Eric Sanders / Jaylen Jenkins

[E-Wu Tang Clan]

Ah man I hope not. Those defenses were terrible.

I'm not like defending it but its the last time our defense was good. It was still only mid for the FCS though.

I would love for Best to bring in a up and coming DC from like D2 or an assistant from a FCS program with a solid defense and retool Eastern's defense but he has too much of an ego to hire a DC and let them do their thing without micromanaging.

 

[GSmith42]

I'm not like defending it but its the last time our defense was good. It was still only mid for the FCS though.

I would love for Best to bring in a up and coming DC from like D2 or an assistant from a FCS program with a solid defense and retool Eastern's defense but he has too much of an ego to hire a DC and let them do their thing without micromanaging.

Who ran the 4-2-5, was it Schmedding?

 

[1988eagle]

Zach Bruce is our new defensive coordinator. I can guarantee you this was a cost saving money hire as the EWU is struggling financially. With that being said I don't think it will much as a drop off defensively.While we did improve slightly , We can only go upward defensively as EWU was not that good last year. Zach Bruce is young and hungry and a former EWU alumni, i wish he had more experience but he appears to be smart and driven.

I do think Montana will regret hiring Eric Sanders. There are many more qualified DC with proven better results. He might have more talent as his disposal but Bobby Hauck was always assisting the Montana defense. He's now gone on to Illinois as the defensive coordinator.

 

[E-Wu Tang Clan]

Zach Bruce is our new defensive coordinator. I can guarantee you this was a cost saving money hire as the EWU is struggling financially. With that being said I don't think it will much as a drop off defensively.While we did improve slightly , We can only go upward defensively as EWU was not that good last year. Zach Bruce is young and hungry and a former EWU alumni, i wish he had more experience but he appears to be smart and driven.

I do think Montana will regret hiring Eric Sanders. There are many more qualified DC with proven better results. He might have more talent as his disposal but Bobby Hauck was always assisting the Montana defense. He's now gone on to Illinois as the defensive coordinator.

Eastern assistants get paid the pretty much same as other FCS/Big Sky schools.

Eric Sander's salary for 2024 $97,000

https://opengovpay.com/wa/eric-sanders/194800496

Montana's DC salary for 2024 $102,856

https://opengovpay.com/mt/roger-cooper/187661056

For public schools its publicly available data. Some schools its more, some less. Eastern is pretty average.

If Eastern was really hard up for money they would just hire a DL coach, have the OLB coach coach all the linebackers and have Zach Bruce coach safeties as well as be DC instead of being full time DC like Eric Sanders was.

Montana is literally in the same conference as Eastern and pretty much the same pay so its a lateral move for Sanders. So why would he leave? He was probably given a guarantee he can coach and recruit how he wants, has more resources at Montana and sees Eastern as a sinking ship. How many players on defense entered the portal? Shit I'd leave too. I think Best's micromanaging and not letting his coaches coach is causing good coaches to leave early and not do as well as they could.

 

[E-Wu Tang Clan]

Who ran the 4-2-5, was it Schmedding?

Yea. I noticed the defensive scheme tends to favor the position group the DC coaches.

Schmedding was a safeties coach so he favored safeties. 4-2-5 has an extra safety/linebacker hybrid. The scheme was supposed to compensate for Eastern's lack of size.

Eti Ena was a DL coach and I think he did 4-3 scheme which has 4 dlinemen, 2 DTs and 2 DEs.

I have no idea what Copp did. Probably the same as Eti Ena.

Sanders was the LBs coach and favored a 3-4, 4 linebackers, 2 interior, 2 outside linebackers.

Bruce played safety and coaches safeties so he might favor safeties.