NAU racks up the numbers that count

The numbers were indeed impressive for the Eastern Washington University football team prior to its meeting with Northern Arizona last Saturday at Roos Field.

They were still prefect in the Big Sky Conference standings at 5-0 and No. 4 ranked amongst the nation's Football Championship Subdivision schools. The Eagles had never suffered a regular season defeat in November since the red turf went down in 2010 and they were winners of six straight games.

But when it was over it was NAU that had the only statistic that counted following a stunning 52-30 win on EWU's Homecoming.

After a 2-2 start, Northern Arizona has won four of their last five and three in conference - all with a high-powered offense fueled by true freshman quarterback Case Cookus. Before their win at Roos the 'Jacks had wins of 52-36 over Weber State and 62-21 against Northern Colorado.

"They were the better team today, they played better, they out-coached us, out-played us," Eastern head coach Beau Baldwin said.

After living on the edge of the ledge the last two weeks - and, perhaps, much of the season where five of their six wins have come by a total of just 17 points - the fall came fast, but was not like it was unexpected.

Eastern's offense seemed just a tick off with some of quarterback Jordan West's passes sailing on a day where wind appeared not to be a factor as it was in the Eagles' escape, 14-13 over Weber State on Halloween.

Maybe the disconnect was never more evident than in Eastern's first possession when West found Nic Sblendorio down the middle for what might have been a huge gain but the receiver never turned around to see the ball.

"Yeah, there was a little bit, but credit NAU, they had some players out there creating that," Baldwin said when asked if his team was just not quite dialed in. "There are certain things that we just gotta' keep working on, keep getting better at in terms of timing."

Five plays later Jalen Moore coughed up the ball, the first of three Eastern lost fumbles. While it did not lead to any NAU points, the next one did, and it came from the most unlikely of the legion of good-hands people, Cooper Kupp, who was returning punts.

How strange it was to have "Mr. Sticky Hands" offering a mea-culpa in postgame remarks after giving NAU the short 22-yard field that resulted in their first score.

"As the leader on this team I can't be one of those guys causing other guys to have to pick up where I'm falling short," Kupp said. "On that punt I have to do a better job."

As usual Kupp made up for the miss, scoring Eastern's first touchdown and drawing his team to within 14-7 with 4 minutes, 55 seconds remaining in the half, The Eagles missed a 32-yard field goal as time expired .

The Eagles' inconsistency carried over into the second half when Eastern's first possession ended in a punt that NAU converted into a 21-7 lead with 12:14 to play in the third.

One of Cookus' rare mistakes on the day came with 9:53 left in the third when he lost the ball on a sack by Miquiyah Zamora, with Matthew Sommer recovering the ball. Five plays later sophomore Terence Grady danced his way into the end zone drawing the Eagles to within 21-14 and jazzing the sellout crowd of 9,214.

Then came the deluge, not from the sky, but on the field.

After the Lumberjacks got a mulligan on what would have been a 32-yard field goal when Eastern was flagged for being offsides they kicked a chip-shot from 21 to go up 24-14 with 1:51 left in the third.

Eastern drove to the NAU 37 and when facing fourth and a yard, West's pass was tipped and dropped into the hands of Marcus Alford who went 70 yards for a 31-14 lead.

On the ensuing kickoff EWU's Simba Webster fumbled the ball, which was recovered on the Eastern 25. Three plays later the first of three Corbin Jountti touchdowns made it 38-14 and completed a 17-0 run that took just over four minutes.

Enter Reilly Hennessey at quarterback to try to shake things up, which he did, leading Eastern to a speedy six-play 72-yard scoring drive capped by Jabari Wilson's 1-yard run with 11:08 to play.

That again injected life into what remained of the crowd, but as the Eastern band played on, it was somewhat reminiscent of the night the Titanic sunk as NAU scored twice 1:26 apart.

All is hardly lost as Baldwin pointed out. "We're still 5-1 in conference, still in control of a lot of things which is a hard place to be and approach the Missoula game with that mindset," he added of the Eagles next game, Saturday at Montana.

"This is a resilient bunch," he said. "We're going to come back fighting."

There is no margin of error in the numbers Eastern must achieve if they are to make it four Big Sky titles in a row and to continue to host playoff football in December.

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaneyatcheneyfreepress.com.