Eastern Washington University Athletics

Eastern won its first-ever Big Sky Conference championship in football, sharing the title with co-champion Idaho. EWU finished ranked 14th in the final NCAA Football Championship Subdivision (then known as I-AA) poll and advanced to the FCS Playoffs where the Eagles lost to Northern Iowa 17-14 in the first round. Eastern’s first league win of the season was a 27-21 victory over Montana and the last was a 14-13 home victory over Boise State which helped wrap-up the league co-championship. It was the school’s first conference championship in football in 23 years since sharing the 1969 Evergreen Conference title with Western Washington when Eastern was affiliated with NAIA.
 
Eastern’s four losses were to teams who had a collective 35-8 record (81 percent), with two of them ranking No. 1 nationally in FCS at one point of the season (Northeast Louisiana, UNI) and four advancing to the NCAA playoffs (Idaho, NLU, UNI in FCS; Portland State in Division II).
 
The Eagles featured only one All-American -- defensive end Tommy Williams -- but had seven players earn first team All-Big Sky honors. They included Williams, linebacker Joe Peterson, cornerback Jackie Kellogg, center Jimi Schmidt, offensive guard Harold Fox, offensive tackle Trent Pollard and wide receiver Tony Brooks. Second team honors were won by defensive tackle Mark Avena, defensive tackle Jack Murphy, linebacker Jason Marsh, strong safety Pat Sievers, running back Harold Wright and tight end Trevor Westlund. Receiving honorable mention were defensive end Derek Hart, quarterback Mark Tenneson and return specialist Jason Anderson. In all, a total of eight defensive players and seven on offense were honored, plus one on special teams for a total of 16.
 
The Eagle offense ranked 18th in I-AA in total offense with an average of 411 yards per game, led by a passing offense which averaged 254 per game to rank 13th nationally. Eastern’s big-play attack included a trio of receivers who combined for 115 receptions for over 2,000 yards, 16 touchdowns and an average of 18 yards per completion.
 
The defense averaged nearly 100 yards and 14 points fewer than during 5-6 campaigns the previous two seasons. Eastern was second in the nation in rushing defense by allowing only 83 yards per game. The Eagles held Montana to minus two rushing yards in a 27-21 victory, and had three other performances of 32 or less. Eastern had a string of nine-straight quarters without allowing a touchdown at one point in the season, highlighted by a 15-9 victory over Northern Arizona and a 37-3 triumph over Idaho State.
 
Tenneson closed his 36-game career by passing 2,643 yards, and at the time held EWU career records for yards (7,338), touchdowns (51), completions (568) and attempts (1,056). He won 10 of his last 15 starts. Williams finished with what was a school-record 12 1/2 sacks (now fourth). For the season, the defense had 36 sacks and 17 interceptions, and allowed only 19.4 points per game. Peterson and Marsh had 113 tackles each, and Kellogg had six interceptions and eight passes broken up.
 
It was the second-to-last team coached by the legendary Dick Zornes, who closed his 89-victory career with a 7-3 finish a year later in 1993. Four of his assistants from 1992 – Jim McElwain, Mike Kramer, John Zamberlin and Jerry Graybeal -- all went on to become NCAA Division I collegiate head coaches, including for four Big Sky Conference rivals (Kramer at EWU, Montana State and Idaho State; Zamberlin at Idaho State; Graybeal at Weber State). A total of eight players from the 1992 team went on to play in the NFL (including offensive linemen Ackerman and Pollard) or CFL (including Kellogg, an eight-year Canadian Football League veteran).
 
The Eagles had 16 players honored on the Big Sky All-Academic team. Westlund was honored for the fourth time, and was also selected to the CoSIDA Academic All-District VIII squad. He received his business administration degree the previous spring, and had a 3.72 grade point average.