‘We’re going to be physical’: Mike Wortham highlights efficient return game for Eastern Washington

As practice wrapped up Tuesday on the practice fields at Eastern Washington University in Cheney, about 15 players lined up to receive footballs from a machine set to simulate kickoff returns.

It was mostly a group composed of receivers and running backs, with a couple of defensive backs and a couple of quarterbacks – redshirt freshman Nate Bell and senior Mike Wortham – mixed in.

Last year, Wortham rejuvenated a kickoff return unit that led the Big Sky in kick return yards despite not returning one for a touchdown (Wortham did so, but only on a play negated by a penalty). Wortham averaged 28.3 yards per return, part of his notable impact in his first year with the program.

But Wortham’s impact wasn’t felt on the punt return, at which the Eagles ranked last among the Big Sky’s 12 teams with 49 punt return yards.

“One of the biggest things that can stop a punt return is the gunners from the punt team,” EWU special teams coach Danny McDonald said Tuesday. “If you’re not holding them up and running down with them and blocking them, then they’re going to cause fair catches, and that happened a lot.”

With All-America wide receiver Efton Chism III back to field punts last season, the Eagles had just 10 returns, fourth fewest in the conference. That was twice as many returns as the Eagles had in 2022. All five of those returns were made by Chism, who in 2021 had 25 returns – but only for 104 yards.

All that is to say: Punt returning has been a significant weak spot for the Eagles lately, perhaps one reason why McDonald was hired to oversee EWU’s special teams, a position the program last filled in a specific, dedicated way in 2019.

“I think first, he brings energy,” EWU head coach Aaron Best said of McDonald, who was previously in Cheney in 2018 and 2019. “His experience in other places has been great. He’s been around some really good specialist coaches (and has) been around some really good defensive coaches.”

McDonald coached previously at Washington State, Auburn and Boise State, and in his previous stint at Eastern he worked as a quality control role with the team’s quarterbacks and receivers. This year he is also coaching the Eagles’ outside linebackers.

This is McDonald’s 10th year of coaching, and he estimated he has moved six or seven times during that stretch.

“But it’s fun,” he said. “You get to go see the country, learn a lot from different coaches, and it’s been especially great to get back here to Eastern Washington because my wife and I grew up in Seattle, and this is really home for us.”

Eastern’s kickoff and punt coverage teams finished in the middle of the Big Sky’s rankings last year, so the punt return is the most glaring area of need.

One solution may be putting Wortham back there.

“We definitely want to use him in the correct times and the correct spots so he can help our team win,” McDonald said of the quarterback/returner. “He’s been working his butt off all spring long, all summer long and all fall camp to be really good in punt return as well. So that’s an aspect he wants to grow.”

Last week, Wortham said returning kicks is easier for him but that he’s grown more comfortable returning punts.

“(I am working on) catching the ball in the air, trying to focus on my coordination with that,” Wortham said, “making sure I’m as crisp as possible.”

But McDonald also pointed out that Chism remains the team’s top option at punt return and that the team is focused on ensuring he – or whoever returns punts – has more space to operate.

“We’re making a big emphasis on the jammers, on finding guys who can do that,” McDonald said of the players charged with blocking the opponent’s gunners. “We’re going to be physical and go and eliminate those gunners.”

He said also the Eagles are changing their scheme along the line of scrimmage to more effectively keep the punt team’s core from making a deep push upfield – again with the goal of giving Chism more space to return punts.

Last season, five Big Sky teams returned at least one punt for a touchdown and seven teams averaged at least 10 yards per return – twice the Eagles’ average of 4.9.

“The more we can hold them up at the line of scrimmage,” McDonald said, “that’ll create more space for Efton or whoever’s back there.”

Field-goal competition continues

The Eagles ended practice Tuesday with a kicking competition. Best opened it by asking all the players to stand on either sideline, depending on whether they thought Soren McKee or Jackson Cleaver would perform better during the final drills.

The majority sided with the redshirt sophomore McKee, who won the competition by making more kicks than the stronger-legged redshirt junior Cleaver.

Best threw in a twist as the team moved into final sprints, absolving the smaller Cleaver contingent – not the supporters of the victorious McKee – from running.

“You won,” he said, referring to McKee’s side, “you run.”