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Fans vote EWU’s Best

top coach in FCS

The fans have spoken, and they have voted Best as the best in the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision.

With a late push of votes from Eagle Nation after he led the Eastern Washington University football team to the NCAA Division I Championship game, EWU head coach Aaron Best was declared by Hero Sports as the FCS Coach of the Year in voting which concluded Friday. Best received nearly 40 percent of the total votes cast, with a total of 2,078 to out-distance North Dakota State’s Chris Klieman with 1,127.

The Eagles — who are 12-2 in Best’s second year at the helm — take on Klieman and the Bison on Jan. 5 in Frisco, Texas, for the championship EWU won in 2010 and NDSU has won six of the seven years since. His team advanced to Frisco with a 50-19 win over Maine on Dec. 15.

Eastern will return to practice on Thursday in preparation for the title game. The Eagles set school records offensively for total points (623) and most games of 50 points or more (6, tied with the 2014 team), and defensively have tied a school record with nine games of allowing 20 points or fewer (also in 1997, 1981, 1964 and 1949).

Amazingly, the Eagles have done that without the services of a bevy of players lost because of injuries. In fact, EWU’s starting lineup from its second game of the season versus Washington State was minus nine players — three on offense and six on defense — versus Maine in the semifinals of the FCS Playoffs.