Sac State's Sears will attempt to corral Eastern offense

When the Eastern Washington University Eagles meet the Sacramento State Hornets in the opening game of the 2015 Big Sky Conference schedule it will be high-powered offense versus stingy defense.

At least that’s kind of how EWU head coach Beau Baldwin viewed it when he discussed the Hornets in the past Monday’s coaches show.

“Sac State (1-2) puts a lot of emphasis on defense, Baldwin said. “There’s certain things they do a little bit that reminds me of Northern Iowa.”

Baldwin will face off against Jody Sears, the former EWU defensive coordinator while Baldwin was the offensive boss for the Eagles under Paul Wulff. The goal is to come away from Hornets’ Stadium with their perfect record still intact at what would be 10-0.

While there might be the tendency to think each coach might know what the other may be thinking, that’s not how Baldwin sees things.

“It’s going to be us game planning on what we see on film, him game planning on what he sees on film,” Baldwin said. “Ultimately the guys on the field are going to be the difference.”

Sears left Eastern to serve as defensive coordinator for Wulff at Washington State in 2008, but like the rest of the staff, was let go when Wulff was fired following the 2011 season. He hooked on with Weber State as an assistant to John L. Smith but ascended to the head job when Smith suddenly resigned.

Sears last faced Baldwin when he was with Weber State in an interim role in 2012, came on board at Sac State in 2014, much the same as he did at Weber, as a defensive coordinator, and assumed the head coaching job in the spring of 2014. Sears led the Hornets to a 7-5 record.

Led by senior middle linebacker Darnell Sankey, who is third in FCS with an average of 14.3 tackles per game (43 total), the Hornets opened the year by defeating Eastern Oregon 41-20 and has lost to Washington (49-0) and Weber State (32-14) the last two weeks.

In six of the last seven meetings, the game has been decided by eight points or less with an average margin of 4.2 points. Sac State has won two of them, including games in which they held the Eagles to 13 and 21 points.

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].