Big Sky Conference

Gubrud, Anua, Lewis earn Big Sky weekly awards

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As fall continues to push its way through October, wins in Big Sky Conference wins become increasingly more important.

The season is officially half over, and the best teams are beginning to separate themselves from the field. While there were dozens of strong performances around the league this past weekend, three players had performances that could truly be recognized as superb.

For their efforts, Eastern Washington quarterback Gage Gubrud was named Big Sky Offensive Player of the Week; Northern Arizona defensive end Siupeli Anau was named Big Sky Defensive Player of the Week; and Southern Utah punter Tate Lewis was named Big Sky Special Teams Player of the Week.

Gubrud continued his run of strong performances, with the fourth-most yards of total offense in school history with against Northern Colorado in EWU’s 49-31 victory. Gubrud finished with 514 yards of total offense, which included a 435-yard passing performance, with five touchdowns, and a team-leading 79 yards on the ground. Four of the quarterback’s touchdown passes were to Shaq Hill.

A year after leading FCS in passing offense, the EWU offense led by the first-year starting quarterback hasn’t missed a beat. The 2014 graduate of McMinnville (Ore.) High School has passed for 2,351 yards, 23 touchdowns and a .706 completion percentage, and has also rushed for a team-leading 354 yards (5.1 per carry) and five more scores.

After just six career starts, he owns five of the top 10 single game total offense performances in school history. Gubrud’s first two starts of his career yielded a school-record 551 yards of offense against Washington State on Sept. 3 (474 passing, 77 rushing), and what is now the No. 5 mark with 499 against North Dakota State on Sept. 10 (450 passing, 49 rushing). He then had 487 against Northern Arizona on Sept. 24 to now rank 10th (392 passing, 95 rushing). On Oct. 1 versus UC Davis, he recorded the second-best performance in school history with 525, including 486 passing yards which also is No. 2 all-time.

As a result, Gubrud is the FCS leader in total offense at 450.8 per game, passing yards (2,351), passing yards per game (391.8), passing touchdowns (23), points responsible per game (27.7) and total points responsible for (164), and is fifth in passing efficiency (176.0) and fourth in completion percentage (.706).

As a team, Eastern’s last two outings have yielded the No. 5 and No. 10 performances in school history for total offense. Eastern had 659 against Northern Colorado on Oct. 8 to rank fifth, including 435 through the air and the team’s top rushing performance in 14 games with 224. One game earlier, EWU had a 627-yard outburst against UC Davis on Oct. 1 to now rank 10th. The Eagles also had a 606-yard performance versus Washington State which now ranks 19th.

Eastern ranks second in FCS in total offense with an average of 565.2 yards per game, trailing only Sam Houston State at 611.8 per outing. After six games, Eastern is the FCS leader in passing offense (433.2 yards per game), second in scoring offense (47.5 behind SHSU at 56.2), third in third down conversions (52.9 percent), third in completion percentage (.709) and fifth in passing efficiency (175.94). Eastern has more first downs (172) than any other FCS school. Eastern’s school records for a single season for total offense is 533.5 set in 2013 when EWU finished with a total of 8,002, and the record for passing offense is 368.4 set in 2011.

“We’ve never been at this point six games in — especially with our schedule — in certain aspects of our offensive production,” said Eastern head coach Beau Baldwin said. “But there are still some aspects that aren’t maybe as good as our other teams we’ve had here. I don’t get caught up in exact balance, but we want to understand that we have to find ways to move the ball no matter what a defense is doing against us, Some games we may throw it more and others we may mix more of the run in like we did last week. We took a huge step last week.”

Eastern has accumulated the lofty offensive numbers despite Gubrud having no career starts and only 13 pass attempts and 13 carries entering the 2016 season. And in the last two games, the starting offensive line has included three sophomores and two redshirt freshmen, also with no starts entering this year’s campaign.

After a bye this week, the Eagles will take a 5-1 record overall and 3-0 Big Sky Conference record to Montana State on Nov. 22. Eastern will practice twice this week before beginning preparations for the Bobcats next Sunday (Oct. 16). Baldwin is cautiously pleased with where the EWU offense and team is at after reaching the mid-point of the regular season.

“We still have some meaty games on our schedule and the potential of playing the best in the country in the playoffs, but we have never started at this level with this type of schedule,” said Baldwin. “We have to play it out and you have to earn it in the tough months of October and November, and we weren’t where we wanted to be last November. This team still has to earn that, and if we’re fortunate to play in December you have to earn it then too.”

Northern Arizona entered its game against Montana State in need of a victory, after starting 0-2 in league play. The Lumberjacks left Bozeman with a 20-14 win, largely thanks to the play of Anua, who had three sacks for a loss of 29 yards, including a pair of forced fumbles.

Anau finished with six tackles on the day. The first fumble came in the first quarter when Anau sacked Tyler Bruggman for a drop of 12 yards. He added another sack in the second quarter, this time for a loss of 15 yards. With under less than 30 seconds to play, MSU had the ball on the NAU35 with a chance at scoring, but Anau sacked the MSU quarterback for a loss of five yards, forcing a fumble that was scooped up by Xavier Stephens.

Ball control and field position came at a premium in last weekend’s game between Southern Utah and UC Davis, which the Thunderbirds claimed, 24-3. Southern Utah was able to keep UC Davis from moving into scoring position throughout the game, largely thanks to Tate Lewis’s superb punting. Lewis punted nine times for 439 yards. His average was 48.8 yards per punt and his longest was 64 yards.

Nominees for Offensive Player of the Week included: Brady Gustafson, Montana; Keaton Studsrud, North Dakota; Emmanuel Pooler, Weber State; Joe Logan, Northern Arizona; and Stephen Miller, Northern Colorado.

The nominees for Defensive Player of the Week included: Josh Burton, Weber State; Josh Buss, Montana; Cole Reyes, North Dakota; Taylor Pili, Southern Utah; Thomas Singleton, Northern Colorado; Keleen Culberson, UC Davis; and Zach Bruce, Eastern Washington.

Finalists for Special Teams Player of the Week include: Tim Semenza, Montana; Keifer Glau, Northern Colorado; and Roldan Alcobendas, Eastern Washington.

Press release written by John Oglesby of  the Big Sky Conference with contributions from Dave Cook, EWU athletics. All Rights Reserved. 

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