Eastern will try again against UW at Husky Stadium

There's not much remaining of the place where Eastern Washington University first met the University of Washington on the football field and where the Eagles nearly pulled off its first win over a Pac-12 team.

Husky Stadium, the site of UW's 30-27 win in 2011 hardly looks at all the same following a $261-million renovation. Nothing but the newer north upper deck grandstands remain, the track's gone, the field's lower and the new seats closer. The stadium is the largest single capital project in the history of the University of Washington.

The stadium first opened in 1920 and was desperately in need on an upgrade that ultimately was privately financed.

Eastern came excruciatingly close to, perhaps, their biggest football win ever when the Huskies needed an acrobatic leaping interception from Desmond Trufant who kept EWU All-American receiver Brandon Kaufman from a potential winning touchdown pass from Bo Levi Mitchell in the game's final minute.

Different, too, is the Huskies head coach. They are now led by, Chris Petersen, formerly from Boise State University. He took the job Dec. 6, 2013 following the Dec. 2 departure of Steve Sarkisian to USC.

Petersen, with a 92-12-0 record and a .885 winning percentage at Boise State, is tops among currently active college football coaches at the Football Bowl Subdivision level, but his Huskies struggled to get past the University of Hawaii, winning 17-16 last Saturday in Honolulu.

The rosters are also largely different, too, with 23 players listed from UW's 2011 line-up still listed. Among those Huskies who were rostered that day, but no longer with the team, are Spokane's Bishop Sankey, who gave up his senior year at the UW and was drafted by the Tennessee Titans.

Eastern notables who were listed in the 2011 game program and who will take to the field Saturday include quarterback Vernon Adams, Quincy Forte, Mario Brown, Ronnie Hamlin, Dylan Zylstra and Jake Miller, among others.

Two of the other constants from 2011 are EWU head coach Beau Baldwin and the recruiting philosophy for the team that will allow many an Eagle to play in front of familiar faces on the Husky Stadium turf.

"We're excited and appreciative of the opportunity to play the Huskies again," Baldwin said. He grew up in nearby Tacoma and recruits heavily in the area.

"Over half of our roster is from the Puget Sound area and 70 percent of our players are from the state of Washington," Baldwin said. "So it's a great opportunity to play in a game like this in front of family and friends, to play an incredible Pac-12 program and to play at an incredible place."

While victory slipped out of Eastern's hands in their last trip to Montlake Boulevard, the Eagles did finally get their first win against a Pac-12 team in that memorable season-opening 49-46 upset of 25th-ranked Oregon State in 2013.

Lost in the dust of history, however, might be one of the biggest upset wins by a visiting team in Husky Stadium history. And it has Eastern ties.

That was a 10-7 loss at the hands of the University of Hawaii in the 1973 season opener for both teams. The architect was Rainbows' head coach, Dave Holmes, who coached Eastern Washington State College for five seasons and led the Savages to the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics 1967 national title game.

Holmes later called it "the biggest win ever for me."

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].