Red-carpet treatment: Eastern Washington hopes back-to-back home games can provide momentum boost to start season

It’s been five years since Eastern Washington played a 12-game regular season, a scheduling allowance only possible when the calendar falls just right.

This season and the next one are years where the Eagles get to play an extra nonconference game, four instead of three, which in this case affords Eastern a second home game before beginning the eight-game Big Sky schedule. That’s not always a luxury the department can afford.

This year’s schedule is notable for another reason: It’s the first in Eastern’s history that starts with a pair of home games against other FCS teams.

And while there’s one drawback to that – classes aren’t yet in session, meaning students aren’t as likely to be around – it should help the Eagles get off to a better start than the previous few years.

“Our goal every year is to build a schedule that (helps) us make it to the playoffs,” EWU athletic director Tim Collins said.

After hosting Monmouth on Thursday and then Drake on Sept. 7, the Eagles will play at Southeastern Louisiana on Sept. 14 – the back half of a home-and-home between the two programs – and then at Nevada on Sept. 21.

Nevada is the so-called “money” game, as the Wolf Pack will cut the Eagles a $400,000 check for making the trip.

From a travel perspective, this year’s schedule is far less grueling than the last two seasons, which included multiple early road trips that earned a payday for EWU. Last year it was a game in Minneapolis against North Dakota State followed by a trip to Fresno State. The year before, the Eagles played at Oregon and at Florida during nonconference play.

“We’re always going to want to play one game that provides that revenue opportunity for us,” Collins said.

“Then you fill in your other games (with) either home-and-home or, in the case of this year, a home-and-home and two FCS teams coming to our place.”

Being at home for the first two weeks gives the Eagles’ coaches a bit more time to determine a travel group, and it also gives them the chance to play on the red turf of Roos Field and build some momentum heading into back-to-back road games.

“We love playing at home,” Collins said. “Anytime we have the opportunity to be on the Red, we love that.”

This year’s four were scheduled before Collins became athletic director, but Collins has had much more control over future schedules, especially, he said, because of the havoc COVID and conference realignment wreaked on western teams’ 2025 and 2026 nonconference dates. Simply put, more teams have weekends to fill, and Eastern is available to fill them.

Some of the Eagles’ 2025 schedule has been in place for a few years: a game at Boise State that will pay EWU $360,000 and a home game against Western Illinois that evens out Eastern’s trip there in 2021.

Collins was able to add home-and-homes against Incarnate Word and Northern Iowa, and while both of those games will be played on the road, Eastern is banking home games against those FCS schools in 2027 and 2026, respectively, while traveling to both in 2025.

“In 2025, it’s hard. We have three road games that are going to be tough, and then we come home,” Collins said. “But I think the idea, and what the Big Sky has proven, is that it is the strongest FCS conference top to bottom.”

Following that logic, even if Eastern only wins one of those games but then still does well in Big Sky play, the Big Sky wins could be enough to get the Eagles into the playoffs.

Eastern’s “money” games – those where another program pays them to play a road game – are set through 2028, with the Eagles playing at Washington in 2026 and 2028 and at Oregon in 2027.

Those regional matchups are important, Collins said, because they are within EWU’s recruiting footprint . They give players a chance to compete in stadiums where they might have grown up attending games and where it is easier for family members to see them play.

But Collins also doesn’t simply want to schedule games for the money: A win in those games is always worth a smaller paycheck.

“Do you go make the $400,000 more and potentially lose to a college football playoff team in a tough way, or is it a closer game with a Group of Five (opponent)?” Collins said. “That’s the debate (head coach) Aaron Best and I talk about. Because winning one is going to outweigh the bigger paycheck.”

One Big Sky team, Montana State, already pulled off such an upset by beating New Mexico 35-31 on Saturday. Eastern will get its chance to beat another MWC team, Nevada, in its fourth game. Idaho, another Big Sky team, beat Nevada 33-6 last season.

But the Eagles have three games they’d like to win before then against teams in their subdivision.

Then, they’ll worry about Nevada.

“When we’re evaluating our FBS game, no doubt it’s a revenue opportunity,” Collins said. “But our program has proven they’re not just revenue opportunities. They’re an opportunity to go win.”