2023 Week 4: Eastern Washington (1-2) @ UC Davis (2-1) Well, this one hurt for sure and Aggie fans left the game feeling disappointed. This is a game we could have won but the TO's did us in. I'm sure the team is as frustrated as the fans are and, since we've never beaten EWU, it feels even more bitter.
I give the Aggies credit for coming back after getting down 14 early due to the TO's but this game has certainly pointed out some problems we have against tough opponents. We simply can't win against quality opponents when turn the ball over 3 times. Two of those TO's gave EWU a short field and led to 10 quick points for them.
EWU is a tough team. Let's not forget that they took Fresno State to 2OT after Fresno had just beaten Purdue on the road. Then they followed up that game by putting up an impressive 530 yards in their win over a very good SE Louisiana team. They're much better than a lot of people give them credit for.
Our defense is keeping us in these games while our offense sputters at critical moments and is turning the ball over. The D held EWU well below their average yardage per game and on the offensive end we had 435 yards to their 319. That's pretty darn good overall but the TO bug got us again.
We've had a lot of early season injuries too and it's definitely hurting us now. There were at least 4 players wearing boots on the sideline and we lost OL David Main last week too. Two WR's, Andre Crump Jr and Abe Del Real, were in street clothes also. We're thin at RB now that both Larison and Perez are out.
We're going to drop way down in the rankings especially since EWU has not been getting much respect in the polls up to this point. There's a lot of football yet to be played in the Big Sky and a lot of things can change quickly but, from what I've seen so far, we're a middle of the pack team and we're pretty beat up so every game from now on is going to tough.
Sac, Montana State and Idaho are clearly the 3 best teams in the Big Sky to date. They're all loaded.