Quotes from Hawkins and Best from the Enterprise article:

“I’ve coached against some great quarterbacks, including Heisman Trophy winners, and what he did tonight is right up there with the best of them. He gives you a lot of problems,” Aggie coach Dan Hawkins said afterward.

“You have to tip your cap to them. They were coming off two losses and had to go on the road and came in here and played great and got the win.”

While offering praise to the winners, Hawkins noted “It’s never fun to lose, but it was a heck of a game and I’m proud of our guys. There were a lot of great plays in that game and they made more of them than we did. On the hero’s journey, you have to learn from your setbacks and we will.”

“Our players responded to two weeks of adversity and this week there was a ton more,” Best noted.

“Our players are resilient and they played with the most amount of guts I’ve ever seen coming down here and away from home for the first time in a month against a top-five outfit. From about the second quarter on, we controlled the game and especially did so late in the game when we needed it.”

Leading 24-20 early in the fourth quarter, Eastern scored on a 10-yard run by Isaiah Lewis and a 4-yard run by Tamaric Pierce.

“The opportunity to respond was here and we responded,” Best added. “That’s what a mature football team does.”

For his part, Best was thrilled to break an uncharacteristic two-game losing streak. And he, too, gave much of the credit to Barriere.

“He’s a legend,” said Best.

“He’s a present-day legend. He’s still writing his script, and every day he tries to get better and we found a way to win. A lot of the credit goes to the players up front protecting him while he’s staring down field.

“I thought we were physical and controlled the line of scrimmage for the better part of the day. Don’t forget about the defense, they played lights out. It was a fun game to watch if you could see it through the fog. I couldn’t be more proud, and the ride home will be very joyful.”

https://www.davisenterprise.com/sports/aggies-cant-keep-up-with-eagles/

Post-game quotes from Hawkins and 'Bryce Rodgers:

“Our kids didn’t back down, we played great, battled, gave some blows, took some blows.” he said. “So that’s part of it. But, again, the season goes on. I told them, my speech, one way or another, whether we won or lost, was probably going to be pretty much the same. So we’ve got to get ready to go for next week.”

Rodgers said the plan coming into the game was to prevent Barriere from playing backyard football and being able to step up in the pocket. “They have a lot of weapons on their offense,” Rodgers said. “They got some good running backs, have a good running game, and got a good pass game, and they know what they got back there in No. 3. So they know that when in doubt, you gotta do the scramble drill, basically, and they’re just trying to get open. So they do that very well.”

“Hats off to those guys, they played great,” he said. “I’ve had either the unpleasant or pleasant experience of playing against a number of Heisman Trophy quarterbacks, or Heisman Trophy finalists, I would put Eric Barriere right up there with any of them. He’s super talented.”

Regarding EWU's offensive numbers:

"Eastern Washington’s numbers were eye-popping. The Eagles outgained Davis, 625-283, and ran 101 plays on offense to just 63 on defense. “Never have I been a part of a game like that in my 16 years of playing football. That’s crazy,” Rodgers, a senior, said. “I didn’t even know there was that many snaps taken. I think that just says something that we just need to work on getting off the field more, honestly.”

“They have a lot of weapons on their offense,” Rodgers said. “They got some good running backs, have a good running game, and got a good pass game, and they know what they got back there in No. 3. So they know that when in doubt, you gotta do the scramble drill, basically, and they’re just trying to get open. So they do that very well.”

Regarding the next game against Sac:

“I think that Sac State is a good team,” defensive lineman Bryce Rodgers said. “But in terms of how we look at it in the future, it’s the next game. We’re not really worried about the playoffs like that. We’re just worried about winning this next game.”

“It’s no pressure,” said Hawkins. “Our standard is, amongst ourselves, to be the very best version of ourselves. Although we line up against other teams in other colors, in other venues in other places, it’s always to live up to the best version of ourselves, and I have 100% confidence in our guys that we’ll do that.”

Regarding Lan Larison:

“His foot’s been bothering him bad for quite a while,” Hawkins said. “And it’s still not 100%. But you’re not going to find anyone tougher than Lans Larison. ... He’s extremely explosive, as you saw. He’s extremely tough.”

Read more at: https://www.sacbee.com/sports/article255802571.html#storylink=cpy

South Dakota beat SDSU on a Hail Mary with 1 second left in the game.

I think you make some good points. We have never established who exactly our QB is this year. Our OL has had trouble protecting them also. Look at EB3 tonight. He really didn't need to scramble because his OL allowed him to simply sit in the pocket until somebody got open. I don't think I've ever seen a QB stand still in the pocket for so log just scanning the field. Any decent QB, let alone a great QB, will find an open receiver if he can stand in the pocket for 8 seconds waiting until someone gets open. Our QB's have not had that kind of protection.

Good for Poly! Our loss to Idaho State is a very bad loss that will hurt us in the playoff draw.

Sac is demolishing Portland State 42-14 with 13 minutes to go. We will lose by double digits if we play like this again next week.

You can not see half way across the field.

Defense looks gassed. EB3 has so much time he can just wait until someone gets open. No pass rush at all.

It’s not easy to see the ball in the stadium.

Between the smoke from a food truck and the fog rolling in you can barely see the field!

Kari son: 98 yards in 23 seconds in full football gear. That’s fast!

Disappointing crowd for game of this magnitude.

I wonder where all the fans are? I hope they’re just late arriving.

#19 South Dakota 23 #4 SDSU 20 Final
#1 Sam Houston State 48 Eastern Kentucky 28 Final
#8 Villanova 33 Stony Brook 14 Final
#3 Montana State 20 Idaho 13 Final

Montana State is going to win this game 20-13. They just got the ball on downs in the final minute.

Those are great numbers for Sage and Hall had 5 boards. You're right though, where was the rest of the teams when it came to the boards?

No one else had more than one rebound. Sage is great when the ball comes of the board near her and she's in good position but the Gaels where getting the 50/50 balls that came off the rim wide. It looked like they just went after those balls harder than us.

Jen can use this for a teaching moment for this team because St Mary's exposed the current weaknesses that the Aggie need to work on especially rebounding. St Mary's won the game by out rebounding the Ags 42-27 of which 13 were offensive boards which led to 10 second chance points to only 2 for the Aggies. That's the difference in the ball game right there. Rebounding is a combination of blocking out, physicality and determination and St Mary's did it better than the Aggies.

The Gaels also locked down on defense when it counted. They got themselves back into the game when they were 11 down and the Ags relaxed on defense and got out hustled on rebounds. They forced 3 Aggie TO's in the final 1:38 and held the Ags to 1 of 7 shooting in the final 3 minutes. In short, they closed out the game.

Even though we lost, I thought there was a lot of improvement overall by the Ags except in rebounding. There was better ball movement on offense and stretches of very good defense, They can build on that. These two teams seem to battle like this each year and the Gaels executed better when it counted the most this year.

#5 NDSU 49 Youngstown State 17 Final

The Ags need to tighten up their defense. Poor rebounding early but doing much better now, This game will probably go down to the wire.

I would think that it has more to do with other schools having already established their non-conference schedules than anything else.

The reported hazing is so lurid and disturbing that it's getting a lot of media attention and it's really a black eye for the program. It's going to take a long time for the program to recover. Hopefully, the program will come back better and more competitive.