Eags’ Johnson to miss season
Eastern Washington University football coach Beau Baldwin has learned that sophomore linebacker Zach Johnson will miss the rest of the season because of a blood clot in his left calf.
I used the status update on Johnson as the lead to the Big Sky Conference notebook that will appear in Thursday morning's S-R and tacked on an unedited version of that notebook below. You can also check here for details supplied by Eastern's sports information department.
The blood clot that had forced Eastern Washington University’s Zach Johnson into the unfamiliar role of sideline spectator this fall, officially put an end to his 2009 football season earlier this week.
Eagles coach Beau Baldwin confirmed as much on Wednesday, announcing the sophomore linebacker will miss the rest of the year because of the clot that developed in his left calf following off-season knee surgery.
Baldwin had originally hoped to have Johnson – who, along with his twin brother Matt – was a starter on Eastern’s defense as redshirt freshman last fall, available by mid-season. But because the blood-thinning medicine Johnson has been taking has not completely dissolved the clot, Baldwin and EWU’s athletic trainer decided to shut him down for the rest of the year for precautionary reasons.
“A blood clot is something you don’t want to mess around with,” said Baldwin, who is in the process of preparing his 17th-ranked Eagles (3-1 overall, 2-0 in the Big Sky Conference) for Saturday’s showdown against
In honor of his teammate and twin, Matt Johnson, a sophomore strong safety, will wear Zach’s No. 10 jersey instead of the No. 5 he has been wearing this fall.
“It seems really strange not having him out there,” said Matt, who intercepted a pass and returned it for a touchdown in last Saturday’s 56-30 road win over
“It was especially weird last weekend, because it was a road game and he wasn’t there. It was the first time I’ve played in game that he wasn’t at, too.”
Zach ended up watching the www.bigskytv.org webcast of the game with a friend in
“Ever since I’ve been playing with Matt, even if one of was hurt, we were there for each other, so it was tough to watch,” he admitted.
Still, the long-team prognosis appears promising. According to Johnson, the clot has been getting smaller and is expected to dissipate completely in another three months, which means he should be cleared for practice in the spring.
CLASS WARFARE
The first full week of classes at
In the past eight years, EWU is just 2-6 in games played on the Saturday following the first full week of classes – which will be the case on Saturday, when the Eagles take on winless
That record includes last Saturday’s romp past Sac State, which came three days after classes started for the 2009-10 school year.
NICHOLS CLOSING IN
Eastern’s senior quarterback and four-year start Matt Nichols has now completed 773 of 1,264 passes (61 percent) form 9,668 yards and 70 touchdowns during his stay in Cheney and needs just 593 passing yards and 666 yards of total offense to surpass former Walter Payton Award winner Erik Meyer as the Eagles’ career leader in those categories.
In addition, Nichols is just 14 career touchdown passes behind Meyer’s school record of 84.
QUICK KICKS
All five games involving Big Sky Conference schools last weekend were won by the visiting team. During the first three weeks of the season,