Finally, there was no home sweet home in an Eagle game this season.
 
The Eastern Washington University football team held Idaho State without a touchdown and twin 80-yard touchdown plays helped the Eagles to record their first road win of the season with a 48-5 victory over Idaho State Saturday (Nov. 9) at Holt Arena in Pocatello, Idaho.
 
In a Big Sky Conference game between teams fighting to finish with at least .500 records on the season, Eastern used four first-half field goals by redshirt freshman Seth Harrison to open a 20-2 lead at halftime. Then, an 89-yard touchdown run by Antoine Custer Jr. and an 80-yard TD pass from junior Eric Barriere to junior Johnny Edwards IV broke open the game just four minutes into the third quarter.
 
The Eagles extended their streak of seasons with at least one road win to 51. Eastern beat the Bengals for the 11th-straight time dating back to the last ISU win in the series in 2005.
 
"It's game 10 and we finally won on the road," said Eastern head coach Aaron Best. "I'm not sure what we're supposed to do to celebrate – this team hasn't won on the road before. This bunch is happy and excited, and we know that winning on the road is hard to do."
 
Eastern finished with 689 yards of total offense after bringing to Pocatello the top offense in the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision at 506.0 yards per game. Individual leader Barriere entered with an average of 353.3 and 30 total touchdowns (24 passing, six rushing), and finished with 467 combined passing and rushing yards.
 
Eastern's defense held ISU to 416 yards and only a third-quarter field goal. Junior Calin Criner had a pair of interceptions, and freshman redshirt cornerback Darrien Sampson had his first career pick. Sacks were recorded by seniors Jack Sendelbach and Jim Townsend. Senior Dehonta Hayes had 11 tackles to lead EWU.
 
"Even as depleted our defense is, the 64 guys in pads only gave up three points," said Best. "I couldn't be prouder of this bunch."'
 
Custer had the 10th performance in his career with at least 100 yards, finishing with 145 and a touchdown. Barriere passed for 406 – his eighth of his career of at least 300 and third with 400 -- and rushed for 61. Edwards had his first 100-yard receiving performance with four catches for 107 yards, and sophomore Andrew Boston had his second with 10 grabs for 147 yards and two scores.
 
The first half was accentuated by lack of efficiency on third down, but Eastern was able to get the upper hand with a fake field goal for a touchdown on a 15-yard pass by sophomore Gunner Talkington to true freshman tight end Blake Gobel. Field goals of 40, 36, 21 and 36 yards helped Eastern take a 20-2 advantage into halftime.
 
Idaho State was 0-of-6 on third down, and its lone points in the first half came on a safety when the EWU offense was backed up to its own goal line. The Eagles were just 5-of-11 on third down in the half, including three costly misses in the red zone.
 
But Eastern scored touchdowns on its first two possessions of the second half to take a 34-5 lead and put the game away early. Custer's 89-yard TD run was followed by the touchdown by Edwards on Eastern's next offensive play with 11:57 left in the third quarter. Boston added TD catches of 21 and 59 yards after that.
 
The victory helps Eastern toward its goal of extending its school-record streak of consecutive winning seasons to 13 (4-0 this season), having not had a losing season since 2006 when the Eagles were 3-8.
 
 
Records & Rankings . . .
 
* Eastern is 5-5 overall and 4-2 in the Big Sky, and was coming off a 66-38 pasting of Northern Arizona in which EWU finished with 706 yards. That followed a 34-17 loss for the Eagles at rival Montana after owning a 17-10 lead in the third quarter. The Eagles are a perfect 4-0 at home and 1-5 on the road this season.
 
* The Bengals were coming off a 26-20 home loss to Northern Colorado, a team EWU defeated 54-21 on Oct. 12 after leading 40-0 at halftime. That was the first loss in four tries this season at Holt Arena for the Bengals, who are 0-5 away from home this year. The Bengals are now 3-7 overall and 2-4 in the Big Sky with league wins over Portland State (52-24) and North Dakota (55-20).
 
 
What's Next . . .
 
* Eastern goes on the road for a second-straight week when it plays at Cal Poly Saturday (Nov. 16) in San Luis Obispo, Calif., in a rematch of EWU's 53-point blowout victory in Cheney a year ago. In 2018, on its way to an appearance in the NCAA Division I Championship Game, Eastern won handily 70-17 and the 53-point margin was the largest ever in a Big Sky Conference game for EWU, and the third-largest overall. Eastern is 8-2 all-time versus Cal Poly – 5-0 at home and 3-2 on the road -- with a six-game winning streak in the series. However, the Mustangs have an option attack not seen by the Eagle defense on a regular basis, and that has given EWU fits in the past.  In fact, in the last three meetings alone, Cal Poly has averaged 417.7 yards on the ground per game.
 
* Cal Poly had a bye on Nov. 9, and enters the Eastern game 2-7 overall and 1-5 in the Big Sky Conference. The Mustangs won their league opener 24-21 at Southern Utah, but since then have fallen to three nationally-ranked teams – Montana State (34-28 in overtime), UC Davis (48-24) and Sacramento State (38-14). During the losing skid Cal Poly has also fallen to North Dakota at home (30-26) and Idaho on the road (21-9) in its most recent game on Nov. 2. The Mustangs are averaging 225.7 yards on the ground and 131.1 through the air, with three players with at least 232 yards on the season. Duy Tran Sampson has 813 yards and four touchdowns, and Jalen Hamler has 424 and eight scores. Hamler has also passed for 1,052 yards and nine touchdowns, and J.J. Koski has caught 36 passes for 781 yards and five scores. The Mustangs are surrendering 460.6 yards per game – 211.8 rushing and 248.8 passing – while also getting outscored 312-208 (average score of 34-23).
 
* A year ago, in EWU's 70-17 rout in Cheney, the Eagles actually outgained the Mustangs on the ground 441-378, and EWU set a school and Big Sky Conference record with an average of 14.7 yards per rush. But the last time the two teams had met in Cheney in 2015, the Eagles needed overtime and a failed 2-point conversion by Cal Poly to prevail 42-41 in a game in which Eastern trailed by 15 in the fourth quarter. Cal Poly had 503 rushing yards in that game. A year later in San Luis Obispo in a 42-21 Eastern victory, Cal Poly had 372 yards rushing as a team.
 
 
Key Stats . . .
 
* The Eagles had 689 yards of offense, including 427 passing and 262 rushing. Of those totals, 380/215/165 came in the second half. Eastern had entered the ISU game as the FCS leader in total offense (506.0), sixth in passing (326.9), 34th in rushing (179.1) and ninth in scoring (38.2).
 
* Idaho State had 416 yards, including 131 on the ground and 285 through the air. Defensively, Eastern is 63rd in rushing defense (156.7), 110th in passing defense (275.8), 96th in total defense (432.4) and 108th in scoring defense (35.9) among 116 FCS schools. Eastern also has the sixth-most first downs in FCS with 201 and is 28th in third down conversions (42.6 percent).
 
* The Eagles won the turnover battle versus Idaho State 3-0. Eastern entered the game 25th in turnovers gained (17) and 16th in turnover margin (plus 0.78 per game, with 17 takeaways and 10 giveaways).
 
* Individually, Eastern's Eric Barriere entered the game leading FCS in total offense per game (353.3) and is fourth in passing (318.9). He is also seventh with 24 touchdown passes and fourth in points responsible for (20.0 per game with 24 TDs passing and six rushing). He finished with 467 yards of total offense – 406 through the air and 61 on the ground, with three TD passes.
 
 
EWU Highlights . . .
 
* Senior running back Antoine Custer Jr. had an 89-yard touchdown run early in the second half, ranking as the sixth-longest in school history and giving him 10 plays in his career of at least 40 yards. That was his career-longest run, having had an 83-yard TD against Idaho State in 2016 in the last meeting between the two teams in Cheney, Wash. His longest play, though, was a 93-yard TD in 2016 versus Northern Iowa. Custer's 89-yarder against the Bengals helped him go over the 100-yard mark for the 10th time in his career and the fourth time in 2019 – his second-straight. He entered the game with 758 rushing yards on the season,, and coupled with the 145 he had versus Idaho State, is now just 97 yards from hitting the coveted 1,000-yard mark. He has had four 100-yard performances this season, and is 35th nationally in rushing (84.2) and 19th in rushing touchdowns (nine).
 
* Redshirt freshman wide receiver Freddie Roberson made the first start of his career in his ninth game as an Eagle.
 
 
Notables . . .
 
* Besides extending a current streak of 51 seasons with at least one road win, the Eagles won their 11th-straight over Idaho State. In the previous 10 victories, EWU had out-scored the Bengals by an average score of 44-20 (440-200 in total points), having not lost since ISU won 34-30 in Pocatello in 2005. The Eagles have dominated the series against Idaho State, winning 29 of the 38 meetings with a current 11-game winning streak and victories in 18 of the last 21. Eastern is 17-5 in meetings in Pocatello, 11-4 in Cheney and 1-0 at Spokane's Albi Stadium.
 
* The road win was EWUs' first in nearly a year, having lost its first five road games away from the comfy confines of Roos Field where the Eagles are riding a school-record 13-game winning streak (4-0 this season). The last time Eastern was winless on the road was 1969 when the then-Savages were 0-4 away from home and finished 4-5 on the season. In fact, since then, Eastern has had at least two road wins in all but six seasons (1974, 1975, 1976, 1988, 1989, 1994), a current streak of 25-straight seasons with at least a pair.
 
* The Eagles have won 57 of their last 68 Big Sky games since a 0-2 start in 2011. Included are current stretches of 47 victories in the last 56 games (including two at the end of the 2012 season) and 25 of the last 30 (since 2016). Including three wins at the end of the 2009 season, Eastern has a 67-14 record in league games since then. Including four non-conference victories (two versus MSU, and one each against Cal Poly and Northern Arizona), two playoff wins (Montana and UC Davis) and one loss (Idaho), the Eagles are 63-12 since the 0-2 start in 2011 and 53-9 since the end of the 2012 campaign.  At one point the Eagles had won 44 of 50 league games, and the only Big Sky school which has come close to that in the 56-year history of the league was Montana, which won 50 of 55 games from 1995-2002 and 46 of 51 from 2003-2009.
 
* Eastern has had 21 winning seasons in the last 23 years (1996-2018), including a current school record string of 12-straight (2007-18) and another stretch of seven straight (1999-2005). The last time Eastern had that many winning seasons in a row came 75 years earlier in the Red Reese era when Eastern had a string of 11-straight winning seasons from 1931-1941. Since 1996, the only losing seasons for the Eagles came in 1998 under Mike Kramer (5-6) and 2006 under Paul Wulflf (3-8).
 
* The game Sept. 21 versus Idaho was Eastern's 59th game inside a dome, where the temperatures are always at about 72 degrees and wind or humidity are not factors. After the 35-27 loss and EWU's win at ISU, Eastern is 31-29 all-time in domes, including a 4-9 record at the Kibbie Dome. Eastern is also 15-4 at Idaho State's Holt Arena, 10-7 at NAU's Walkup Skydome, 2-0 at North Dakota, 0-1 at North Dakota State, 0-1 at South Dakota, 0-6 at Northern Iowa and 0-1 at the Houston Astrodome.
 
* November has long been a successful month for Eastern, and they hope to continue that in 2019. Since 2004, EWU has lost just seven regular season games in November (Weber State in 2017; NAU, Portland State and Montana in 2015; Sac State and Weber State in 2006; and Cal Poly in 2005), with an overall record of 37-7 and a current six-game winning streak in the month. In November and beyond since 2004, the Eagles are now 53-16, including a 16-9 record in the FCS Playoffs. Since 2010, Eastern is 38-9 overall in November and beyond, with the lone setbacks coming in 2019 to North Dakota State in the NCAA Division I Championship game; 2017 to Weber State; 2016 to Youngstown State in the semifinals of the FCS Playoffs; 2015 to Portland State, Montana and Northern Arizona; 2014 to Illinois State in the playoff quarterfinals; 2013 to Towson in the playoff semifinals; and 2012 to Sam Houston State in the playoff semifinals. Until losing to Northern Arizona on Nov. 7, 2015, Eastern had won its last 19 regular season games in November, dating back to a 15-13 loss to Sacramento State on Nov. 1, 2008.
 
 
Head Coach Aaron Best Comments . . .
 
On Defense: "Great is an understatement. It's awesome to only give up three offensive points on the road against a team that is going to lead on the run and the run-pass option, and then take some shots deep. They were withstanding some storms offensively – we just couldn't get untracked. Finally we got it going, and once the offense got going with its tempo, the defense still played up to par. Coach (Eti) Ena put in a great game plan not knowing who the quarterback would be, and them coming in with the top rusher in the league."
 
On Offense: "We started picking up steam in the second quarter, but we let er' rip in the third quarter. We did that early and got the long run by Antoine, and then we got the long passes that really opened it up and started sealing their fate a little bit. Our offense and defense played off each other really well, and when you play that well – especially on the road – you give yourself a chance to win the ballgame."