The "Boss" is back, and Eric Barriere was at his Eagle finest as he has in his entire career at Roos Field.
 
The Eastern Washington University football team took a 24-6 lead at halftime and went on to beat Northern Arizona 45-13 in a Big Sky Conference game on Saturday (March 6) at Roos Field in Cheney, Wash. The win was the 15th-straight for the Eagles at "The Inferno," and Saturday was the first game on the new red Astroturf surface installed at "The Inferno" last summer.
 
"Our team did a great job today with the game plan in all three phases," said Eastern head coach Aaron Best. "It was a windy environment but the sun was out, and it was our first home game in the 2020-21 season and the first game on the new red turf. We held serve and we've won 15 in a row at home. We're happy for the fans who weren't in the stands today, but were on the hills watching."
 
All-America quarterback Eric Barriere passed for 413 yards and three touchdowns in the victory, including eight catches for 120 yards to junior Andrew Boston. Barriere now has four 400-yard performances in his Eastern career as he completed 29-of-49 passes.
 
Boston, an All-Big Sky performance who missed last week's 28-21 loss at Idaho, had his third 100-yard receiving performance of his career – including 30 yards after his catches.
 
 "It was nice having Andrew Boston back making plays and over 100 yards," said Best. "His leadership and his ability be able to catch the ball and get up field really helped in that department."
 
Barriere completed passes to 10 different receivers, and is now a perfect 12-0 as a starter at Roos Field. Senior running back Tamarick Pierce had his first career 100-yard performance with 105 yards rushing and two touchdowns as Eastern piled up 607 yards of total offense – the 34th 600-yard game in EWU's history.
 
Eastern's defense held NAU to 338 total yards, a week after holding Idaho to 366. Eastern had three turnovers to NAU's none, however, leading to six punts by the Lumberjacks and just two by the Eagles.
 
Junior linebacker Chris Ojoh finished with a career-high 12 tackles, a pass broken up and a quarterback hurry for EWU, and he also was in on one of EWU's sacks. He had now been in double figures in tackles in five career games. Junior Mitchell Johnson had 1 1/2 sacks, a quarterback hurry and a total of eight tackles for EWU.
 
Best, who missed last week's game versus Idaho because of an asymptomatic case of Covid-19, relished his return to the sideline after being in pandemic-required isolation since Feb. 25.
 
"It was awesome to get to see the smiles, the joy and the emotion of what these players and coaches love to do," he said. "It was more normal this week, and I was excited for the experience today. It wasn't any less than what I expected. Getting back in the swing of things was beautiful."
 
 
Top Performers and Firsts
-- Eastern piled up 622 yards of total offense – the 34th 600-yard game in EWU's history.
-- All-America quarterback Eric Barriere passed for 413 yards and three touchdowns in the victory over NAU, giving him four 400-yard performances in his Eastern career as he recorded the 43rd in school history. He now has 10 performances with at least 300 yards. Coupled with his nine rushing yards, he had 422 yards of total offense to give him eight career performances with 400+ and 15 with 300+. Barriere completed passes to 10 different receivers, and is now a perfect 12-0 as a starter at Roos Field. He has 61 touchdown passes to 18 different receivers in his career, including three new receivers in the 2020-21 season (Anthony Stell Jr., Dennis Merritt and Blake Gobel).
-- Junior Andrew Boston finished with eight catches for 120 yards record his third 100-yard receiving performance of his career – including 30 yards after his catches.
-- Senior running back Tamarick Pierce had his first career 100-yard performance with 105 yards rushing and two touchdowns. He had a career-high 15 carries and also caught a pass for 13 yards, giving him a career-high of 118 all-purpose yards.
-- Junior linebacker Chris Ojoh finished with a career-high 12 tackles, a pass broken up and a quarterback hurry for EWU, and he also was in on one of EWU's sacks. He had now been in double figures in tackles in five career games.
-- Junior Mitchell Johnson had 1 1/2 sacks, a quarterback hurry and a career—high total of eight tackles.
-- True freshman defensive lineman Matthew Brown played the first game of his career and had his first career tackle.
-- True freshman wide receiver Efton Chism III played in his second career game and had the first two punt returns in his career for 17 yards, including a long of 15.
-- True freshman kicker Jackson Cleaver made his Eagle debut versus Northern Arizona and scored EWU's first points with a 28-yard field goal, then made all six of his extra point attempts after that for a total of nine points scored. He also kicked off twice for a 54.5 average.
-- Arizona State transfer Ely Doyle had the first tackles of his career with seven and had his first pass broken up.
-- Redshirt freshman defensive lineman Warren Hardin had the first two tackles of his career in his second game as an Eagle.
-- Redshirt freshman defensive end Brock Harrison made the first start of his career and had a career-high two tackles with three quarterback hurries.
-- True freshman running back Justice Jackson had the first carries of his career, rushing three times for 13 yards and a long of 10.
-- Redshirt freshman wide receiver Jakobie James had a career-long 22-yard catch in his fourth game as an Eagle.
-- Redshirt freshman defensive back Marlon Jones Jr. made the first start of his career and had a career-high three tackles.
-- True freshman defensive back Kameron Lane played in his first game as an Eagle and had his first tackle.
-- Redshirt freshman defensive tackle Jacob Newsom had a career-high five tackles in his third game as an Eagle.
-- True freshman defensive lineman Ben Roe had his first five tackles of his career in his second game as an Eagle.
-- Junior defensive back Dean Sise had a career-high four tackles.
-- Sophomore running back Micah Smith scored his first career touchdown and also had career highs of 35 rushing yards and a long of 16.
-- Sophomore wide receiver Anthony Stell Jr. had career highs of five receptions for 84 yards, and caught his second TD pass of the season and of his career. He also had a 46 yards in kickoff returns with a long of 27 to give him 130 all-purpose yards – all career highs.
-- True freshman defensive back DaJean Wells had his first career tackle in his first game as an Eagle.
 
 
Records
 
* Now 1-1 this season, Eastern finished 7-5 in 2019, including a 6-2 record in the Big Sky to finish in a third-place tie. However, the Eagles were passed over for a berth in the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision Playoffs despite finishing as the national runner-up in 2018. Eastern was ranked 12th in this week's Stats Perform NCAA Football Championship Subdivision top-25 poll.
 
* Northern Arizona is also 1-1, and was 4-8 overall in 2019 and 2-6 in the league in 2019 under first-year head coach Chris Ball.
 
* None of EWU's five league opponents this winter/spring – including a pair of games with Idaho – had winning records overall or in the league in 2019. They combined for a 20-39 record overall and 12-28 in the Big Sky. However, Idaho knocked off Eastern 35-27 on Sept 21, 2019, representing the only loss in 10 games for Best in his head coaching career versus the five opponents. In school history, EWU is 75-39 versus those five foes, and 16 of those losses and just seven wins are against Idaho.
 
 
Game Details & Turning Point
 
Both teams kicked field goals in the first quarter before Eastern took the lead for good early in the second period on a 3-yard touchdown pass from Barriere to freshman tight end Blake Gobel to cap a 72-yard drive. Eastern scored twice in the final nine minutes of the half on drives of 65 and 80 yards to lead 24-6 at halftime.
 
Eastern's touchdown on the first scoring drive came on a 54-yard TD pass to sophomore Freddie Roberson. Roberson's former high school teammate, sophomore Anthony Stell Jr., then caught a 32-yard score from Barriere.
 
Eastern rushed for a trio of touchdowns in the second half, including an 18-yard rush by Pierce with 2:29 left in the third quarter to give the Eagles a 31-6 cushion. A 75-yard drive in the fourth quarter was capped by a Pierce 4-yard rush after a 24-yard pass from Barriere to Boston. The Eagles closed out the scoring with a 1-yard rush by sophomore Micah Smith.
 
 
Series Notes
 
* Eastern now leads the all-time series against NAU 23-12, and are 10-4 all-time against NAU in Cheney, 2-1 in Spokane and 11-7 in Flagstaff. The Eagles have now won 11 of the last 14 meetings overall, including a 66-38 victory in 2019. But prior to that, EWU hadn't hosted the Lumberjacks since losing 52-30 on Nov. 7, 2015, at Roos Field. Thus, Eastern's went nine season without a home win versus NAU dating back to Oct. 9, 2010, when EWU won by a 21-14 score en route to the NCAA Division I national title. The two schools did not play each other in 2012, 2013 and 2017 because of league expansion. Eastern won 31-26 in a non-conference game in Flagstaff in 2018, and the two teams were scheduled to play a second non-conference game in Cheney on Sept. 19, 2020, but that was wiped out because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Eastern has won its last two games in Flagstaff, having also won 50-35 there in 2016. But the Eagles had lost the previous two games, and had a five-game winning streak overall snapped in Flagstaff in 2014. In the previous nine meetings in Flagstaff where the game is played inside in the Walkup Skydome, the two teams have scored 647 points – an average of 71.9 per game.
 
 
More Game Notes
 
* Last week, Eastern finally began its 112th season in school history after a delay of five months because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Eagles opened a 14-0 lead at Idaho on Feb. 27, but the Vandals would take their only lead of the game with 54 seconds left and won 28-21. Eastern had 426 yards of total offense – including 339 by Barriere – while holding the Vandals to 366 yards. Eastern was playing its first game since Nov. 23, 2019, when EWU beat Portland State 53-46 to end the regular season. But instead of playing Florida last fall on Sept. 5, the pandemic forced the Eagles to wait a full 462 days before playing again.  Northern Arizona also was in a nail-biter at home versus Southern Utah, and pulled out a 34-33 win with a 2-yard touchdown pass on the game's final play. ­The Lumberjacks out-gained the Thunderbirds 370-343 in the evenly-matched game.
 
  * Eastern confirmed on Thursday, Feb. 25 that head football coach Aaron Best had tested positive for Covid-19 and he missed the season-opening game at Idaho. Since then, Best has followed proper isolation protocols via CDC guidelines and the Spokane Regional Health District, and came out of isolation on Saturday, March 6 to coach versus Northern Arizona.
 
* Having won all five of its regular season home games in 2019 and all eight in 2018, Eastern entered the 2020-21 season with a school-record 14-straight wins at Roos Field in the 2019 season. Eastern is now 58-10 (85.3 percent) overall at "The Inferno" since 2010. The stadium has been known as Roos Field since 2010 when a new red synthetic Sprinturf surface made its debut. Eastern's last home loss came on Nov. 4, 2017, versus Weber State. At its current site, the previous school record was 11 consecutive home wins set between 9/16/78 and 9/27/80 (between losses was from 11/19/77 to 11/1/80). Overall, the school record is 21 set from 1935-40. Eastern has lost just six regular season games at "The Inferno" – 45-6 (88.2 percent), plus are 13-4 (76.5 percent) in playoff games. The only regular season losses at home for EWU since 2010 are to conference foes Montana State (2011), Portland State (2011 and 2015), Northern Arizona (2015) and Weber State (2017), as well as North Dakota State (2017).
 
* Although having never played in February, practicing and playing in the winter months is nothing new for the Eagle football program. Entering this season, the Eagles have played 31 games in 13 appearances in the NCAA Football Championship subdivision playoffs, including 21 home games. And EWU is successful in the winter months to boot, including a 15-6 record in those 21 home playoff games. Since 2004, EWU is 39-7 in regular season games in November with a nine-game winning streak, and are 16-9 in the playoffs in November and beyond for a collective 55-16 record (77 percent). Since 2010, EWU is 40-9 in November and beyond for 82 percent – 26-4 in regular season games and 14-5 in the playoffs.
 
 
On the Horizon
 
 * Eastern plays on the road at Idaho State on March 13, with the game beginning at 3 p.m. Pacific time at Holt Arena in Pocatello, Idaho. After that, the Eagles have a scheduled bye on March 20, followed by a home game March 27 versus Cal Poly, a road game at UC Davis on April 3 and a home finale versus Idaho on April 10 in a rematch of EWU's season-opening loss at UI on Feb. 27. The NCAA Football Championship Subdivision Playoffs – just 16 teams this year -- are slated to begin on April 24 and conclude on May 16.
 
* At this time, no spectators will be permitted to attend games, practices or scrimmages due to institutional, regional, and state guidelines in regards to the Covid-19 pandemic.
 
 
More Comments from Head Coach Aaron Best
 
On Victory: "Collectively we played a pretty good brand of football in all three phases. There are some things to clean up that can be better and we turned the ball over a few too many times for our liking. But we leaned on our defense and only gave up three points after our turnovers, and those things are hidden in the stat line sometimes. We had to rely on our defense a little bit."
 
On Offensive Explosion After 426 Yards and 14 Points from Offense at Idaho Last Week: "We are thankful for what we have. We sometimes get so accustomed to offensive fireworks at Eastern and sometimes there aren't as many fireworks. Fourth of July happens only once a year, and fans expect that every Saturday – I do as well. But this is the second time two weeks in that our defense has allowed us to rely on some different things. We can play more team ball together, and we've done that for two weeks. We came up short last week, but today we put 45 points up on the board. But that doesn't come without a ton of hard work."