The Front Row with MARK NELKE July 29, 2010

They haven’t even played a game on the new red Sprinturf which has garnered them so much attention — it won’t even be installed until next week — but the Eastern Eagles feel like they are winners on the football field already this year.

“Already, the type of exposure and in a sense, the unpaid advertising, not just for the football program but in my opinion, the university as a whole, has been off the charts,” said EWU football coach Beau Baldwin, while in Coeur d’Alene earlier this week to speak to the North Idaho College Booster Club. “There hasn’t been a single player on our team or recruit that we’ve signed, that hasn’t been absolutely ecstatic about the idea of playing on it.”

Now, Baldwin admits it’s likely none of his recruits signed based solely for the chance to play on the red turf, made possible by a $500,000 pledge by former Eagle and current Tennessee Titans lineman Michael Roos, but, if a recruit was torn between two schools, the turf could have swayed his decision to sign with Eastern.

“It definitely had a positive effect in our recruiting process,” Baldwin said.

He likens the fuss over the turf to when Boise State installed blue artificial turf in 1986.

“We looked at what they were able to do over the years, and I think some of the attention it brought to them early on when they first did it, was all really positive stuff,” Baldwin said. “And since then, obviously, the blue turf is down on the list of things you think about when you think about Boise State, because now you’re thinking about just an amazing football program that’s been built.

“Love it or hate it, it’s been a fun deal.”

BALDWIN, THE offensive coordinator from 2003-06 before taking over the head coaching job at Central Washington, his alma mater, is entering his third season as head coach at EWU.

He went 6-5 in 2008, his first season. Last year, the Eagles began the year ineligible for the postseason because of infractions in the program under the previous coaching staff. The Eagles were 5-3 when the postseason ban was overturned, and they won their last three games to make it into the playoffs, where they lost in the first round and finished 8-4.

He said he wasn’t expecting the ban to be overturned, and he gave a lot of credit to last year’s seniors, who kept the team together when it would have been easy to lose focus with no playoffs to shoot for. A winning season under those circumstances would be a great reflection on their character, he told them.

“One of the things we talked about was, you can only control the things that you can control,” Baldwin said. “We can control the 11 games that are scheduled. We can control how hard we work in the summer, how hard we can work in the spring, so those are the things we’re going to focus on. And that was the mentality we took. We’re going to control exactly what we’re capable of controlling, and not let the stuff that we can’t control get us in a funk.”

FEW KIDS from North Idaho play at Eastern, a couple of the more notable ones being former Coeur d’Alene High lineman Kurt Sigler and later his brother, Kraig.

Baldwin said it’s not a knock on North Idaho, but simply a matter of finances, and the higher cost of out-of-state scholarships.

“We’re limited on the number of out-of-state scholarships,” he said. “Even though location-wise it makes total sense to recruit the area, it’s less expensive to sign someone out of Tacoma than it is out of Coeur d’Alene.”

He said if the Eagles are also recruiting players in, say, Denver, Sacramento, Portland, etc., as well as a North Idaho athlete, the local kid has to be someone who is going to come in and contribute, to make the added expense worth it.

“It’s not a matter of us not wanting to recruit players in this area,” he said. “It’s not a matter of me not understanding that there’s very good high school football in this year, it’s more a matter of, it’s out of state, and we’re limited out of state in what we can go do.”

Speaking of Idaho, EWU and Idaho used to play regularly when both were in the Big Sky Conference. The teams haven’t met since 2003, but are scheduled to play again in 2012.

Baldwin warily recalled that ’03 game, won by Eastern by the unsightly score of 8-5.

“That was my second game as an offensive coordinator, so I wasn’t really lighting up the scoreboard, but we got the win ... we hit a three-run home run in the ninth,” he said with a laugh.

BALDWIN SAID if Montana ever decided to leave the Big Sky for the higher-level Football Bowl Subdivision, he wouldn’t blame the Grizzlies at all, but the conference has other strong teams and would still survive.

As for Eastern, the Eagles have made the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs four times in the past six seasons, advancing to the second round in 2004 and ’07.

So how does Eastern get to the next level, where the Eagles are contending for national championships?

“To me, you keep trying to make little improvements,” Baldwin said. Whether it be the new field surface, the expanded press box, an upgraded scoreboard, adding academic support, perhaps doing things a little bit differently on their recruiting weekends to land more recruits, maybe tweaking the practice routine — every little improvement helps.

“If you do things a little bit better, it’s a fine line ... it could be the smallest thing that could get you over the hump,” Baldwin said.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via e-mail at [email protected].