Eastern's No. 1 pick can be a boon - and a bane

Once again, the Big Sky Conference bulls-eye is on the Eastern Washington University football team.

In a July 16 news release, conference media representatives and coaches voted the Eagles as the top pick to win the Big Sky this season. Eastern collected six first-place votes, 134 points, in the coaches poll and 27 votes, 651 points, in the media poll.

Both polls picked Weber State, last year’s co-champion, to finish second and Northern Arizona to finish third while newcomer — sort of — Idaho was fourth in the coaches poll and fifth in the media poll. Not a lot of respect for a former Big Sky...