North Dakota State has lost just six games over the past six seasons, including a 19-17 loss to South Dakota State for the only defeat of this season. NDSU has won the last five FCS national titles, ascending to a dominance unseen in Division I football ever before.
Tim Walsh led his Cal Poly team to one of the marquee non-conference wins by a Big Sky Conference teams this season when the Mustangs defeated SDSU in Brookings 38-31 the third week of September. The Jackrabbits have bounced in and out of the top 10 in the FCS while the Mustangs are surging, carrying a 4-1 Big Sky record, a 6-2 overall mark and a No. 14 national ranking into November.
While Walsh has seen a Missouri Valley power, one good enough to topple the Bison, and he’s also watched North Dakota State on film in preparation for this week’s contest, Cal Poly’s eighth-year head coach has another idea of who is the top team in this FCS. And his Mustangs play them this week in San Luis Obispo in one of the premier Big Sky games of 2016.
EWU receiver Kendrick Bourne (11)/by Brooks Nuanez
“I really do think Eastern Washington is the best team in the nation right now,” said Walsh, who’s team hosts the No. 3 Eagles at Alex G. Spanos Stadium on Saturday. “I think they are so skilled on offense and schematically so sound. We have had the opportunity to have several Folsom High School players and I think Beau (Baldwin) has done a great job of making a star hire in Troy Taylor. I think you combine Beau’s great offensive mind with Troy Taylor’s great offensive mind and you have one offense that is extremely difficult to defend. Then you put their athletes on the field and what do you do?”
Baldwin, Eastern Washington’s successful ninth-year head coach, has doubled as the play caller for the EWU offense for the duration of his time at Eastern, both as the head coach and previously as the offensive coordinator last decade. Baldwin’s offenses have consistently been among the most prolific in the FCS, especially in the passing game.
In the off-season, Baldwin replaced longtime passing coordinator Zak Hill with Taylor, a highly regarded offensive mastermind who spent the last handful of years piling up eye-popping offensive statistics at Folsom High in the Sacramento area. Many Folsom players have gone to play for Walsh in San Luis Obispo, including stud senior quarterback Dano Graves.
Taylor’s concepts combine with Baldwin’s creativity have produced the top offense in the Big Sky Conference and one of the top in all the FCS. The Eagles enter Saturday’s game averaging 45.1 points per game. Eastern is throwing for 439.4 yards per outing, far and away the best total in the country. Sophomore quarterback Gage Gubrud leads the country in total offense, averaging 450 yards per game. He is completing 69.3 percent of his passes for 3,213 yards and 31 touchdowns, all FCS-leading totals.
EWU wide receiver Shaq Hill (1)/by Brooks Nuanez
He has three of the country’s most talented receivers at his disposal. Cooper Kupp, a three-time All-American and the reigning FCS Offensive Player of the Year, along with Kendrick Bourne and Shaq Hill are all seniors helping Eastern to the brink of its fifth Big Sky title in seven seasons. Kupp has 67 catches for 1,0006 yards and 11 touchdowns, all FCS-leading totals that have pushed his career totals to the best in Division I history. Bourne is averaging 102.5 yards per outing and Hill has caught 10 touchdowns to go with 87 yards per game himself.
“The reality of the situation is this is a football game we would love to win but it will be an extremely difficult challenge for us,” Walsh said. “I think in my opinion they are clearly the best team in the Big Sky. We will give it our best shot. We will show up, play hard and do all those things that we do here at Cal Poly but we will have to do it for 60 minutes and it will have to be our best performance for us to have a chance to win this game.”
Cal Poly will counter with a completely different but equally prolific offensive attack. The Mustangs’ triple option is churning out 370 rushing yards per game. The Mustangs are averaging 40.9 points and 510 yards of total offense in Big Sky play and rushed for 527 yards in last week’s 59-47 win over rival Sacramento State.
“The last two games, there’s been times when we have gotten stopped and that frustrates us,” said Graves, who has rushed for 408 yards but is also completing 66 percent of his passes and has tossed 15 touchdowns. “After the Portland State game (55-35 Cal Poly win), we scored eight out of nine times and the only time we didn’t score was when we fumbled. We are hard on ourselves to put the ball in the end zone every time we touch it.”
Cal Poly quarterback Dano Graves (7)/by CP Athletics
Graves is the maestro, a deft ball handler who has executed the complex attack almost flawlessly this season. Junior fullback Joe Protheroe is the battering ram and his 921 rushing yards leads the Big Sky. Slot back Kori Garcia has been his consistent self, averaging 7.6 yards per carry and scoring four touchdowns on the ground while adding three TD receptions. Junior Kyle Lewis has become the big-play threat, averaging 11 yards per carry and scoring six touchdowns on 51 rushes while also catching a team-high 18 passes for 338 yards and three more scores.
“They know who they are and they buy into it 100 percent,” Baldwin said. “It’s impressive to watch as they go through the season and you are able to go back and look at the course of the whole season. Even Nevada (a 30-27 OT loss), they probably win that eight out of 10 times so a lot of impressive things throughout this season. It’s going to be a tough challenge for us, handling what they do offensively, handling what they are defensively.”
Eastern Washington is giving up 31.4 points and 192.9 rushing yards per game, but those numbers are skewed thanks to a brutal non-conference schedule that included wins over Washington State (45-42) and Northern Iowa (34-30) and an overtime loss at NDSU, 50-44. EWU is giving up 197 rushing yards per game in league play, but the Eagles have the scoring mark down to 24.2 per outing for their Big Sky opponents. Eastern held Montana State to 17 in a 24-point win in Bozeman two weeks ago and held No. 16 Montana to 16 in a 35-16 win in Cheney last week.
“The days of old where you look at yardage are gone,” Walsh said. “If you are holding Montana to 16 points, that’s scary. If you are holding teams to 24, 25 points per game, you are playing outstanding defense.”
Cal Poly fullback Joe Protheroe (5)/by CP Athletics
Eastern has faced pass-happy offenses like Washington State and Northern Colorado this season. The Eagles have also played against ground powers like NDSU and UNI. Now EWU transitions from Montana’s up-tempo passing attack to Cal Poly’s atypical style.
“It’s very similar to coming off WSU and going to play North Dakota State,” EWU defensive coordinator Jeff Schmedding said. “It’s that sort of change. But our league is so diverse, it reminds me of when I first got into coaching and I was coaching high school and you’d run into the Wing T and the next week you’d have a team that threw it and the next week, you’d have an option and the next week you’d have a two-back. I think it’s very similar in the Big Sky.”
Graves talked earlier this week about every game from this point forward being a “championship game” for the Mustangs. With a non-conference win over South Dakota State (38-31) and a conference win over Montana under its belt, Cal Poly’s playoff resume is already strong. But the Mustangs can take another step toward its second Big Sky title since joining the league in 2012 while EWU looks for its fifth conference crown this decade, a quest that will be boosted significantly this weekend.
“Every coach in the country talks about each week being an opportunity but there is only X amount of teams when you get to Week 9 that still has the championship of their conference in front of them,” Walsh said. “That’s the ultimate goal for us. Beating our three California FCS opponents was good, beating Davis was good. But our players play to win the Big Sky championship. We have the opportunity to do that.”
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