By Dan Thompson The Spokesman-Review
With four seconds left on the clock and his Northern Colorado football team trailing Eastern Washington by an insurmountable number, and with starter Eric Gibson already standing on the sideline, backup quarterback Peter Costelli took a snap, dropped back, rolled to his right and threw deep down the sideline.
It was a desperate heave that had no chance, of course, to give the Bears a victory.
But when it was JoJo Maxey-Johnson and not one of Costelli’s teammates who came down with the pass, it proved a fitting end to a game in which nearly as many Eagles players – five – caught a pass from the Bears quarterbacks as their own receivers did.
And, it sealed a convincing 27-7 victory for the Eagles on Saturday at Roos Field in Cheney.
“They’ve got some good receivers, so that was in the game plan all week, knowing they were going to throw some of those 50-50 balls,” EWU senior linebacker Read Sunn said. “(We knew) we were going to have to go win those if we wanted to win the game.”
The Bears (3-8, 1-6 Big Sky) tried to get the ball to Brayden Munroe and Carver Cheeks, two of the Big Sky’s top receiving threats. Each was targeted 10 times.
But in the end, Munroe had six catches for 59 yards, Cheeks had five for 27, and just four more of their teammates caught a pass.
Gibson and Costelli combined to complete 21 of 36 passes for 195 yards, the Bears’ fifth fewest of the season.
Eastern’s five interceptions were the most the team had made in a game since 2009, when the Eagles had five in a 47-10 victory over Portland State. Mark Johnson, whose 17 career interceptions are the second-most in program history, had four of them in that game.
Five different players nabbed interceptions Saturday, starting with team-leader Jaylon Jenkins, the redshirt sophomore who got his fifth of the season. The next to get one was redshirt junior Drew Carter. It was the first of his career.
Soon after it was redshirt sophomore Jonathan Landry’s turn. Then redshirt sophomore Isaac Redford. And finally there was the interception by Maxey-Johnson, who got his first career interception in the fifth game of his college career.
The Bears’ seven points were the fewest allowed by the Eagles since a 19-9 playoff victory over Northern Iowa in 2021.
On top of that, the Eagles stopped the Bears four times on fourth down, and for the fifth game in the row – every game since the team’s 57-3 loss at Montana State to open Big Sky play – the Eagles held an opponent to fewer than 400 yards of offense (the Bears had 326).
“We came back from Bozeman and we licked a ton of wounds,” EWU head coach Aaron Best said. “To be able to put ourselves in position to be 5-3 in the conference going into next week is something that’s really important.”
Best said that was more important than the chance, with a victory next week at Cal Poly, to go 6-6 overall – because to him, “5-3 in conference sounds different than 4-4 in one of the tougher conferences.”
A major reason that the team is in this position at all is because of its defense, which Best said played “lights out.”
Another is the play of redshirt freshman quarterback Jake Schakel, who in his second start completed 31 of 41 passes for 299 yards – he added one more yard on one rushing play – while throwing touchdown passes to Cole Pruett (three catches, 24 yards) and Nolan Ulm (five catches, 35 yards).
But Schakel also was clearly playing in pain. One play before his touchdown throw to Pruett, he scrambled for his one rushing yard and came up favoring his left (non-throwing) shoulder. After the touchdown, he entered the medical tent, prompting true freshman Kaden Rolfsness to start warming up.
Schakel returned to the game before Rolfsness was needed, but after taking a hard hit in the third quarter, Schakel – having already guided the Eagles to a 27-7 lead – exited the game for good.
He gave way to Rolfsness, who became the fourth person to play quarterback for the Eagles this season. Rolfsness attempted just one pass (which fell incomplete), and he ran eight times – all of them by design – for a team-high 36 yards.
Schakel remained on the sidelines with his helmet in hand. But Best said that there was no intention of putting him back in the game.
“Our gut was it wasn’t the right thing to do,” Best said. “Once we leaned on Kaden to go in, it wasn’t like we were going to go back (to Schakel) if things got weird. Having a 20-point lead at the time helped.”
Now the Eagles (5-6, 4-3) will prepare for the Mustangs (3-8, 1-6) having already won more games this year than they have in any of the last three seasons.
“A big emphasis that we’ve been talking about is building positive momentum going into the offseason,” said Sunn, who was honored along with 19 senior teammates who were playing their last game at Roos Field. “Getting (to) 6-6, finishing the year with two wins, at the end of the day we all think the Big Sky is the best conference in the FCS.
“We don’t really have a ton of guys leaving the program this year, so then (it would be nice) to bring everybody back and build on that positive momentum for a big year next year.”