In his 34th career game for the 15th-ranked Eastern Washington University football team, All-America quarterback Eric Barriere had a game for the ages – and was rewarded for it as well.
 
For the first time in his career, Eric Barriere was rewarded as the STATS Perform National Offensive Player of the Week after helping rally the Eagles to a 46-42 Big Sky Conference victory over Idaho State on Saturday (March 13) in Pocatello, Idaho. He has previously received national recognition as an All-American and received weekly honorable mention accolades, but this is his first national award.
 
He passed for 455 yards and five touchdowns, rallying Eastern from a 42-31 deficit with 8:41 left. He completed 34-of-50 passes and had 474 yards of total offense. Besides accounting for 30 points with his five TD passes, he had a key two-point conversion pass to bring Eastern to within a field goal of the Bengals.
 
Barriere previously earned the ROOT SPORTS Big Sky Conference Offensive Player of the Week Award on Sunday (March 14) for the second-straight week and fifth time in his career.
 
He passed for TDs on three of EWU's first four scoring drives of 80, 75, 70 and 62 yards. He then led EWU on a 10-play, 86-yard TD drive with 5:49 left to pull Eastern to within three after he passed for the two-point conversion.
 
After an ISU punt, he directed EWU on a game-winning, nine-play, 60-yard drive that included a game-winning 6-yard touchdown pass to Andrew Boston with 25 seconds to play. Anthany Smith clinched the victory with an interception on the game's final play.
 
Barriere now has five 400-yard passing performances in his Eastern career as he recorded the 44th in school history, and has 11 performances with at least 300 yards. Coupled with his 19 rushing yards, Barriere had 474 yards of total offense to give him nine career performances with 400+ and 16 with 300+. His passing yardage total was the second-best of his career and his total offense tally was third.
 
Eastern had 596 yards of total offense against ISU, and a trio of receivers had big games. Andrew Boston finished with 10 receptions for 143 yards and two scores, Freddie Roberson had eight for 142 and Talolo Limu-Jones added eight grabs for 99 yards and a score.
 
The victory gave EWU a 2-1 record and completes the first-half of the six-game league schedule for both teams. A 48-5 win last year at ISU extended EWU's current streak of 51 seasons with at least one road win and winning for the 11th-straight time over Idaho State. Those streaks were extended to 52 and 12, respectively, on this year.
 
Barriere was honored by the Big Sky the week before after he passed for 413 yards and three touchdowns in a 45-13 victory over Northern Arizona on March 6 at Roos Field in Cheney, Wash.  Eastern piled up 622 yards of total offense in the 32-point victory – the 34th 600-yard game in EWU's history. Eastern won for the 15th-straight time at "The Inferno" and will next play there on March 27 versus Cal Poly. Eastern has a bye this Saturday (March 20).