Eastern Washington tries to keep momentum going in Big Sky opener at Montana
MISSOULA – Montana football fans have kicked around the topic all week on social media: Where does Eastern Washington fall in the pecking order of teams you most want to beat?
The consensus is that Eastern isn’t even close to Montana State and well below Idaho, which hasn’t played the Grizzlies in 14 years but will be back in the Big Sky Conference next year.
UM and UI have one thing in common: Both are flagship universities with far more resources than Eastern can dream of.
Hence the tendency for fans to look down their noses at the directional school in Cheney. (By the way, Eagles fans, try not to to drool when you see Montana’s new $14 million athletic-performance center).
Griz coach Bob Stitt has a different perspective – and a lot of respect for the Eastern program – going into Saturday night’s Big Sky Conference opener at Washington-Grizzly Stadium.
During the past five years, Eastern is 35-5 in Big Sky Conference play, a whopping 11 games better than Montana’s 24-16 mark. In that span, the Eagles have won four conference titles and reached three semifinal games. No other Big Sky team has reached the quarterfinals.
The Eagles have been better than UM for a full decade: 64-16 in the conference with a national championship while Montana is 57-23 with two title game appearances.
“This is a big game for us because Eastern is a team that could win a national championship every year,” said Stitt, who went on to recall everything the Griz did wrong in last year’s 35-16 loss in Cheney.
That will mean nothing on Saturday in a game that will leave the loser in a bit of a hole. The unranked Griz are 2-1 but don’t need to open league play with a home loss – not with Stitt already on the hot seat with a 15-10 record in two-plus seasons.
Eastern – which has won just twice in Missoula in the last 20 years – is 1-2 after two blowout losses and a 56-21 win last week at Fordham. A 1-3 start would mean an uphill struggle toward an accustomed spot in the postseason.
“We’re still an unfinished product and we want to continue to get better as the season goes along,” EWU coach Aaron Best said of the 11th-ranked Eagles.
Certainly, the Eastern passing game improved by leaps at Fordham after getting handcuffed by Texas Tech and North Dakota State. Quarterback Gage Gubrud is the conference offensive player of the week after throwing for 399 yards and running for 72 more.
“He’s a heckuva player and he makes it go,” said Stitt, who acknowledged the Eagles’ losses at wide receiver but still sees that unit as a big threat.
The wild card is Montana freshman quarterback Gresch Jensen. Now the starter after Reese Phillips was lost for the season last week, Jensen is a versatile, 6-foot-2, 215-pounder with a big arm and decent mobility.
But does he have enough mobility and game savvy to hold off an Eagles pass rush that registered a school-record 10 sacks last week? Stitt thinks so.
“He had a lot of (first-unit) reps in spring and fall, and in his mind he should have been the guy,” Stitt said. “He handled it very well last week (in a 56-3 win over Savannah State) … I think Gresch is ready for that stage.”
And the renewal of a rivalry that isn’t going away.