Eastern Washington emerged from a pair of fights with relative football heavyweights cut, battered physically — and maybe bruised mentally?
Last Saturday, Montana survived a furious comeback to return to Missoula with the school’s first-ever win over seven tries on the red turf at Roos Field by a 52-49 score.
This comes on the heels of a thorough pummeling 49-16 at Nevada, Sept. 21.
“We bounced back from a game we didn’t play so well in last week,” Eastern head coach Aaron Best said in a post-game interview.
These two losses — one big, one excruciatingly close — both land largely in the laps of defensive breakdowns that have been the Eagles’ Achilles heel throughout the past three campaigns.
A possession here or there over the previous 16 games in 2023 or 2024 likely flip the records from 5-11 and the fan base is enthused and engaged — not enraged.
“Another one score game, but one score games don’t matter when you’re not on the correct side of that one score game.”
For those with some historical perspective, Saturday’s battle with the Griz might have somewhat resembled 2012’s FCS semi-final round playoff loss to Sam Houston.
Eastern charged from down 35-0 at halftime only to lose a return trip to Frisco, Texas and the national championship by a 45-42 count.
Eastern apparently paid little attention to Montana coming into the game as a 16-point favorite with odds makers. There’s an intangible that seems to infuse itself in most every Eagles-Grizzly meeting that leaves the outcome often in doubt.
The hole Eastern climbed out of was hardly as deep as 2012, just 31-14 at half with the big push, their 28-14 fourth quarter edge too little, too late.
Not unlike the Nevada game, notable breakdowns in situations that seemed at least difficult, perhaps, for Montana to grab first downs — let alone touchdowns or other points.
A Junior Bergen reception for 55 yards set up Montana’s field goal to take an initial lead. This after an Eastern field goal miss on their first possession.
Montana cobbled together gains of 20, 17 and the final 29 from Erik Barker good for a touchdown and 10-7 Griz lead.
A true killer came with Montana in the lead 17-14 when the propensity at fourth-and-one at Eastern’s 47 would have been a run, considering the Griz were among Big Sky leaders rushing.
Instead, quarterback Logan Fife found Bergen uncovered down the right sideline with 3 minutes, 13 seconds remaining in the half pushing the lead to 24-14.
On the day, Fife, a Fresno State transfer, completed 30-of-43 passes for 337 yards. In four previous games the Grizzlies had just over 700 yards through the air — total.
But Montana was not finished following a three-and-out by Eastern and with 1:47 on the clock, Erik Barker scored with 12 ticks remaining.
At that point a good deal of the sellout crowd of 8,846 appeared to exit to resume tailgating or join the SR-904 traffic jam.
Why not?
After all, that quick-strike Eastern offense of the past had yet to really show up through five games. And if it should, watching the game on SWX outside the RV with cold beverages at hand seemed a better option?
Eastern’s offense did emerge, however, with a 21-7 run that closed the gap to 45-42 with 4:27 to play and needing defense to make a stop.
Moments later Nick Ostmo ran 62 yards from his own 29 to the Eastern 9. Four plays later, on fourth-and-goal, Jake Olsen’s 2-yard TD catch sealed it, returning Montana to a 52-42 lead with 2:30 to play.
Montana was 3-for-3 in fourth-down conversions, two of those for touchdowns.
“We had them right where we intended to have them, (but we) just couldn’t close the deal at the end of the game when it mattered most,” Best said.
Eastern’s bye this week could not have come at a better time with a team hurting in a number of ways.
— Paul Delaney is a Free Press sports writer. Email him at [email protected].
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