‘We’ll play anybody, anywhere’: Monmouth travels west for rare matchup with Big Sky Conference foe Eastern Washington

In nonconference FCS matchups like the one that will play out at Roos Field on Thursday in Cheney, sometimes a team’s reputation precedes itself.

That’s certainly the case when Monmouth (New Jersey) offensive coordinator Jeff Gallo looks at Eastern Washington.

“People know Eastern Washington,” Gallo said by phone Saturday. “People may not know Monmouth, but we know who they are, and not just because of the red turf.”

Gallo, like many members of the Monmouth coaching staff, has been with the Hawks for quite some time. It’s the only college program he’s known, having played for Monmouth as an offensive lineman from 2000 to 2003 before joining the coaching staff two years later.

He began as Monmouth’s director of player operations; this is his fifth season as offensive coordinator and first as associate head coach.

There for every one of those seasons has been head coach Kevin Callahan. He is Monmouth’s only head coach, having inaugurated the program in 1992. The 69-year-old Callahan has 182 career victories, the most among active FCS coaches, and during his tenure the Hawks have seven conference titles: two in the Big South Conference and five in the Northeast Conference before that.

“He’s kind of a beacon of stability in what is an ever-changing, crazy world,” Gallo said of Callahan. “As we’ve built this, we’ve had a very consistent culture and model, and when you’re a program that tries to recruit and develop, it’s important to have that stability.”

As a program, Monmouth does not have the track record of Eastern Washington, but some of its best seasons aren’t too far in the past. During a three-year stretch from 2017 to 2019, the Hawks won 28 games, including an FCS playoff game in 2019 against Holy Cross (it lost to No. 2 James Madison 66-21 in the next round).

Before the 2022 season, Monmouth joined the Colonial Athletic Association – which has since rebranded as the Coastal Athletic Association to better reflect the geography of its now 16 teams – and it finished in the bottom third each of its first two seasons, going 3-5 (5-6 overall) in 2022 and 3-5 (4-7) in 2023.

But the Hawks did so with plenty of offensive firepower. Jaden Shirden finished second nationally in rushing yards (1,478) and finished third in the Walter Payton Award voting. Wide receiver Dymere Miller led the FCS with 1,293 receiving yards and was third in receptions (90) behind Idaho’s Hayden Hatten (93) and Idaho State’s James Chedon (103).

Those two – along with the quarterback who ran the offense, Marquez McCray – are gone. McCray graduated. Miller transferred to Rutgers. Shirden was waived by the Carolina Panthers on Tuesday in their final cuts to reach the 53-player limit. But Gallo said the Monmouth program has a tradition of reloading.

“Our culture is if one guy graduates, the next guy is ready to lead,” Gallo said. “They’re not proven, but they do have ability.”

The Hawks don’t return much game production at receiver, but in the backfield they still have senior Sone Ntoh, a 5-foot-11, 235-pound running back who carried 56 times last season for 413 yards and 14 touchdowns.

At quarterback the Hawks will start senior transfer Derek Robertson, younger brother of the team’s quarterback coach Jimmy Robertson. As the starter at Maine last season, Derek Robertson threw for more yards (2,933) than McCray did at Monmouth (2,602) and Kekoa Visperas did at Eastern Washington (2,754).

“Derek’s played a lot of football, played a lot of games,” Gallo said. “He’s a very smart football kid, very talented, very mature. We’ve known Derek since he was about 16, and we’ve always been impressed with him.”

What the Hawks don’t have on offense is much starting experience. Tight end Jack Neri, a fifth-year senior who caught 22 passes for 157 yards last season, has the most career starts at Monmouth among the team’s starters with 15. Only one other – right tackle JT Cornelius – has more than three (Cornelius has 10).

The Hawks are more experienced on defense, with 10 returners who have started at least one game before and four who have started at least 11. Linebacker Ryan Moran, a 5-10, 225-pound grad student, has 28 starts for Monmouth and was the team’s second-leading tackler last season with 63.

The Hawks also have a new coordinator on defense, Lewis Walker, who has some familiarity with Eastern Washington. Last season, when the Eagles played North Dakota State, Walker was Bison cornerbacks coach.

The Bison led the FCS with 21 interceptions last year and were top 10 nationally in total defense.

Walker has returned to Monmouth; he was on its staff as defensive backs coach from 2017 to 2021.

“(It’s about) trying to find a balance of how much they’re going to do of what he took from Fargo to Monmouth, or how much he’s going to lean into the head coach,” EWU head coach Aaron Best said during media availability on Monday. “That’s always a guessing game in Game 1 (of the season) with new coordinators.”

While Monmouth, like Eastern, is coming off a pair of losing seasons, Best is aware of the program’s history beyond those two years.

“You’ve got to take the whole body of work,” Best said. “It’s not just last year, just like it’s not just last year for us. … Their head coach has been there a long time. … It’s going to be a tough test.”

This will be the third time Monmouth has played a Big Sky school. The last two were both losses, 47-27 at Montana in 2019 and 42-24 at Montana State in 2013.

Gallo said he’s never been to the Pacific Northwest and is looking forward to it. He said the Hawks will not be intimidated by playing a Big Sky school far from Monmouth’s home in West Long Branch, New Jersey.

“We’re a program where we’ll play anybody, anywhere,” Gallo said. “Forever we were in lower leagues trying to prove who we are. Maybe we don’t have to do that in the CAA as much, but it’s still in our DNA.”