Grizzlies face Eastern Washington next
There's definitely a different feel to this season's University of Montana-Eastern Washington University football game.
Gone is Erik Meyer, Eastern Washington's Walter Payton Award-winning quarterback from last season who passed for 395 yards and five touchdowns in Washington-Grizzly Stadium in a 34-20 upset victory over the second-ranked Grizzlies.
Gone are the Big Sky Defensive MVP (middle linebacker Joey Cwik), a two-time All-American receiver (Eric Kimble), three other wide receivers and a pair of starting cornerbacks.
And gone are the Eagles from the I-AA top 25. The Griz and Eagles had matched up six times in the past decade as nationally-ranked teams. With a 1-4 record, EWU is off to its worst start since 1983 after winning a share of the conference title in back-to-back seasons.
But the Grizzlies are still good. … And Eastern Washington is still good enough to beat Montana State. But that's its only victory this season.
The fourth-ranked Griz and unranked Eagles renew their Big Sky Conference rivalry for the 33rd time Saturday in Cheney, Wash., with a 3:05 p.m. MST kickoff.
The Griz hold a 21-10-1 advantage in the series. But EWU has upset the second-ranked Griz twice in the past decade.
"Historically, they have played us well," UM coach Bobby Hauck said. "They are the one team in the last 20 years that has won consistently against the Grizzlies."
With a 1-4 record, EWU sounds bad - especially with last week's 21-20 loss to Sacramento State at home. But the Eagles are just one bad quarter away from being 2-0 in the Big Sky and two bad quarters away from being 3-2 overall. And those two losses would be to Division I-A's fourth-ranked West Virginia and unranked Oregon State. Eastern had second-half leads against Division II Central Washington and Sac State, but allowed those teams to score 36 of their combined 42 points in the second half.
"We had a clear opportunity to be 2-0 in the league," EWU coach Paul Wulff said. "We had the ballgame controlled for three quarters, but our finish was disappointing. We played four solid quarters against Montana State (the week before), so we had seven straight quarters of strong play. But we let our guard down."
The Eagles are led by freshman quarterback Matt Nichols, who took over the starting reins in the second game of the season. He is 72-for-138 (52.2 percent) for 925 yards with two TDs and eight interceptions. Running backs Toke Kefu and Ryan Cole have 201 and 185 yards, respectively, with two TDs each. Kefu is a junior. Cole is a senior who transfered from Oregon State. EWU top receivers are redshirt freshmen Tony Davis and Aaron Boyce with 24 and 18 catches, respectively. Boyce (6-foot-2, 205 pounds) has the team's only two TD catches.
The Eagles were picked to finish second in the Big Sky by league coaches, but were picked sixth in the media poll.