Eastern Washington overpowered by Nevada 49-16, Eagles third straight loss

RENO, Nevada – It was the middle of the third quarter, and Eastern Washington was advancing the football with its running game, something the Eagles had done with relative success throughout the game against the Nevada Wolf Pack.

Still, despite the back-to-back first downs gained by the visiting team, the Nevada crowd at Mackay Stadium was oddly indifferent to what was playing out before them.

A couple of first downs? What trouble would that be? It was as if Nevada’s fan base was collectively swatting away a fly.

Because by that point, Eastern had become nothing more than a nuisance to the Wolf Pack and their faithful on a lovely afternoon in Reno.

Eastern lost 49-16 on Saturday, its third defeat in four games this season. While a loss to an FBS team is generally the expected outcome in these sorts of matchups, recent history has suggested that a team from the Big Sky would hang with a team from the Mountain West Conference.

Last year, the Eagles pushed the Fresno State Bulldogs to a second overtime before losing. Three years ago, they outlasted the UNLV Rebels for an overtime victory.

But the Eagles (1-3) never came close to replicating either of those performances against Nevada (2-3), which just last season – under a different coach but in the same stadium – was soundly defeated by Idaho 33-6.

“(We’ve) just got to tackle,” senior linebacker Ahmani Williams said about what was different in this game from those previous two against MWC teams. “The plays are there to be made, and if you make them you win the game. If you don’t, you don’t.”

Williams, for his part, made five tackles and was credited with one Eastern’s two sacks when he shoved Nevada quarterback Brendon Lewis out of bounds behind the line of scrimmage.

But it was the rare occasion when EWU’s defense contained the Wolf Pack’s running backs and Lewis, who scrambled plenty. Nevada finished with 320 rushing yards on 45 carries for an average of 7.1 yards per rush.

Lewis, the first dual-threat quarterback Eastern has faced this season, had 65 yards on 12 rushes. Savion Red had 117 yards and two touchdowns, while Patrick Garwo III – the sort of small, compact runner that has so frequently given Eastern trouble the past few years – had three touchdowns and 63 yards on 10 carries.

So great was Nevada’s success running the ball, and so noticeable was Eastern’s inability to stop it, that Nevada first-year head coach Jeff Choate went out of his way to comment on it afterward.

“One of the things I will say about Eastern is, they did not leverage the perimeter of the defense well in the run game,” Choate said, “and when plays would break down, if you took a mental picture, if you stopped the frame before the play was run, they didn’t have bodies out there, and so that made those access runs available.

“And then you’ve got to break a tackle or you’ve got to make somebody miss in space, and we were able to do that.”

Choate, who previously was the head coach at Montana State, acknowledged the difference in competition level.

“I get that,” he said. “But by the same token, the same thing happened here against Idaho last year, and the result was different. So, I think the run game was what it was.

“We have good runners. And they lacked some leverage on the perimeter and they took advantage of it.”

Eastern had the game’s first possession, and like they did much of the game the Eagles moved the ball some. They only punted twice, and aside from another drive that ended in an interception, the Eagles got the ball into Nevada territory regularly. They finished with 348 yards, 170 on 33 rushes.

But, crucially, their longest drive – a 15-play, 74-yard trip to Nevada’s goal line – ended in a 19-yard field goal by Soren McKee rather than a touchdown. In the meantime, the Wolf Pack just kept scoring touchdowns.

They did so on three of their first four drives and then, after a hail-mary interception before halftime, they scored touchdowns on all four of their second-half possessions.

Perhaps the most indicative moment came on Nevada’s first drive in the second half, when the Wolf Pack had a touchdown called back by a 15-yard facemask penalty.

No matter. Facing third-and-30, Red got exactly the necessary yardage on a draw play that he took first inside and then to the right sideline. Three plays later, Garwo scored on a 1-yard touchdown run. That made it 28-3.

It was on the next drive that Nevada’s fans seemed to lose interest.

Eastern scored two touchdowns after that – Malik Dotson ran it in from 2 yards out, and later Michael Wortham, on a trick play, hit a wide-open Noah Cronquist for a 42-yard pass and catch touchdown – but the outcome was not in doubt.

Eastern will prepare for its Big Sky opener next weekend against No. 9 Montana (3-1), which came back to beat 24th-ranked Western Carolina 46-35 on Saturday.

“We didn’t do what we needed to do,” EWU head coach Aaron Best said of the game. “We’re not going to get to where we need to be by Saturday.

“We just have to get closer to where we need to get to in the next six days. The Big Sky (season is) upon us.”