Things to watch: Eastern Washington’s offense must get going early in home opener

After playing – and losing – three straight games on the road to start their season, members of the Eastern Washington football team aren’t hanging their heads, quarterback Nate Bell said.

“We know we’re close,” Bell said. “Mentally, we just know we can get the job done.”

Like he did in last week’s loss at Northern Iowa, the redshirt sophomore Bell will start at quarterback for the Eagles when they face FCS opponent Western Illinois at 4 p.m. Saturday at Roos Field in Cheney. It will be the second start of his college career, both in place of Jared Taylor, who suffered an injury in Week 2 against Boise State.

“We were optimistic, (but) he won’t be able to go Saturday,” EWU head coach Aaron Best said of Taylor on Tuesday. “The hope is next week he’ll be back with us when we start Big Sky play (at Montana State).”

Bell’s play will again be front and center as the Eagles look to avoid their first 0-4 start since 2011, a season in which they later rallied to finish 6-5.

But the Eagles would rather avoid delaying such a turnaround; they’d like to end this losing streak immediately.

“There is a certain confidence that comes with winning and knowing that you can win a game,” redshirt sophomore safety Jaylon Jenkins said. “That would be big for us.”

Here are three factors to look for as the Eagles and Leathernecks face off on the red turf of Roos Field:

1. Do the Eagles rev up the offense in the first half?

The Eagles have yet to score any points in the first quarter; across all of last season, that happened just twice.

Unsurprisingly, Eastern has also yet to play with a lead, and it has put the team in some desperate – or at least uncomfortable – positions, trailing on the road.

“(Against Northern Iowa) the main thing was a lack of execution, especially in the first half,” redshirt junior wide receiver Miles Williams said. “We came out slow and turned it up later in the second half. But the stuff in the first half put us back a lot and made us have to play perfect.”

Perhaps a return home will conjure memories of the last time the Eagles played a football game there, on Nov. 16, 2024. It went rather well for the offense, which scored 77 points – the program’s most ever against an FCS opponent – in a 77-42 victory over Idaho State.

2. How much pressure does the Eagles defense produce?

Eastern has hardly been impervious defensively, having allowed at least 463 yards in all three games so far. But among the 12 Big Sky teams – varying matchups being as they are – Eastern’s 33 points allowed rank as the seventh fewest.

Some of that is due to Eastern’s play in the defensive red zone, where it has allowed eight touchdowns and three field goals in 16 opportunities. That’s already an improvement on how the team performed last year, when it allowed points in 43 of 46 defensive red zone situations.

Eastern’s defense is also heavily reliant on underclassmen – four of its top seven tackers are sophomores or freshmen – but Jenkins said the group is coming together because of that.

“The guys that you went through the process with – trying to get on the field and working out with and hanging out with – being able to play with them is exciting,” he said.

Through three games, Eastern has four sacks, three forced fumbles and one interception. The Eagles would like to stack plenty more into each category on Saturday.

3. Was the recent spike in penalties a blip or the start of a trend?

Eastern was called for nine penalties last week at Northern Iowa, which is more than it was called for the first two games combined.

EWU coaches have pointed out before that a team committing too few penalties can be a sign that a team isn’t being aggressive enough. In other words, penalties don’t perfectly correlate with success. Last year, for example, the Eagles were called for the second-fewest penalties in the Big Sky (45) but finished with a 4-8 record.

But the timing of last week’s penalties was particularly costly, with two of them bringing back touchdowns. A penalty for an illegal man downfield nullified a Wesley Garrett 50-yard touchdown catch in the third quarter; a penalty for illegal formation called back Bell’s 20-yard touchdown run on the Eagles’ final drive. They failed to score on both of those possessions.

“I am one of the guys where if I line up correctly (on Bell’s run), we probably win the game there,” Williams said. “There is no need for us to get discouraged and lose confidence. It’s controllable. … It’s within our grasp.”