Three games in, the Eastern Washington football team’s season has so far been defined by two plays.
The first was in the opener: a fumbled handoff that killed a fourth-quarter drive with the Eagles trailing by three, set up just 31 yards from Incarnate Word’s end zone.
The second was last week: an illegal formation penalty that nullified a touchdown with the Eagles trailing by three that would have given them a lead over Northern Iowa with less than a minute to go.
If those two plays go the Eagles’ way, they might be 2-1 heading into Saturday’s home opener against Western Illinois. Instead, they’re 0-3.
“Sometimes the hardest step is the last step,” EWU head coach Aaron Best said during media availability on Tuesday, highlighting those two plays. “It’s not making a plan. It’s executing the last step of the plan.”
Since the end of a 10-3 campaign in 2022, the Eagles are 11-26. Those three seasons were defined by the ever-so-close ones, games where the Eagles were just one play away.
So, it seems, the trend is continuing this year.
“It’s been frustrating for us more than anybody,” EWU offensive coordinator Marc Anderson said on Monday. “The people in this building are continuing to find ways (to win). We have a better and better bead on it each week.”
This is Anderson’s 11th season on the EWU staff; no one currently with the team other than Best has been on it longer. When it comes to backbreaking losses, two in particular stood out to Anderson: One was the 38-35 loss to Montana State in Cheney in 2022; the other was the 2023 loss in Pocatello to the Idaho State Bengals, 42-41.
“Those were (examples of) games slipping away,” Anderson said. “Saturday (in Cedar Falls) was more that we were closing in and it was slipping away from Northern Iowa.”
Anderson and Best pointed to execution, or a lack of it, in key moments as the reason for breakdowns. In those two games Anderson pointed to, execution in late-game situations was certainly a factor.
Against Montana State, it was a fumble in the final 4 minutes of a game Eastern led 35-31. Against Idaho State, it was a series of mistakes as the Eagles let a 28-point lead slip away, plus a 38-yard missed field goal in the final seconds by which Eastern could have reclaimed the lead.
But the team’s struggles in one-score games over the last three-plus seasons is notable. Since the start of 2022, in games decided by eight points or less, Eastern’s record is 5-9. The only Big Sky team with a worse winning percentage in those scenarios over that span is Northern Colorado (3-7).
Eastern has also played in more one-score games during the last three years than all but three of the league’s teams: Sacramento State’s record is the best in those at 10-5, with Idaho’s at 10-8 and Weber State’s at 8-11. Montana is 9-5 and UC Davis is 8-6. All of those programs reached at least one of the last three FCS playoffs.
In 2023, Eastern started 2-4, but three of those losses came by a combined 11 points. One was a double-overtime, 34-31 loss at Fresno State. Three weeks later the Eagles lost at home to Idaho 44-36. Then Eastern had its bye; then it lost 42-41 at Idaho State.
Last season again the Eagles absorbed three particularly close losses, all of them in September. The first was a 35-32 defeat at home against Drake, followed a week later by a 28-24 loss at Southeastern Louisiana. Then, on Sept. 28, Montana beat Eastern 52-49 in Cheney to drop the Eagles’ record to 1-4.
So far this season, the Eagles are following that pattern, though Best has repeatedly stated that this team has a different mentality than previous ones and that it is closer to consistently winning games.
“We’re at the 1-yard line now. We were at maybe the 20 or 15 last year, kind of in the red zone,” Best said. “Now we’re at the 1. Now it’s a matter of punching it across the goal line.”
Regarding the loss at Northern Iowa, Best emphasized that even if the Eagles had won the game, how the team processed the game would have been much the same.
“If that touchdown (is upheld), we shouldn’t feel that much different,” Best said. “The win column says differently, but we can’t put all our eggs in the basket (of one play). Had it been (a) 21-17 (victory), I would have said the same things.”
The 2011 season was the last in which the Eagles started 0-3. They lost the fourth game that year, too, 36-21 to Montana State, before rattling off four straight victories to even their record. Following a 43-26 home loss to Portland State, Eastern won its last two to finish 6-5 overall and 5-3 in the Big Sky. But that resume wasn’t enough to receive a playoff bid.
The Eagles were 4-2 in one-score games that season. The two losses came at Washington, 30-27 in the opener, and 17-14 loss at Montana two games later. In both, Eastern’s last offensive play was an interception.