Eastern Washington hosts Idaho State in matchup between teams trying to climb Big Sky standings

If Eastern Washington fancies itself as a no-quit-in-it football team, it seems it will meet its match Saturday when Idaho State comes to Cheney.

There are a couple of reasons for this.

First, if there’s another team in the Big Sky that knows close losses like the Eagles do this season, it’s the Bengals (5-5, 3-3 Big Sky), who, like the Eagles (3-7, 2-4), have lost multiple conference games this season by four points or less. Through that lens, the difference in the teams’ records is negligible.

Second, if the Eagles are playing to prove that their program should be defined more by its 20-year body of work than that of the past two years, the Bengals are playing to prove the past two years should define them much more than the past 20.

With both those in mind, Cody Hawkins is quite sure the Bengals and Eagles will both show up at Roos Field – a place the Bengals haven’t played since 2016 – ready to play.

“The games we won we could have lost, and the games we’ve lost we could have won,” the second-year Bengals coach said by phone on Monday. “We haven’t had a sound game in Big Sky play: We haven’t been soundly beaten, and we haven’t beaten anybody soundly.”

If the Bengals are able to win each of their last two games – they host Idaho in their season finale on Nov. 23 – they would finish with a winning record in conference play for just the second time in 20 years. They are guaranteed to win at least three Big Sky games in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 2002 and 2003.

Eastern, on the other hand, is trying to avoid a third consecutive losing season in Big Sky play, something that it last had from 2001 to 2003 under head coach Paul Wulff.

“We’ve got to get used to winning,” EWU head coach Aaron Best said Tuesday during media availability. “We’ve got to know how to finish games we’re ahead in, and we did that last week.”

Eastern’s 43-15 victory over Northern Colorado on Saturday in Greeley gave the Eagles their largest margin of victory of the season. It came after a stretch of five straight games against then-ranked opponents (four still are).

But these last two games are still a crucible in a sense, because they will test whether the Eagles deserve to be in that tier below Montana State (10-0, 6-0), UC Davis (9-1, 6-0), Idaho (7-3, 4-2) and Montana (7-3, 4-2), or if they are better suited to sit closer to the two Big Sky teams they’ve beaten, Northern Colorado (1-9, 1-5) and Sacramento State (3-7, 1-5).

“I think anytime you get to go out there and win games, it’s meaningful,” EWU senior receiver Efton Chism III said. “The biggest challenge for the guys is not to quit. You’re down to the last two. We’re 3-7. How are you going to look at that? Are you going to prepare, or are you not going to prepare?

“We’ll take it one game at a time. We’ll prepare in all the little (ways) like we’re 10-0. We’ll keep preparing like a champion.”

And yet it’s clear the Eagles will not be champions this season. If the last month has suggested anything, it’s that Eastern has fallen off its historical perch atop the Big Sky, a conference in which it went 93-24 from 2007 to 2021. In the past two-plus seasons, Eastern is 7-18 against Big Sky opponents.

Idaho State was the most recent in a string of Big Sky teams to break some sort of streak against Eastern last year, when the Bengals beat the Eagles for the first time since 2005.

But there’s something the Bengals still haven’t done – win at Roos Field since the red turf was installed in 2010.

Their attempt to do so will depend on the success of a pass-first offense that has averaged 294.9 yards per game, second only to UC Davis (317.3) among the Big Sky’s 12 teams.

Senior quarterback Kobe Tracy ranks second in the conference with 2,458 passing yards and third with 20 touchdowns. His top targets have been seniors Christian Fredericksen (51 catches for 709 yards) and Jeff Weimer (57 for 825).

Best said he’d like to see the Eagles take advantage of all those pass attempts – no one in the conference has thrown more than ISU (420 times) – and intercept some passes.

“The ball’s going to be in the air more than it’s been in any game,” Best said. “They’re going to put the ball up. That’s who they are. We’ve got to create more turnovers. We’ve been starving for turnovers.”

Eastern will rely on an offense that has been at its best when it runs the ball effectively. The Eagles finished with a season-high 339 yards against Northern Colorado last week, their seventh game this season with at least 200 rushing yards.

Like Eastern, Idaho State is positioned to finish somewhere in the middle of the Big Sky standings.

Even with two more wins, it won’t be in line for a playoff berth as one of its victories came against Division II Western Oregon.

The only other Big Sky team with a reasonable shot at the playoffs is Northern Arizona (6-4, 4-2), which plays at Northern Colorado this week before hosting EWU on Nov. 23.

The Bengals and Eagles are in the same position: playing well for four quarters, finishing strongly for their seniors and building momentum toward next season.

“Our guys are excited to play football, and anytime you play Big Sky blue bloods, there’s a lot to play for,” Hawkins said.

“Right now, our guys are chasing wins, and if we can get a winning record in conference, that would be an amazing achievement for us.”