Aug. 29—FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — For nearly the whole of the first half on Saturday, everything was going so well for the Eastern Washington football team .
Nate Bell was well on his way to his first 300-yard passing game. Jaylon Jenkins had already done something just four players had done a year before when he picked off a Ty Pennington pass. Soren McKee had set a new career-long by hitting a 53-yard field goal.
"Momentum was in our favor, obviously, so we felt really good," Bell said of the Eagles' positioning after his 14-yard touchdown pass to Jaxon Branch late in the second quarter. "We were flowing in all phases."
Then that flow stopped for four crucial minutes. And then came a second half in which Northern Arizona steadily, gradually wore down the Eagles and completed a comeback from three touchdowns down to defeat Eastern Washington 34-27 in both teams' season and Big Sky openers at Walkup Skydome .
"The first 26 minutes of that first half was really good football," EWU head coach Aaron Best said. "(After that) we just didn't make the plays that we made those first 26 minutes."
Ahead 24-3 following that touchdown pass from Bell to Branch, two key plays allowed the Lumberjacks (1-0, 1-0 Big Sky), ranked No. 25 in the preseason FCS Stats Perform Poll, to get back in it.
The first was immediate: a 100-yard kickoff return by Lindsey Graves for a touchdown that made it 24-10.
The second came on the third play of Eastern's next drive, when the redshirt junior Bell, making the eighth start of his college career, rolled to his right and threw a pass toward tight end Kaden Stuit that was intercepted by Jahaad Fort at the EWU 33-yard line.
Seven plays later, Quran Gossett scored on a two-yard rush to make it 24-17 with 23 seconds remaining in the first half.
"I am really proud of how our guys hung in there," NAU head coach Brian Wright said,
"And the resilience that we showed when we went down big in the first half."
Yet the loss wasn't a result of the Eagles becoming totally ineffective in any phase of the game. In fact, quite a lot went right for the Eagles (0-1, 0-1).
They outgained the Lumberjacks, 429-365. Their defense allowed NAU to convert on just 4 of 13 third downs. Bell set career-highs in passing yards (307) and completions (30 of 47), and, behind an offensive line that started four sophomores and one junior, he was sacked just once.
"The offensive line did an amazing job for me to feel comfortable back there," Bell said.
But behind the senior quarterback Pennington, the Lumberjacks — who possessed the ball for 20 minutes after halftime — imposed their will on Eastern's defense on three crucial second-half touchdown drives. The first, to start the second half, lasted 7 minutes and 52 seconds and resulted in a field goal.
Soon after came a nine-play, 83-yard drive that gave NAU a 27-24 lead. And then, following a tying field goal by the Eagles, Pennington drove the Lumberjacks 75 yards over 11 plays and capped it with a fourth-down, two-yard touchdown pass to Nassim Isaac to give the Lumberjacks a 34-27 lead with 2:43 to go.
Pennington finished 15 of 27 for 164 yards with two touchdowns and the first-half interception by Jenkins. He also scrambled seven times for 66 yards and was sacked just once.
"If you had told me he walked out of here throwing 162 yards, I would have taken that in a heartbeat," Best said of Pennington, who threw for more than 3,000 yards last season.
After trading three-and-outs before the two-minute timeout, the Eagles got the ball back at their own 25-yard line with 1:52 left needing a touchdown to tie. Bell found receivers Branch, Wesley Garrett and Drew Carlson in succession to advance into NAU territory. Then Kevin Allen III caught a pass on the sidelines and got loose for 31 yards to the NAU 15.
Facing a third-and-6, Bell completed a pass to Branch along the sideline, but the side judge ruled that Branch stepped out of bounds before he caught the ball, nullifying what would have been a first down.
On Eastern's final offensive play, Bell threw incomplete in the back of the end zone looking for Branch, and the Lumberjacks took over with 16 seconds left and the Eagles out of timeouts.
"I just thought he was in the back of the end zone, so I was just putting it top shelf for him," Bell said. "We were on a different page when he was running forward. I like what he did, but I thought he was doing something different."
Now Eastern will turn its focus to a nonconference schedule that starts with a home game against Northern Iowa next Saturday, followed by trips to South Dakota and the University of Washington.
"I think that it was just good football back and forth in the second half," sophomore safety Bryce Smith said. "They're a good team, top 25 in the country for a reason. But it's a game that for sure we should have come out on top."
