best four other passes. Freddie Roberson, the team’s leading receiver in 2022, wore No. 1 last year.
Fellow senior cornerback Darrien Sampson, a team captain, will again wear No. 8. He played in only four games last season, when he tore his ACL, but Sampson said in July he plans to be ready to go Week 1 when the Eagles play North Dakota State on Sept. 2.
Another member of the secondary, Kentrell Williams Jr., switched from No. 34 to No. 2 and looks poised to make an impact this fall as a redshirt sophomore. He played in seven games last season, making 17 tackles, intercepting a pass and recovering a fumble. Starting quarterback Gunner Talkington donned No. 2 last year.
On the offensive side of the ball, a handful of players handed in their double-digit numbers for singles, including preseason All-Big Sky junior receiver Efton Chism III. He’s wearing No. 7 now instead of No. 89.
Senior receivers Anthony Stell Jr. (No. 3) and Tre Mason III (No. 9) also figure to be key pieces of the offense.
Redshirt sophomore Tuna Altahir, who led the Eagles with 444 rushing yards in 2022, is now wearing No. 5, the sum of the two digits of last year’s No. 32 and the number he wore in high school, according to teammate Kekoa Visperas.
And since he couldn’t have No. 5 – Visperas said he and Altahir played Rock, Paper, Scissors for it – the redshirt sophomore quarterback decided on No. 0, a number worn last year by defensive end Debore’ae McClain.
“Zero’s more like a defensive number, and I hang around a lot of defensive guys,” said Visperas, who wore No. 5 at Bethel High School in Spanaway, Washington.
Numbers have never been a huge thing to Visperas, he said, and he’s switched numbers every stage of his life (last year, as Talkington’s primary backup, he wore No. 16).
Visperas said he thought about switching to No. 3 last year, but Stell got it first. It is the number worn by Eric Barriere – the 2021 FCS Walter Payton Award winner – and Vernon Adams Jr., one of the most prolific quarterbacks in EWU history.
In the end, wearing No. 0 seemed more apt to Visperas.
“I pay my respects to (Barriere and Adams) all the time, tapping their All-American boards in the locker room,” Visperas said. “But that wasn’t me, and I realized that, so I just wanted to do something that was me and fit who I am. And it’s different, and I like to be different.”
The NCAA did not allow players to wear No. 0 until 2020, when it changed its rule.
No Eagles player wore No. 0 that pandemic-shortened season, but in 2021 the safety Smith wore it before switching to No. 4 the following year.
Eastern’s preseason camp roster contains a number of duplicates as far as jersey numbers, but most of those pairings include a true freshman who would presumably redshirt this season. Otherwise the jersey number would need to change if he were to suit up for a game.