2025 Offseason Portal Tracker

[E-Wu Tang Clan]

he lost it when guys like Ojoh started transferring... he's lost more depth and talent that was sitting on the bench over the years than we can quantify. his coaching turnover is horrendous, which also impacts the locker room. it's not lost on me that you can't please all players all the time. when I look at the combined coaching and player exodus since the natty run, it leads me to conclude best isn't what he projects publicly and many players figure that out. don't think you should compare this to other schools portal entrants in general but we can see where the ships sinking at places like Wazzu through coach and player losses but that's not the case in high profile schools like Oregon, Texas, Bama etc.. where every player is a likely starter somewhere (side note: Wazzu scored with the SDSU coach hiring.)

I agree. We're losing players to what used to be lesser schools. Justice Jackson transferred to ISU last year and we kicked the shit out of them this year. Zornes admits Best lost his starting QB to what he said himself is a lesser program.

I don't think coaches even like working for him. We all know Shoemaker quit midseason, Best wanted to promote Pat McCann to OC but he left and took the WR coach position at Fresno State. Allen Brown took a defensive quality control assistant position at Cal after being EWU's cornerbacks coach / passing game coordinator. Jase Butorac, a fellow olineman like Best just quit coaching altogether. Probably others I'm forgetting.

It'd be nice to have a head coach who brings some excitement back to the program not one who seems like they're desperately trying to stop the program from falling apart at the seams.

 

[Obzerver]

Just when I'm adjusting to a very tough outlook for the program...thanks to drink and loose women...marceag mentions a brutal 2025 schedule which I can't seem to find right away. Yes, WSU which really seemed to be in trouble scored big with new SDSU coach Jimmy Rodgers going to WSU.

 

[Zornes65]

https://fbschedules.com/2025-eastern-washington-football-schedule/
Here is next year's schedule

 

[LDopaPDX]

FOUR road games out of 5 to open the season. To have any shot, we likely need to get to 3-2 in those games, and one is at Boise State. On paper, we’d likely be favorites only against Western Illinois in Cheney. Not good,

 

[E-Wu Tang Clan]

Nifty, another 4-8 season.

 

[LDopaPDX]

I agree. We're losing players to what used to be lesser schools. Justice Jackson transferred to ISU last year and we kicked the shit out of them this year. Zornes admits Best lost his starting QB to what he said himself is a lesser program.

I don't think coaches even like working for him. We all know Shoemaker quit midseason, Best wanted to promote Pat McCann to OC but he left and took the WR coach position at Fresno State. Allen Brown took a defensive quality control assistant position at Cal after being EWU's cornerbacks coach / passing game coordinator. Jase Butorac, a fellow olineman like Best just quit coaching altogether. Probably others I'm forgetting.

It'd be nice to have a head coach who brings some excitement back to the program not one who seems like they're desperately trying to stop the program from falling apart at the seams.

The new reality is that we're gonna see a lot of roster turnover each year just because that's how modern football works. If a player is looking for a paycheck, I'm sure he can find options paying a lot more than EWU.

I'm actually not too concerned with the outbound players that have gone into the portal this Winter. I think we stand a very good chance to have incoming guys that are better than the ones outgoing. Where rubber needs to hit the road involves making sure the incoming guys are prepared to play. How we brought in a transfer as big as Anthony James and benched him all year is a head-scratcher, especially knowing how bad we were on D. You don't get a kid like that in your program and make him a bench player..

Outside of our punter, none of last year's incoming talent played much at all and didn't make us any better. I'd like to see us hit up D2 teams and get some3rd and 4th guys that are closer to the finished product.

 

[1988eagle]

Nolan Ulm is a pretty significant loss.,He's a very good player. Jett Carpenter could have been contributed but he was constantly battling injuries and played behind that big tight end Jayce Gilder(I think it was him.) Even Tuna Altahir was a liability at times, strong as an ox but it took him too long to find a hole as he was slow The rest of the guys transferring out were not impact players, thats including Kekoa Visperas. EWU did not have anyone special on this team besides Efton Chism. EWU has to have coaches who can develop players and retain them.

They know that at the current time EWU football is a sinking ship. Coaching, developing players, retaining coaches is paramount to a winning culture. When AB took over the majority assistant coaches retired ,quit or went somewhere else. Also,I think that AB does not do a good job of evaluating his assistant coaches. When BB was coach, his assistant coaches did not flee the program like they are currently have under AB tutelage. . ( by the way, CMU will regret hiring the two EWU coaches. That's another program under decline.) Poor evaluation of talent is a career killer.

Finally, Lynn Dickey and the EWU staff did not elevate and capitalize on ewu national championship run in 2018. EWU fumbled away a grand opportunity to put EWU on the map for a long time. Case in point the football stadium plans are just sitting there while other big Sky programs are moving forward.