EWU @ UW Discussion & Game Thread (9/3 4pm PST)

[EWURanger]

Sorry guys, couldn't get it done. Losing in the last few seconds like that though = crushing. Really gotta work on the turnovers because other than that we smoked 'em. Mitchell passed for 473 yards.

[JALMOND]

Sorry guys, couldn't get it done. Losing in the last few seconds like that though = crushing. Really gotta work on the turnovers because other than that we smoked 'em. Mitchell passed for 473 yards.

I just caught the last quarter. Very impressive outing. Even more so after I heard about the turnovers. But still, to march down 95 yards in just a bit over a minute against Washington, that is very impressive. Even without Locker, the Huskies still have Polk and it looked like your guys did great on him.

[EWURanger]

Sorry guys, couldn't get it done. Losing in the last few seconds like that though = crushing. Really gotta work on the turnovers because other than that we smoked 'em. Mitchell passed for 473 yards.

I just caught the last quarter. Very impressive outing. Even more so after I heard about the turnovers. But still, to march down 95 yards in just a bit over a minute against Washington, that is very impressive. Even without Locker, the Huskies still have Polk and it looked like your guys did great on him.

Thanks, yeah. I'm not into the moral victories thing, but there were some positives, I think. Bo Levi seems to be massively improved from last year, no comparison really. 473 yards against a Pac-12 defense. Our receivers made UW's secondary look like little kids. The offensive line was very impressive, only giving up one sack and giving Mitchell a lot of time to makes the plays that he did. EWU defense got 3 sacks on Price. IMO UW is really going to miss Locker, Price did not look that good. Conversely, Mitchell is a legit Payton Award candidate.

Improvements needed are the mental mistakes.......made a lot of them. And the turnovers which gave UW the short field for 3 scores is just not going to get it done. That was the difference in this game.

Hopefully the Eags will pick themselves up from this game and go to work because South Dakota will not be any pushover.

[JALMOND]

I just caught the last quarter. Very impressive outing. Even more so after I heard about the turnovers. But still, to march down 95 yards in just a bit over a minute against Washington, that is very impressive. Even without Locker, the Huskies still have Polk and it looked like your guys did great on him.

Thanks, yeah. I'm not into the moral victories thing, but there were some positives, I think. Bo Levi seems to be massively improved from last year, no comparison really. 473 yards against a Pac-12 defense. Our receivers made UW's secondary look like little kids. The offensive line was very impressive, only giving up one sack and giving Mitchell a lot of time to makes the plays that he did. EWU defense got 3 sacks on Price. IMO UW is really going to miss Locker, Price did not look that good. Conversely, Mitchell is a legit Payton Award candidate.

Improvements needed are the mental mistakes.......made a lot of them. And the turnovers which gave UW the short field for 3 scores is just not going to get it done. That was the difference in this game.

Hopefully the Eags will pick themselves up from this game and go to work because South Dakota will not be any pushover.

The thing that amazed me about Mitchell was it seemed he had everyone on the EWU offense believing that they were about to win. 95 yards away with just a little over a minute left, on a Pac-12 field against a team with 20+ more scholarships and the crowd screaming at him, and it seemed like he was saying "We got this. Just relax and let's go get it.". Reminded me of "The Longest Yard", only the last play was the longest 25 yards.

[EWURanger]

Thanks, yeah. I'm not into the moral victories thing, but there were some positives, I think. Bo Levi seems to be massively improved from last year, no comparison really. 473 yards against a Pac-12 defense. Our receivers made UW's secondary look like little kids. The offensive line was very impressive, only giving up one sack and giving Mitchell a lot of time to makes the plays that he did. EWU defense got 3 sacks on Price. IMO UW is really going to miss Locker, Price did not look that good. Conversely, Mitchell is a legit Payton Award candidate.

Improvements needed are the mental mistakes.......made a lot of them. And the turnovers which gave UW the short field for 3 scores is just not going to get it done. That was the difference in this game.

Hopefully the Eags will pick themselves up from this game and go to work because South Dakota will not be any pushover.

The thing that amazed me about Mitchell was it seemed he had everyone on the EWU offense believing that they were about to win. 95 yards away with just a little over a minute left, on a Pac-12 field against a team with 20+ more scholarships and the crowd screaming at him, and it seemed like he was saying "We got this. Just relax and let's go get it.". Reminded me of "The Longest Yard", only the last play was the longest 25 yards.

Agreed. He is a great competitor and leader. We saw last season how cool he is under pressure. What I was most impressed with was the overall improvement he seems to have made over the summer. Yeah, he threw two picks, but the last one was sort of excusable since we were trying to get it in the end zone with only a few seconds left. Other than that, he made one bad read. I'm willing to overlook that when the guy has the third best individual performance at Husky Stadium in its entire history.

[EWURanger]

SEATTLE – Heading into its football season opener against the University of Washington, it has been more than 11 months, 11 games and a national championship since Eastern Washington University had been forced to deal with defeat.

But all of the good that had transpired since the Eagles suffered a lopsided road loss to Montana State back in late September of 2010 didn’t make Saturday’s 30-27 setback to the Huskies any easier to take.

“It’s tough, losing always is,” Beau Baldwin, Eastern’s fourth-year head coach and the engineer of last year’s riveting run to an NCAA Division I championship, said after watching his team dominate everything but the scoreboard against their cross-state Football Bowl Subdivision opponent. “But it’s even tougher when you’re in a spot and have a shot (to win) at the end.”

And the Eagles, who came in as the nation’s No.1-ranked Football Championship Subdivision team, certainly had that kind of shot in front of a Husky Stadium crowd of 58,088 on this brilliant early September afternoon.

Not only did they more than double the Huskies in total yardage, 504-250, but they also drove 70 yards in less than a minute on their final possession to put themselves in position to win or tie – only to have UW’s Desmond Trufant pick off a Bo Levi Mitchell pass in his own end zone with 29 seconds left to blow up their big plans for an upset.

It was one of the few mistakes Mitchell made in torching UW for a career-high 473 yards and three touchdowns through the air. And he ultimately took responsibility for his errant last pass, which was intended for teammate Brandon Kaufman, who finished the day with 10 catches for 140 yards, both career bests.

Read more: http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2011/s ... prefetch=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

SEATTLE – Class warfare can be fun.

Naturally, this was a tough sell to the aristocratic tastes of Seattle, where never until Saturday had the University of Washington deigned to mix it up with the football proletariat. Play the rabble from the 63-scholarship ranks? What’s next? Screwtop Chardonnay and Velveeta at the tailgate party?

No wonder the patrons stayed away as if was the Tyrone Willingham era.

Well, the commoners breached the portals of Husky Stadium and, against all odds, still the creaky  castle stands.

And the landlords? Their noses were bloodied, if not out of joint.

In fact, it’s likely the Huskies learned more about themselves than did the shirt-tail relatives from Eastern Washington, who are so secure in who they are and what they can do that it was almost a cruel joke when their latest swashbuckle came up short Saturday evening.

It took an end-zone interception by UW’s Desmond Trufant to preserve a 30-27 victory over the Eagles, last year’s champions and this year’s top-ranked team in the NCAA’s Football Championship Subdivision – or, as Huskydom thinks of it, the other side of the tracks.

Yet right up until he took the football away from EWU’s Brandon Kaufman with 29 seconds to play, there was a single overriding notion on the Eagles sideline.

“Why not, right?” offered center Chris Powers.

The subplot was almost as much fun as the football. Mitchell admitted he tried to “rile up” the Huskies with some ultraconfident pregame remarks to the press and suggested that “they probably respect us a lot more now.”

Kaufman was not as generous.

“It makes me feel empty,” he said. “We’re a good football team and we should be respected. They didn’t respect us at all. They’re an arrogant group.”

My thoughts exactly.

Read more: http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2011/s ... prefetch=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[kalm]

A couple thoughts...

That was a pretty damn good showing by the defense. Granted, the UW was breaking in a new QB, but to hold a PAC 10 team under 148 yards total rushing and 250 total yards ain't bad.

BLM played great although it seemed like the fade routes to Kaufmann were coming of a little flat not giving Kaufmann a chance to get underneath it.

We will play at a stadium in two weeks that is noticeably louder...Might be colder too.

[DJH]

Sadly, we know your pain. All too well...

[Screamin_Eagle174]

He'll be meeting up with other EWU alumni before the game, including a Mercer Island native who planned to paint his face half red, half purple.

If that dude is an EWU alum...punch the purple off the other side of his face.

There is little that bothers me more than someone who graduates from an FCS school but cheers for an instate rival.


From a post on PantherNation from a former UNI player about what he learned when he played against ISU

I care because on that day I learned one thing, when it comes to the Panthers you are with us, or against us. The choice is yours. Don't say it, live it, act it, breathe it.

So you're saying that you wouldn't be conflicted if the team you grew up supporting all your life and the school you went to played each other?

FWIW, he didn't end up painting his face at all, and was rooting for EWU.


Hell of a game.

[DJH]

If that dude is an EWU alum...punch the purple off the other side of his face.

There is little that bothers me more than someone who graduates from an FCS school but cheers for an instate rival.


From a post on PantherNation from a former UNI player about what he learned when he played against ISU

So you're saying that you wouldn't be conflicted if the team you grew up supporting all your life and the school you went to played each other?

FWIW, he didn't end up painting his face at all, and was rooting for EWU.


Hell of a game.

There is no conflict, IMO. Once you attend/graduate from a school, THAT is your school. End of story.

If you attended school A, but still cheer for school B because you had their poster on your wall when you were 9 years old, you are either a giant douche bag, or have self esteem issues.

[Screamin_Eagle174]

So you're saying that you wouldn't be conflicted if the team you grew up supporting all your life and the school you went to played each other?

FWIW, he didn't end up painting his face at all, and was rooting for EWU.


Hell of a game.

There is no conflict, IMO. Once you attend/graduate from a school, THAT is your school. End of story.

If you attended school A, but still cheer for school B because you had their poster on your wall when you were 9 years old, you are either a giant douche bag, or have self esteem issues.

That's just idiotic. So a person can only be a fan of one team per sport? What if you grew up in Cedar Falls all your life being a UNI fan, but went to Iowa. You're telling me you wouldn't be conflicted at all when the two schools played?

[DJH]

Why would I be conflicted? Why would I even consider rooting against my own school?

[Screamin_Eagle174]

Why would I be conflicted? Why would I even consider rooting against my own school?

Why would you even consider rooting against the team you've been a fan of all your life? Therein lies the conflict. It's not about rooting against your school, it's about being a die-hard fan of both teams and wanting both to do well.

[kalm]

There is no conflict, IMO. Once you attend/graduate from a school, THAT is your school. End of story.

If you attended school A, but still cheer for school B because you had their poster on your wall when you were 9 years old, you are either a giant douche bag, or have self esteem issues.

That's just idiotic.

This.

A former EWU head coach, professor, and AD just passed away who was a member of the HOF coaching staff that finished NAIA runner up in 1967. He also played in two Rose Bowls for the UW in the 50's and caught a TD pass the year they beat Minnesota and won the NC. I'll bet he was a little conflicted heading into this one and would have been pulling for Eastern at the end.

And he wasn't a quarter of the douchebag you are.

[Screamin_Eagle174]

That's just idiotic.

This.

A former EWU head coach, professor, and AD just passed away who was a member of the HOF coaching staff that finished NAIA runner up in 1967. He also played in two Rose Bowls for the UW in the 50's and caught a TD pass the year they beat Minnesota and won the NC. I'll bet he was a little conflicted heading into this one and would have been pulling for Eastern at the end.

And he wasn't a quarter of the douchebag you are.

I've heard a quarter of DJbag runs $6.93.

[JALMOND]

Why would I be conflicted? Why would I even consider rooting against my own school?

Why would you even consider rooting against the team you've been a fan of all your life? Therein lies the conflict. It's not about rooting against your school, it's about being a die-hard fan of both teams and wanting both to do well.

In my younger years, I was a fan of Montana State. My early memories of Montana are going with my Dad, sitting in Section B of Reno Sales Stadium and cheering the Bobcats. Recently, Dad showed me a picture of myself in a Montana State T-shirt. At one time I was a strong fan of the Bobcats. Now, my "loyalties" to the Bobcats are no greater than any other Big Sky school not named Portland State. The reasons why make for a very long story best told over a few beers at the local pub. No conflict over who to cheer for here.

[Screamin_Eagle174]

Why would you even consider rooting against the team you've been a fan of all your life? Therein lies the conflict. It's not about rooting against your school, it's about being a die-hard fan of both teams and wanting both to do well.

In my younger years, I was a fan of Montana State. My early memories of Montana are going with my Dad, sitting in Section B of Reno Sales Stadium and cheering the Bobcats. Recently, Dad showed me a picture of myself in a Montana State T-shirt. At one time I was a strong fan of the Bobcats. Now, my "loyalties" to the Bobcats are no greater than any other Big Sky school not named Portland State. The reasons why make for a very long story best told over a few beers at the local pub. No conflict over who to cheer for here.

Fickle fair-weather fan.


















But seriously, that's understandable because PSU and MSU compete in the same conference. EWU and UW are in separate levels of competition.