EWU football team entertains in highly productive Red Turf Takeover scrimmage in Spokane

The Eastern Washington football team scrimmaged for the first time this fall at the second Red Turf Takeover event at One Spokane Stadium.  All three phases had bright moments, while Coach Best saw most of what he hoped to see in his team's first live situation. The defense opened the scrimmage with a big play as on the second play from scrimmage, Dre Greeley jumped a quick out route and picked off Nate Bell's pass to give the Eagle defense early momentum. After a couple of three-and-outs, the offense started humming as Kaden Rolfsness found Rylin Lang in the end zone for the game's first touchdown. Bell would then find a rhythm as he found a wide open Jaxon Branch for a touchdown after a busted coverage. On Bell's next drive before the half, he connected with Branch again for another touchdown. The defense hunkered down and held the offense to field goal attempts until the last play of the game when Brady Annett found Bennett Juve for the touchdown. "I thought it was a really productive scrimmage in all three phases. There was not one guy who laid down and had to get tended to by the trainers. Any time that happens, it is an awesome thing. I thought we got a lot out of the 92 snaps and the 12 snaps on special teams. It was very productive on a beautiful night and hopefully the fans in Spokane enjoyed what the Eags brought tonight," EWU head coach Aaron Best said. "We were just winning one-on-one matchups. Shout out to the offensive line, the run game was phenomenal today, so we moved the ball down the field slowly but surely and when we had the time to take a shot, we took the shot," Bell said. Coach Best hoped to see more than the one takeaway on defense, but outside of some uninspiring tackling, he saw Morgan Dodson boot the ball out of the back of the end zone on kickoff, explosive plays from his offense and a solid run game led by freshman Jaxon Bell. "The tackling took a little bit of a step back tonight, I felt like we left a lot of yards out there. The tackling was not as clean as we anticipated, but we are playing a ton of guys and all in all, the other three things we wanted to get accomplished, those boxes were checked," Best said. "One of the things from last year that we were trying to build on is not letting up big plays. I think the defense was solid, I don't think we played our best. We played solid enough, but there is a lot of stuff that we can build on going into next week and preparing for NAU, for sure," EWU cornerback JoJo Maxey-Johnson said. Overall, the Eags were happy with Wednesday's performance and happy to have a full scrimmage outside, on turf, under the lights. "We have been adjusting so much to where we have had to be inside in the gym and had full inside practices, we have gone outside for full practices, we have done 50/50, a third outside, two thirds inside, it has been a lot. I don't feel like it has been weird, I just think it has made us a lot stronger, a lot better and just ready for whatever adversity comes," Maxey-Johnson said. EWU will scrimmage again next Friday in Cheney ahead of their August 29 opener in Flagstaff.