There’s nothing like a victory, and a grind-it-out win in poor weather to boot, to seize momentum.
The No. 22/21 Eastern Washington University football team is hoping a 35-20 home victory will pay dividends this Saturday, Oct. 5, at 6:05 p.m. when the Eagles continue Big Sky Conference play against a resurgent Sacramento State team scoring points in bunches.
While Eastern used a quick start to register a league win over North Dakota playing in an unforeseen blizzard in Cheney last week, the Hornets were enjoying a bye week.
They will enter their Big Sky Conference opener with a 2-2 record, which includes overwhelming non-conference victories over Southern Oregon (77-19) and Northern Colorado (50-0).
Eastern is 2-3, and trying to keep a grind-it-out attitude through the rest of the season as it seeks a return trip to the championship game of the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision. Eastern equaled its fewest passing attempts in 29 years in the victory over the Fighting Hawks, with five rushing touchdowns and 284 total yards on the ground. The defense surrendered a season-low 20 points and 359 total yards.
“You can ride momentum with any victory,” Eastern head coach Aaron Best said. “We need to look in the mirror and know our collar has to be blue. That’s what our team is. We aren’t who we were last year, and we stressed that this past week. We’re the 2019 version and our collars are blue; we need to own that and appreciate that. If we need to grind out wins, we’ll do it.”
Sac State is coached by Troy Taylor, who spent the 2016 season as offensive coordinator at Eastern before moving on to the same position for two seasons at Utah. This is his first season at the helm, and the Hornets lost a pair of close games to FBS foes 19-7 at Arizona State on Sept. 6 and 34-20 at Fresno State on Sept. 21.
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