‘There is nobody more Eastern’: Athletic director Tim Collins backs football coach Aaron Best despite on-field struggles

Throughout this football season, Eastern Washington players and coaches have talked about how close this team is to being a playoff team.

It’s easy to envision scenarios in which that could have been true.

Had the Eagles defeated Drake (they lost by three in overtime) and Southeastern Louisiana (they lost by four) in nonconference games in September, Saturday’s matchup in Flagstaff against Northern Arizona could very well be a game between two teams fighting for one FCS playoff spot.

Instead, it’s the Eagles (4-7, 3-4 Big Sky) trying to keep the Lumberjacks (7-4, 5-2) out.

“For a better part of the year, we’ve played some pretty good football, played against some really good teams,” EWU head coach Aaron Best said Tuesday during media availability. “We just haven’t played well enough.”

EWU Athletics Director Tim Collins affirmed his support of Best on Thursday, and he pointed to the team’s consistent competitiveness as one reason for it.

Asked if Best, whose current contract runs through the end of the 2027 season, will be Eastern’s coach next year, Collins said, “That’s the plan.”

“We never lost the locker room, and that’s a reflection of the coaching staff and a player-driven culture,” Collins said.

Best, who has been Eastern’s head coach since the start of the 2017 season, has led the Eagles to three playoff appearances, including a loss in the 2018 national championship game. They are 52-39 with him as head coach. Since his days as a player, Best has been at Eastern every season but one since 1996.

“There is nobody more Eastern,” Collins said.

Eastern’s most glaring issue this football season has again been its defense, which through 11 games this year has given up 397 points, seven fewer than last year’s team did in its 11 games (this year’s calendar has an extra game for FCS teams).

The Eagles have given up more yards per game this year (470.9) than last (454.7) and have repeatedly failed to come up with stops on third down (52.6%), the second-worst percentage in the FCS.

But unlike last season, when the Eagles were outscored 397-355, this year the Eagles are up 412-408 on their opponents . Considering that Eastern is the only program in the 12-team Big Sky to play this year’s top five teams – Montana State, UC Davis, Idaho, Montana and, this weekend, Northern Arizona – Collins said he sees that as a significant improvement.

Still, Collins recognizes the need for Eastern’s defense to improve

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“We anticipated to play better defense overall,” Best said, listing off issues like third-down defense, red-zone defense and rushing yards allowed. “Sometimes those things are going to happen in someone’s first year coordinating (under Eric Sanders) and then first-year coordinating with players you didn’t necessarily recruit but have been around for a year.”

Still, Best said, despite that newness the Eagles “haven’t flinched.”

When looking at the Eagles, NAU first-year head coach Brian Wright said this week that he also sees a team that has persisted even through a 2-7 start to the season.

“(I see) a team fighting and still playing extremely hard,” Wright said, “And I think Aaron (Best) has them motivated. I think they are really playing hard and enjoying playing, and playing for one another. There’s no sign of a 4-7 football team there.”

EWU cornerback Darrien Sampson will get to play in the Walkup Skydome this weekend for the first time in his career, one that started with the Eagles in 2018.

Sampson – whose career has been beset by injuries – has been with the program for almost all of Best’s tenure and has played games in each of the past seven seasons.

This year hasn’t gone the way Sampson hoped. But he said this week that with a full offseason, the younger players who saw so many snaps this season will get better. The talent is there, Sampson said.

“We’re not going to the playoffs, but I am satisfied with the way we operated and built the DNA, coming together and working every day,” Sampson said. “We’ve bonded a lot this year as a team.”

Sampson also said the locker room has stayed together, and that winning two in a row has helped. One more win, he said, would be all the better.

“Everybody on the team wants to ruin these guys’ party,” he said of NAU. “It’s a game we’re looking forward to. All the guys are bought in and want to go out there one last time for the seniors and for the 2024 season.”