Eastern closes camp, prepares for 2017 opener at Texas Tech

Will Eastern Washington University begin to hang its hat on the defense rack in 2017?

Probably not, but for the second time in a week in preseason camp scrimmages it has been the "D," that has been making a lot noise. Having held the vaunted Eagle offense out of the end zone on Aug. 19, the likelihood of that happening again was not a high probability.

Eastern's offense did have its way for a while that is - scoring twice early - in the final tune up for the Eagles' season opening game Saturday in Lubbock against Texas Tech. in a Friday afternoon, Aug. 25 67-play scrimmage at Roos Field.

Quarterbacks Gage Gubrud and Eric Barriere directed the offense to a pair of quick scoring drives before the defense took over.

The offense had a productive day with 329 yards of total offense, an average of 4.9 yards per play. But the defense still came up with some big plays through the evening, with a pair of interceptions and six quick-whistle quarterback sacks.

A week ago, the offense had four interceptions and averaged only 3.7 yards per play against a defense that surrendered no play of longer than 18 yards.

"Our offense got on track early and our defense was kind of in hesitancy mode – but then the script was flipped," Eastern head coach Aaron Best said. "We got after it on defense and started sleepwalking on offense."

Gubrud, Eastern's All-America junior, started the day by passing for 34 yards and rushing for 18 more during the offense's opening 75-yard drive. He hit Jayson Williams with a 2-yard touchdown pass.

Barriere followed with a 70-play drive of his own, capped by the redshirt freshman's 55-yard TD pass to true freshman Johnny Edwards IV.

Both Gubrud and Barriere drove the offense down the field on subsequent possessions, but those ended in an interception by D'londo Tucker and a missed field goal. Later, Victor Gamboa had an interception on a pass by Barriere.

Gubrud finished 6 of 11 for 67 yards, while Barriere was 12 of 17 for 139 yards. Gubrud led the running game with 27 yards with Tamarick Pierce adding 21.

Defensively, sophomore safety Tysen Prunty had eight tackles and true freshman Chris Ojoh six with a sack. Linebacker Conor McKenna also had six tackles and a sack and linebacker Andrew Katzenberger also had six stops. Darnell Hogan had 1 1/2 sacks.

Eastern opens against a Texas Tech squad that finished 5-7 overall a year ago. The Eagles are ranked fifth in the preseason STATS NCAA Football Championship Subdivision preseason top 25 rankings, and were one notch higher in the poll of coaches. EWU's finished 12-2 and a perfect 8-0 in the Big Sky Conference - co-champs with North Dakota -a year ago and ended the year ranked fourth in the FCS.

Eagles vs. Red Raiders

FCS No. 4/5 Eastern Washington University Eagles at Texas Tech Red Raiders, Lubbock, Texas, 1:05 p.m. Jones AT&T Stadium (60,454). TV: ROOT Sports and Fox Sports. Radio: 700-AM ESPN in Spokane. Larry Weir returns for his 27th season calling the play-by-play, with analysis handled by Paul Sorensen. Broadcasts begin one hour prior to kickoff and include an expanded post-game show. (See preview on page 3)