Inside EWU’s growing culture as Eagles try to cap .500 season: ‘Closest team I’ve been on’

A quick scan of the Eastern Washington football roster reveals an enticing truth: Heading into the 2026 season, this team might not lose all that many players.

Combine that with a better win-loss record and the widespread opinion within the program that this is a tightly knit team, and the vibe around the Eagles is an upbeat one.

“For me personally, this is the closest I’ve been with any team I’ve been on, and we’re a tight group as a whole on offense and defense,” redshirt junior wide receiver Cole Pruett said. “No matter who is out there we’ve created a great connection from the top to the bottom of the team.”

Capping this season with another victory, then, would be all the sweeter for these Eagles (5-6, 4-3 Big Sky), who will play their final game of the season Saturday at Cal Poly (3-8, 1-6).

Of all Eastern’s Big Sky opponents this season, Cal Poly is the one it has played the fewest times historically. The Eagles have lost just two of the programs’ 14 all-time matchups, dating back to their first in 1994. The Eagles have won 10 straight, including a 48-13 victory at Roos Field in 2023.

Pruett, whose 23 catches rank fourth on the team, plays a position that graduates more than any other group on the team. Saturday will be the final game for Nolan Ulm, Noah Cronquist and Wesley Garrett, three of the team’s top seven pass catchers this season. Starting tight end Landon Cooper (21 catches for 223 yards) is also done after this weekend.

But outside of that group, the Eagles stand to lose very few starters among the 20 players who walked on senior day last week.

Winning Saturday’s game for those 20 seniors is just one more incentive.

“At the end of the day, the mindset, regardless of it (being) the last week, we’re going to go in there and try to win this game and finish out the year 5-3 in Big Sky play,” sixth-year senior Trevor Thurman said on Tuesday. “It means a lot more than 4-4.”

That has been a refrain ever since last week’s 27-7 victory over Northern Colorado, one that gave the Eagles more victories overall and in conference play than they have had each of the last three years.

This year has seen the Eagles improve drastically on defense, climbing from the bottom of the Big Sky rankings last year to the middle in many categories. They have shaved seven points off their defensive average (from 36 to 29) and 44 yards off their per-game average as well.

This year’s defense has already intercepted 13 passes, which ranks second in the Big Sky and is more than double Eastern’s total last year (six). Their five fumble recoveries are four more than they had last year.

It is an encouragement to the group to see that the areas coaches have emphasized the last 11 months are the team’s areas of most improvement, redshirt sophomore Jaylon Jenkins said.

“It’s like, as soon as we buy in and trust the process, good things are happening,” Jenkins said. “And that just builds trust.”

Saturday’s game, then, is an opportunity for the Eagles to put an exclamation point on all that defensive improvement. They will be trying to do so against a Cal Poly team that has averaged 26 points and has attempted the fifth-most passes (and the 10th-most rushes) in league play.

“They’re going to try to attack us in the air, again,” Thurman said, referencing Northern Colorado’s plan last week when the Bears attempted 36 passes, more than any of Eastern’s four previous opponents. “Hopefully we’ll have the same outcome with all the takeaways.”

Indeed, Eastern’s defense nabbed five interceptions in that game and would have had six if DaJean Wells had held on to a pass headed right at him at the end of the first half. Wells, who is still looking for the first interception of his college career heading into his final college game, got teased about that this week, EWU head coach Aaron Best said.

This will be the latest in the season the Eagles have ever played the Mustangs, and compared to what the weather could be like in the rest of the Big Sky’s outdoor venues, Saturday’s projected high of 72 – Cheney’s high that day is 48 – might feel like a heatwave.

Both teams would, of course, prefer that this was not the end to their season, but Best said that knowing the season is done Saturday regardless of the outcome does make it easier to prepare for emotionally.

And Best, like his players, is eager for the opportunity to get to 6-6, to end the year on a high note, and to give the team’s seniors one more victory.

“This locker room will be different come Sunday. We will never lace it up with all these guys,” Best said. “That’s cool in a lot of ways.”