The Eastern Washington University football team plays its first home game in over a month when the Eagles host Idaho State and former Eagle head coach Mike Kramer Saturday (Oct. 4) at Roos Field in Cheney, Wash. Kickoff is 1:35 p.m. Pacific time on Hall of Fame Day at "The Inferno," and the day will also provide awareness for the Inland Northwest-based Community Cancer Fund.
The Eagles put their 11-game league winning streak on the line this week, having not lost since falling 30-27 at Southern Utah on Oct. 27, 2012. The Eagles are 21-2 in their last 23 Big Sky games dating back to a 0-2 start in 2011.
The Eagles enter the game 4-1 and are coming off a 37-14 victory against UC Davis. That was the third-straight road game for EWU, which has not played at home since Aug. 30. The Eagles are 26-4 all-time at "The Inferno" and have a current seven-game winning streak versus ISU.
"It's great to be back at home – I can't wait," said Baldwin, who won his 60th game as EWU's head coach last week. "Students are back and we just appreciate being able to play in front of our home crowd, which has given us so much love and support. Our players will be fired up."
Coached by Kramer, a 17-year head coaching veteran of the Big Sky, Idaho State is 2-2 overall and 1-0 in the league after knocking off Sacramento State 44-24. The Bengals finished with 639 yards of offense, with Justin Arias completing 30-of-42 passes for 413 yards and two touchdowns. Running back Xavier Finney rushed for 135 yards and three touchdowns, while Madison Mangum caught eight passes for a career high 174 yards, and also passed for a TD.
"We're playing an Idaho State team coming off a very good victory against a very good Sacramento State team," said Baldwin, whose program has outscored the Bengals 172-58 in the last four meetings. "They have looked incredibly good on video against the likes of Utah and Utah State. This is a different, different, different Idaho State team (than in years past) – and that's not just coach talk. It's going to be a tremendous challenge and a tough ballgame on Saturday."
This is the first game Kramer has played in Cheney with the Bengals, but previously he coached against the Eagles when he was head coach at Montana State. He spent five years as an Eastern assistant (1989-93), then six seasons as Eastern's head coach (1994-1999). He was the Big Sky Conference Coach of the Year in 1997 after he helped guide the 1997 team to the Big Sky title and an appearance in the semifinals of the FCS Playoffs. That 12-2 team was inducted into the Eastern Athletics Hall of Fame in 2012.
ISU will put up points to be sure, but EWU will boat race them off the red turf.
55-38 Eags if the D plays like it has most of the season.
55-24 Eags if the D plays like it did against UC-Davis.
I think it will be closer than that and I think ISU has a better D than people are giving credit for they held SAC State to 7 points in the 2nd half Saturday. I think that EWU is going to have there hands full with ISU throwing the ball. ISU has a better O-Line and will run the ball. I am going with the upset of the year!!!
Screamin_Eagle174 wrote:
We're looking past them toward SUU?
ISU will put up points to be sure, but EWU will boat race them off the red turf.
55-38 Eags if the D plays like it has most of the season.
55-24 Eags if the D plays like it did against UC-Davis.
Playing D against UC Davis ain't hard, especially with Manzanares hobbled. Their O might be worse than NoDak's right now.
True, we did stack the box and dared them to go deep, which burned us once, but worked out otherwise. ISU will certainly be a tougher task to contain, but it will be much easier going against their D instead of Davis'.
Screamin_Eagle174 wrote:
We're looking past them toward SUU?
ISU will put up points to be sure, but EWU will boat race them off the red turf.
55-38 Eags if the D plays like it has most of the season.
55-24 Eags if the D plays like it did against UC-Davis.
I think it will be closer than that and I think ISU has a better D than people are giving credit for they held SAC State to 7 points in the 2nd half Saturday. I think that EWU is going to have there hands full with ISU throwing the ball. ISU has a better O-Line and will run the ball. I am going with the upset of the year!!!
ISU 49-EWU-42
ISU's D is worse than ours, and that's saying something. Bengal D gave up 35 points to a D-II.
Also, your OL is pretty comparable with ours. One thing is guaranteed, there will be plenty of offense in this game.
Screamin_Eagle174 wrote:
We're looking past them toward SUU?
ISU will put up points to be sure, but EWU will boat race them off the red turf.
55-38 Eags if the D plays like it has most of the season.
55-24 Eags if the D plays like it did against UC-Davis.
I think it will be closer than that and I think ISU has a better D than people are giving credit for they held SAC State to 7 points in the 2nd half Saturday. I think that EWU is going to have there hands full with ISU throwing the ball. ISU has a better O-Line and will run the ball. I am going with the upset of the year!!!
ISU 49-EWU-42
Oh boy. ISU does not have a better O Line or running game than Eastern, and you will see that play out on Saturday, especially if Forte plays.
Grizalltheway wrote:Looks like yet another first to 60 wins game.
Careful. Both teams stunk it up today from what I saw. Your Offense is atrocious, maybe the worst I have seen from a Montana team. And I'd say the same about our D.
Grizalltheway wrote:Looks like yet another first to 60 wins game.
Careful. Both teams stunk it up today from what I saw. You Offense is atrocious, maybe the worst I have seen from a Montana team. And I'd say the same about our D.
Holy hell you two, it was just an observation. A largely correct one, I might add.
I will say I think there's a better chance our offense gets going than Eastern's defense being able to stop anyone decent. Not having Henderson playing at 100% or at all leaves a pretty big hole.
EWURanger wrote:
Careful. Both teams stunk it up today from what I saw. You Offense is atrocious, maybe the worst I have seen from a Montana team. And I'd say the same about our D.
Holy hell you two, it was just an observation. A largely correct one, I might add.
I will say I think there's a better chance our offense gets going than Eastern's defense being able to stop anyone decent. Not having Henderson playing at 100% or at all leaves a pretty big hole.
No, I get what you're saying. But your problems on offense are much bigger than just missing Henderson or not having him at 100 percent. To be honest, it's your offensive line. Yes, they are young and will get better as the season goes along, but you need a good offensive line to run a pro-style offense and be productive...it's like UM wants to run power all the time, but doesn't have the O-Line to do it. Then Johnson gets put in 3rd down passing situations time after time and defenses just T off on him. To beat EWU, you NEED to be able to put points up on the board. A lot of points. The UM defense is good, but I really wonder if Montana's O-Line is going to be able to lean on our defense enough to run the ball enough to keep the EWU O off of the field enough to hold them at bay.
For us, we're playing seven true Freshman on defense...seven. Those guys will get a little better, but really what we need is to get some guys healthy again. I guess we'll see. Playing SUU should help a little, although the last Big Sky Conference game we lost was in Cedar City (October 2012)...so "we shall see".
EWURanger wrote:To be honest, it's your offensive line. Yes, they are young and will get better as the season goes along, but you need a good offensive line to run a pro-style offense and be productive...
The Griz don't run a strict pro-style, but a multiple offense like most current pro teams.
You need a decent (not necessarily good) O-Line to run any kind of offense. Certain styles of offense don't magically perform better with a crappy O-Line versus other styles. The plus side for the Griz is that their line doesn't have to open much to let their RBs wreak havoc (we've seen that in the 3 home games). They also have Jamal Wilson, who's a really good blocking FB.
-Two teams in the BSC have a great defense (UM, UND), but shitty offenses.
-Three teams in the BSC have a great offense (EWU, MSU, ISU), but shitty defenses.
-The rest have an average or shitty offense, and a shitty defense.
EWURanger wrote:To be honest, it's your offensive line. Yes, they are young and will get better as the season goes along, but you need a good offensive line to run a pro-style offense and be productive...
The Griz don't run a strict pro-style, but a multiple offense like most current pro teams.
You need a decent (not necessarily good) O-Line to run any kind of offense. Certain styles of offense don't magically perform better with a crappy O-Line versus other styles.
My point is, if you want to be a power running team (which Montana does), then you need the O-Line to do it. Montana doesn't have that right now, but still tries to call plays like it does. It ain't really working.
Yes, you need a decent O-Line to run any offense, but you can still throw the ball over the field even without having a great line. Hell, we had a Peyton winner in 2011 after losing 4 or 5 linemen with a patchwork line and a backup TE playing center.
Mvemjsunpx wrote:
The Griz don't run a strict pro-style, but a multiple offense like most current pro teams.
You need a decent (not necessarily good) O-Line to run any kind of offense. Certain styles of offense don't magically perform better with a crappy O-Line versus other styles.
My point is, if you want to be a power running team (which Montana does), then you need the O-Line to do it. Montana doesn't have that right now, but still tries to call plays like it does. It ain't really working.
Well… prior to this week the Griz were leading the Big Sky in yards-per-carry, but whatever.
And I'm not really sure running primarily stretch plays qualifies as "power" running, either, but whatever.
The Griz O-Line has struggled with both run blocking and pass blocking this year—which has been worse has tended to vary from week to week. Montana's most dangerous players right now—particularly with Henderson out—are its running backs. You could pretend its easy to just throw every down with this personnel situation, but you'd be lying to yourself. The key for the Griz the rest of the way is to get healthy & for the line to get better. There isn't really a realistic way to scheme around that.
