Portland State 2-5 (1-3) vs. #8 Eastern Washington 6-2 (5-1)
Saturday, October 30 • 5:05 p.m. Pacific
Hillsboro Stadium (7,825/FieldTurf) • Hillsboro, Ore.
Radio: http://www.espnnorthwest.com/patchin-wingmen/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Webcast: http://b2tv.com/upcoming_events.asp?q=v&value=bigsky" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Series Record: PSU leads 18-13-1
Last Meeting: EWU won 47-10 in Seattle
The Vikings are coming off a 44-41 road loss at Weber State as PSU fell to 2-5 overall and 1-3 in the Big Sky. Portland State also fell to Montana 22-21 and at Montana State 44-31 after knocking off Idaho State 38-3 in its league opener.
Eastern, meanwhile has needed to come up with a huge defensive stops and offensive scores in the final minute to win its last two games over un-ranked opponents -- 28-24 over Sacramento State last week and 35-28 at Northern Colorado a week earlier.
The Eagles remain ranked eighth in this week’s Sports Network/Fathead.com top 25 NCAA Football Championship Subdivision poll. It equals Eastern's highest ranking since finishing the 2007 season ranked eighth.
“It’s the biggest game of the year -- again,” said Eastern head coach Beau Baldwin of this week’s contest, which will be followed by a bye week for EWU. “Portland State, like every team in this conference this year, is better. Portland State could have easily beaten Montana, so obviously they are a very good football team.”
“We better be ready to go and ready for a battle,” he continued. “Unless something changes, it’s probably going to take all 60 minutes to get a win. That’s what we will tell our team and try to do.”
“They’ve improved dramatically in a number of areas and Coach Burton has done a great job,” Baldwin said. “They may not have won some of the games they would have liked, but you can see the competitive level rising. I said it last week about Sac State and I can say it again about Portland State, but they can very easily have a winning record at this point in the Big Sky if a few things would have gone this way or that way. They are going to be a very tough opponent.”
Weather will be rain late with gametime temperatures in the 50's.
