Eastern Washington is as real as they come, even without Gubrud. Here are some of their impact players... Like Davis, they have a lot of guys playing on both sides of the ball. Not a 1 trick pony by any means.

RB Sam McPherson
- net 780 yards rushing
- 7.6 yards per carry
- 7 rushing touchdowns

RB Antoine Custer
- net 425 yards rushing
- 6.6 yards per carry
- 4 rushing touchdowns

QB Eric Barriere
- 1002 passing yards
- 7 passing touchdowns
- 60% completions
- net 294 yards rushing
- 6.3 yards per carry
- 5 rushing touchdowns

WR Nsimba Webster
- 822 receiving yards
- 15.8 yards per reception
- 5 receiving touchdowns

WR Andrew Boston
- 351 receiving yards
- 10.9 yards per reception
- 2 receiving touchdowns

LB Ketner Kupp
- 56 total tackles
- 4.5 tackles for loss
- 4 QB hits

LB Kurt Calhoun
- 52 total tackles
- 5 tackles for loss
- 1.5 sacks

DL Jay-Tee Tuili
- 23 total tackles
- 5.5 tackles for loss
- 4 sacks

DB D'londo Tucker
- 28 total tackles
- 6 pass break ups
- 3 interceptions

Massey is currently giving EWU the edge entirely based on home field advantage. On a neutral field they just barely give the edge to the Aggies. This has all the makings of an incredible match up. I just hope the Aggies can put together a full 4 quarters. That is something that we've struggled with this season, but we cannot afford to take a quarter off against these guys.

Here's an update to the Massey rankings related to our schedule:

https://www.masseyratings.com/cf2018/ncaa-d1/ratings

Current - School - (Previous)

#33 Stanford (#30)
#86 UC Davis (#86)
#97 Eastern Washington (#97)
#123 Idaho State (#126)
#144 San Jose State (#137)
#145 Montana (#157)
#148 Idaho (#159)
#179 Cal Poly (#179)
#181 San Diego (#192) Up 1
#187 Northern Arizona (#184) Down 1
#201 Northern Colorado (#197)
#207 Sacramento State (#209)

It's been quite static this week. San Diego moves up one since they keep on winning against their weaker scheduled teams.

San Jose State, Montana, and Idaho appear to be similar quality of teams.

As CA Forever and CK2 have said above, UCD and Eastern Washington will be a good matchup.

Also, as a comparison, we're now ranked higher than UCLA. :)

California is projected to beat us 30 to 23.This is a preview for next year. :)

With which QB taking snaps for the Bears?

I haven't studied the Bears.

Don't know. I did see pictures on twitter of the team in Halloween costumes in the weight room. Maybe a bit of fun in a week between battles.

http://www.compughterratings.com/CFB/simulations

Well, it's a sniff at the playoff atmosphere. Idaho State @ home was a warm up, @ Griz was a test, but they are young and rebuilding the second Bobby Ball era...EWU is legit and we're both playing for the Big Sky Championship.

Get the schemes ready, and be ready to play fast out of the gate, because the Eagles will come at us hard.

What makes them so scary this season is that they have developed a balanced attack too. EWU has been an air raid offense for the last several seasons, but McPherson, Custer, and now Barriere are doing significant damage on the ground. One of those teams that defenses are going to have fits over cause there is no way to stop everything they throw at you.

Sustained offensive drives on our end helps, and ST.

Cal's QB is Chase Garbers

Yet they have an infatuation with McIlwain who has more picks than TDs.

It's a big game for sure, but if Davis goes 9-2, we're seeded and get the bye

Any idea why our run defense has slipped the 2nd half of the schedule?

As simple as better RBs / better running teams (Cal Poly, NAU, etc.)?

Facilities Tour (from 5 years ago)

For Good Measure, this is NDSU @ EWU about 14 months ago. NDSU pounded them into oblivion, and contained the speed of EWU.

I thought run defense vs Poly was pretty good after the first drive. No long runs. I think yards per carry was good. Vs NAU, they basically ran the wildcat which gives them a numbers advantage. They’ve been getting a lot a rush yards with it; again, we didn’t give up large chunks. EWU has a good rush game coupled with solid pass, do that’s really going to test us

It seems like just about every time we turn around we have another biggest game of the D1 era: ISU, Montana and now EWU for what could be all the marbles. I think this is the most significant game we have had since we went D1 and certainly our most challenging FCS game of the year.

I think we will go into Cheney as a slight underdog and, like Hawk always says, we need to focus on just getting a little better each time out. We'll need to play our best game yet and, if we do, we can come home with a W which means we need to stiffen up defensively, clean up the numerous penalties of late, take care of the ball and play smart Aggie football. If we don't we could lose by more than we'd like to imagine. I think EWU is that good.

couldn’t agree more. Turnovers or penalties or special team mistake could turn this into the Montana first half all over.

we are first in the league in turnover margin.
Also first in conference in red zone defense.
We can’t expect a shutout but if we get some turnovers and stops and our offense scores as expected we win. That’s how this team has got to this record.

Weber kept them down to 6 points. I think that was Barriere's second start as QB. He keeps the play going with his legs. But it looks like he gets rattled on some of the videos and doesn't quite have that 6th sense when the pocket is closing up. The only thing I know is we better be ready to play 4 quarters. I think if you take one or two quarters off with a team like this it can be lights out.

So whose going to be at the game?

From reading EWUs forum when Barriere first started they had him running Gubruds offense. They've changed it up since to tailor to his talents. Quick passes and read option. He's still dangerous.

we'll have to be really clever to come up with some looks to confuse his looks on the short passes, and be very sure tacklers. that was something we didn't go too well against NAU. we have numerous times where we had the QB and/or back for 2-3 yard losses, only to let them get away for decent gains. I think Porter's big run followed a near 10-yard sack.

EWU has 27 or so seniors.

Very experienced team overall, just not at QB right now.

I'm not trying to jinx the Aggies, but if we lose to EWU could we fall into 3rd place in the Big Sky? Weber State beat Eastern Washington and if Eastern Washington beats us then all three schools could end up 7-1 and Weber should be first, EWU second. What would that do to a possible seeding in the playoffs?

The loss itself will matter more than our ultimate place in the Big Sky standings. And, I'm pretty sure that the tiebreakers are for determining who gets the autobid but not for anything else -- the three teams would be conference co-champions with all the same glory other than the autobid. The autobid is much more important for our basketball teams because only one Big West squad will get to the Big Dance ... in FCS football, we're in a power conference and finishing 9-2 is what the committee will care about more.

TLDR: I don't think losing to EWU would deny us the #1 spot in the standings (assuming we beat Sac State), but it would deny the autobid which doesn't matter for our qualification. But losing will of course still affect playoff placement.