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Eastern Washington University Football

Eastern Washington has quickly improving Hornets up next

Sacramento State quarterback Kevin Thomson, right, struggled against Kaden Elliss and the Idaho Vandals, but righted the ship in a win over Southern Utah to share Big Sky Conference Offensive MVP honors with Eastern Washington QB Gabe Gubrud. The two quarterbacks face off this weekend in Cheney. (Tyler Tjomsland / The Spokesman-Review)
Sacramento State quarterback Kevin Thomson, right, struggled against Kaden Elliss and the Idaho Vandals, but righted the ship in a win over Southern Utah to share Big Sky Conference Offensive MVP honors with Eastern Washington QB Gabe Gubrud. The two quarterbacks face off this weekend in Cheney. (Tyler Tjomsland / The Spokesman-Review)Buy a print of this photo
By Jim Allen jima@spokesman.com

After four roller-coaster weeks, Eastern Washington fans are ready to exhale.

Not so fast.

That “soft middle” of the schedule suddenly looks a lot tougher than it did in August.

Next up is a Sacramento State squad that once looked like the easiest out of the season, but the Hornets are a surprising 2-2 and coming off a monster 54-27 Big Sky Conference win over Southern Utah.

How big a win was it? After back-to-back 2-9 seasons, Sac State head coach Jody Sears, a former Eastern assistant, came into this season needing a big season to keep his job.

So far, so good. The Hornets opened the season with a respectable 28-6 loss at Idaho, blew out Incarnate Word 56-22 and took 18th-ranked Weber State to the limit before drubbing the Thunderbirds.

“We keep challenging the team and they keep responding, and when they do you get performances like this,” Sears said.

The breakout performance came from junior quarterback Kevin Thomson. While Eastern’s Gage Gubrud was breaking the school single-game passing record at Montana, Thomson turned in a performance that was good enough to force the Big Sky to name the two players the Co-Offensive Players of the Week.

Now they’ll be on the same field Saturday in Cheney against eighth-ranked Eastern (2-2). The winner gets a 2-0 start in the league.

Against Southern Utah, Thomson accounted for 402 yards of total offense and seven touchdowns. He was 14-for-26 passing for 253 yards and three scores while running for 149 more.

Southern Utah thought it was ready for Thomson.

“We thought he would be an issue heading into the game … sure enough, it happened tonight,” Thunderbirds coach Demario Warren said. “That’s on me for not harping on that enough and not getting the game plan circled around that guy.

“He’s a good player,” Warren said.

He has company. Thomson led a group of seven ball carriers which rushed for 333 yards against a Southern Utah defense which entered the game having allowed just 123.7 yards per game.

A week earlier, SUU held nationally-ranked Northern Iowa to minus-16 rushing yards.

Sac State, which has reached the postseason only once since moving to the Big Sky in 1996, returned 18 starters, the most of any Big Sky team.