Eastern Washington makes just enough plays to turn back rival Idaho 21-14

Normally, Aaron Best affords his team 24 hours to dwell in the emotion after a football game, win, lose or draw.

But after Saturday’s 21-14 victory over Idaho at Roos Field in Cheney, the Eastern Washington head coach was feeling a tad indulgent.

“We’re going to enjoy this one maybe for 25 hours,” Best said. “Maybe we extend it another hour this go ’round.”

Best’s exuberance after this victory, which improved the Eagles to 2-1 in Big Sky play and 3-4 overall – including a 3-0 record at home – was palpable. And his praise for the Eastern Washington defense was effusive.

“It was a dream for a coach to watch his defense play as well as we did,” Best said. “I am so proud of those guys. We were in control the entire game on defense.”

Eastern wasn’t certain which Idaho quarterback would take the field at the start of the game. Redshirt sophomore Joshua Wood, who has led the Vandals (2-5, 0-3 Big Sky) to both of their victories this season, participated in warmups. But on Idaho’s opening possession it was Jack Wagner under center, and Wood was no longer in uniform.

Wagner was one of three Vandals players to take snaps, and they combined to lead Idaho to 337 yards of offense, their fewest since the team’s season-opening loss at Washington State.

“I think we handled them in the best way possible with No. 3 being out,” said EWU grad defensive end Trevor Thurman, who finished with seven tackles. “And as a defense, we played lights out.”

Those 337 yards were the second-fewest allowed by the Eagles this season, and the 14 points were the fewest Idaho had scored against Eastern in nine matchups since 2018. It also ended Eastern’s three-game losing streak in the series and should earn the Eagles the right to trophy case the Che-Scow Cup, a brainchild of previous Idaho coach Jason Eck.

But the trophy wasn’t at the top of Best’s mind.

“The least of my concerns,” he said. “Winning the game is No. 1. Tracking down the trophy is No. 2. But if (we can’t), maybe we make something up here and put it next to the Dam Cup.”

The Dam Cup was claimed two weeks ago when the Eagles defeated Portland State, a 35-27 victory that bookended the Eagles’ bye week.

“Winning before the bye really did help us a lot,” Thurman said, “and we were able to carry that momentum into the bye week. It was a good bye week to recover, rest up.”

Eastern welcomed back from injury senior cornerback DaJean Wells and redshirt junior defensive end Dishawn Misa, but the major contributions on defense still came from a core comprised of redshirt senior safety Drew Carter (seven tackles, one forced fumble), redshirt junior linebacker Myles Mayovsky (seven tackles, one pass breakup), grad senior Read Sunn (six tackles and two near interceptions) and redshirt sophomore Jaylon Jenkins, who got his third interception of the season and made three tackles.

A weakness the last three years against Idaho, Eastern’s run defense held the Vandals to 3.6 yards per rush and no plays longer than 16 yards.

Idaho’s two touchdowns came on passes of 26 yards (to Marquawn McCraney) and 40 yards (to Michael Graves). But otherwise the Vandals passing quarterbacks – Wagner and redshirt sophomore Nick Josifek – were held in check, completing 15 of 26 passes for 190 yards.

Eastern’s own offense came largely from redshirt sophomore Nate Bell, who ran 23 times for 134 yards and completed 18 of 31 passes for 177 yards and two touchdowns. Both those scoring throws went to redshirt junior Miles Williams, who had last scored a touchdown in the 2024 season opener against Monmouth.

The key sequence of the game came just before halftime. It started when Soren McKee made the second of his two first-half field goals with 1:31 left in the second quarter. That cut Idaho’s lead to 7-6.

Idaho went three-and-out, and Eastern answered with a three-play, 32-yard scoring drive to give the Eagles a 13-7 lead with 44 seconds to go until halftime.

After a scoreless third quarter, Eastern scored a touchdown again early in the fourth, followed by a two-point pass to redshirt freshman Jaxon Branch to make it 21-7.

Idaho’s last score came on a fourth-and-10 play with 2:30 left, and its attempt at an onside kick was nullified by penalty.

Now the Eagles will go back on the road for the first time since a 57-3 loss at Montana State three weeks ago when they play at Weber State next weekend in Ogden, Utah.

“Big Sky play didn’t start the way we wanted, but we were able to bounce back,” Williams said. “Now we’ve got everything we want ahead of us, so we just (need to) keep going, keep winning and get us to where we haven’t been in a while.”