2010 Big Sky Conference Football prospectus

[EWURanger]

Full version at: http://www.bigskyconf.com/news/2010/4/16/FB_0416105159.aspx

National Off-Season News

2010 marks the first season of a 20-team FCS playoff. Champions from the Northeast Conference and Big South will now receive automatic bids to the FCS playoffs. The other two spots will go to at-large teams. The playoffs will begin on Saturday, Nov. 27, with eight teams in action. Twelve teams will receive first-round byes.

The 2010 Division I National Championship will be played on Friday, Jan. 7, 2011, at Pizza Hut Park in Frisco, Texas. The NCAA awarded the championship game to Frisco for three seasons this past winter. The change ends Chattanooga’s 13-year run of hosting the event.

Eastern Washington Eagles

The Eagles are looking for their fifth FCS playoff appearance in seven seasons in 2010.

Linebacker J.C. Sherritt, who led the nation in tackles in 2009 and finished second in voting for the Buck Buchanan Awards, returns to anchor the defense.

Running back Taiwan Jones returns looking to build on a fantastic sophomore campaign. Jones earned All-America honors as an all-purpose player in 2009, after scoring 19 touchdowns and ranking second nationally in all-purpose yards per game at 195.4.

Eastern Washington must replace four-year starting QB Matt Nichols, who finished his career as the Big Sky’s all-time leader in passing yards and total offense. Junior college transfer Greg Panelli and SMU transfer Bo Levi Mitchell appear to be the leading candidates to lead the offense.

 

[Anonymous]

J.C. should have a good chance to win the Buchanan Award next season. If you haven't seen it yet, check out the 2009 season highlights and the hit that he puts on Montana's Chase Reynolds @ the 8:15 mark. :lol:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDEefnJg12M

 

[Screamin_Eagle174]

J.C. should have a good chance to win the Buchanan Award next season. If you haven't seen it yet, check out the 2009 season highlights and the hit that he puts on Montana's Chase Reynolds @ the 8:15 mark. :lol:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDEefnJg12M

And Taiwan should have a good chance to win the Payton. :mrgreen:

 

[Anonymous]

J.C. should have a good chance to win the Buchanan Award next season. If you haven't seen it yet, check out the 2009 season highlights and the hit that he puts on Montana's Chase Reynolds @ the 8:15 mark. :lol:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDEefnJg12M

And Taiwan should have a good chance to win the Payton. :mrgreen:

I think JC has a better chance to win the Buchanan than Taiwan does of winning the Payton, but hell you never know what's going to happen.

 

[Screamin_Eagle174]

J.C. should have a good chance to win the Buchanan Award next season. If you haven't seen it yet, check out the 2009 season highlights and the hit that he puts on Montana's Chase Reynolds @ the 8:15 mark. :lol:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDEefnJg12M

And Taiwan should have a good chance to win the Payton. :mrgreen:

I think JC has a better chance to win the Buchanan than Taiwan does of winning the Payton, but hell you never know what's going to happen.

He'll be a finalist for sure. Plus, Armanti graduated.

 

[flyingnail]

I think the T J issue is real and keeping him healthy is huge ! HOWEVER, you need to get your reps in and do your off-season strengh and conditioning ! I would think Tiawan learned that the hard way last year , he needs to bigger, stronger and more willing to run between the tackles in the fall. A good summer program of nutrition and weights will go ALONG way come fall ! EWU needs him healthy but not practicing this spring already puts him at a disadvantage. GO EAGS !!!

 

[Vic E. Wallace]

EWURanger/Flynail,
None of our players that were injured last year and had surgery, not getting reps, was a decision Coach Beau made not to give any of them reps. He was on the side of not getting them injured again. I am sure they will get some more conditioning,stronger,faster this summer. I think our Running Backs will be going for some Agility/Speed, training this summer.

I am looking forward to Mario Brown,Pinson, and other recruits, all 14 coming in for the Fall Quarter. If I am not mistaking, they want to stay around this summer, like they did last year. They practiced on the upper field where the students practice. I saw them praactice last summer, Matt Nichols did an outstanding job getting his playmates ready. That is where I noticed Brandon Kaufman, WR, I made up my mind that he was going to be an Outstanding WR". Him and Nick Ewdards looked great in practices and made me believe I was right saying they will be great at their positions.

Some players that got my attention last year at Summer Practices, were Chandler Gayton DB, Billy Lechtenberg DB, Dalton Puyear WR. In those practices Quarterbacks, Jeff Minnerly,Nick Gauthier,Anthony Vitto, Scott Burgett, at that time I knew we had some "Outstanding Prospects". Believe me, they are going to be grrreat.

All mentinoned above did catch my eyes at the practices Last Summer, and have not disappointed me. Of course we had more of our players there as well, and they are all coming into their own.

Then, the arrival of Caleb Worthington, Brandon Murphy,Russell Turpin,Will Katao,Jakob Scott, Steven Forgette, Cody Humphrey, these men are what I call "Beef On The Hoof", (not insulting them), they are big and great players. Keep these names in your mind, they are all going to be great players..

It is amazing how very lucky to get these Great Athletes with what little Scholarships our Football Program
has. I think it is the Coaches that we have, our winning tradition. All we need now is to go all the way for the Championship. We will have the team this year that could take us all to the Championship. Maybe we need to start getting the word out so we get bigger crowds. (Keeping my fingers and toes crossed).

Time for Bed. Go Eags. p.s. HannahO, I am still waiting to met you Vic

 

[flyingnail]

Vic, I agree with all you say but my concern IS, If these guys were being held out of spring ball in order to heal up and to not get injured, what does that say for our depth ! Remember last year we could'nt stop water with a valve 3/4's of the way through the season ! I know these guys are good athletes and desperately wanted to practice and coaches wanted to keep them healthy. My concern again would be for lack of depth and being able to hold the lead come 4th quarter ! I trust Baldwin and Best to get the most out of these guys and am sure they are all staying this summer. No J C,Johnson bros. no Jones, big hurdle to over come if they DO get injured. GO EAGS !!!

 

[FreeBird]

I think the depth situation will get better next season. When you have 33 recruits in a class that's an indicator that your class depth is a little out of balance and you'll probably be a little thin on depth that season. However, as that class works its way through, your depth improves. In addition to the players Vic mentions we get Baines, Gaylord, and I think another prop 45 lineman, that by rule, could not participate in spring ball.

I'm not sure spring ball would have done anything to improve the games of Matt Johnson, JC Sherritt, or Taiwan Jones. These guys are already at the top of the conference in their games even as they finished out the season playing through pretty significant injuries. If anything spring ball gave the Eags a chance to develop some depth providing opportunities for guys like Beaumont and Agen a chance to shine.

I really like our depth at RB now and that allows us to move Hart to the slot, where he looked pretty good in spring ball. I like him as a possession guy, Herd stretching the defense, and other D-coordinators trying figure out how to cover the two tall WRs with at least one 5-9 corner on the field. I don't think anyone in the Big Sky has 2 6 foot corners. Assuming Zack gets healthy LB looks really deep now too.

Some of the numbers from the spring scrimmages are skewed in favor of the offense. When you see a headline that the offense racks up 580 yards, remember that's representing an offense on the field the whole game. A 3-and-out, is a 3 and let's try this again as first down. It is the sum of two teams offenses, so it is more like giving up 290 yeards in a game. Not great but not gawdy, especially when you consider the offense is looking for a QB and thus throwing a lot, without contact on the QB. The OL looked good, but didn't really face a lot of blitz packages, because that's just not what you do in spring scrimmages.

Go EAgs!

 

[FreeBird]

I wanted to add, summer makes your fall, so let's hope we have a lot of guys staying the summer and working together.

 

[flyingnail]

Freebird, I'm there with ya !!! Champions are made in the off-season and these kids can get it done this summer !! GO EAGS !!!!

 

[Obzerver]

It's too bad that EWU's limited budget doesn't allow the players to attend summer school to help pay for staying on campus during the summer...like so many other schools do.

 

[FreeBird]

Thats a good point Obzerver, hopefully enough kids can find a way to do it, but the reality is some kids will probably want to, but due to fiscal realities not be able to pull it off.

 

[flyingnail]

EWU Ranger, thats exactly what I'm getting at, not only the NAU game but if you look at the Sac St game and even the SSU game, if we don't score 40 or more , and even when we did , it seemed like we could not close out the game !I was at ever game last year and with the exception of the PSU game I really was never comfortable even up by 3 ts's. Hopefully we can control the line and sustain some long 3rd and 4th quarter drives this fall , and yes we NEED that O-line AND that bruiser to step up and get that 3rd and 1 ! GO EAGS !!!!

 

[HannahO]

Regarding the defense, don't forget by the end of the year in the NAU game we were traveling with FOUR linebackers and a couple of them were playing hurt. This year we look to have more depth at that position and,even allowing for the fact that they are inexperienced, here's hoping we have better luck with both injuries and performance (JC Sherrit not withstanding).

 

[EWURanger]

JC should have a monster Senior year; although I am wondering, with what will hopefully be an improved defense, if his numbers might not be as big as last year's.

Yeah, it looks like we may be a little deeper on the defensive side of the ball this year. It'll be nice to have both Johnson bro's on the field at the same time!