Eastern Washington's veteran secondary hopes to lead defensive turnaround

Eastern Washington’s first season under defensive coordinator Eric Sanders didn’t go well, especially against the pass.

The Eagles – who will hold their first of three spring scrimmages at 3:30 p.m. Friday at Roos Field – allowed more passing yards per game last year (285.8) than they had in any of their last 10 seasons and gave up yards at a clip of 8.5 per attempt, second-most in the Big Sky.

Eastern is counting on a second year in Sanders’ NFL-style defense leading to improvement in all facets, including against the pass. And it appears as if the Eagles will be relying on many second- and third-year players to execute that defense better than last year.

“I think we’re more of a family, and the camaraderie is a lot closer now,” graduate student McKel Broussard, the veteran of the secondary, said of the position group. “You’d like to have older guys, but I think the younger guys are buying in and they understand what we have to do.”

Broussard came on strong late last season, which was his second with the Eagles after starting his career at UTEP, closer to his hometown of Fort Worth, Texas. He made 45 tackles, fourth-most on the team, and started the final four games of the team’s 4-8 season.

The 2019 high school graduate is back for a sixth college football season because he said he has more to give.

“I’ve still got a lot left in me; I’m peaking at the right time,” Broussard said. “I was injured in the past, and I just feel like I have a lot more to prove.”

Broussard will presumably hold down one of the starting safety spots opposite third-year player Derek Ganter Jr., an All-America freshman last season, when he made a team-high 95 tackles.

Ganter has started 11 of his 16 games at Eastern and has resoundingly received accolades from teammates and coaches during that time. The Eagles will also rely on fifth-year cornerback DaJean Wells, who broke up 12 passes last season, as a leader in the secondary.

But after Broussard and Wells, the list of fourth- or fifth-year players includes just two names: Drew Carter, who has 39 tackles in 25 career games for the Eagles; and transfer Amdane Aboudou, whose college athletics experience includes two years as a hurdler and runner at Washington State and one spring on its football roster (he was also a first-team All-Metro cornerback as a senior at Garfield High School in Seattle).

Eastern Washington head coach Aaron Best reiterated at practice Wednesday the importance of the program’s more recent recruiting classes.

He also pointed out that the team didn’t consistently step up enough in “situational moments” last season, especially on defense.

“We were probably 10, 12 plays away from turning the record from 4-8 to 8-4, but that didn’t happen,” Best said. “We were 4-8. We didn’t rise to the occasion in those pivotal moments.”

It wasn’t for a lack of effort, Best said.

“But like we always say in the coaching world, don’t get effort confused with results,” he said. “Just because you’re playing hard doesn’t mean you’re playing well, and we’ve got a ton of studying to do as players, because we are going to have a ton of young ones this year we’re going to count on who are coming off a redshirt that we’re excited about.”

In addition to third-year members of the secondary such as Jonathan Landry, Zion Jones, Jaylon Jenkins and JoJo Maxey-Johnson, some who could see more playing time are second-year players Ambrose Marsh, Marcus Lloyd and Josiah Goode.

There is considerable playing time to be had, too. Gone are Cage Schenck (53 career games at EWU), Darrien Sampson (51), Alphonse Oywak (28), Kentrell Williams Jr. (28), and Armani Orange (26).

“As a defense our main goal is to work better as a defense as a whole,” Wells said earlier this spring. “We had struggles last year, and we’re trying to figure out how to get better as a team. Another year with coach (Sanders), and we’re continuing to learn the system and get better at it.”

A lot of the focus this spring, then, is on mastering the principles that so many of them were learning last season and to better understand how each player’s piece fits into the larger puzzle.

Toward that end, Broussard is embracing a more vocal role.

It’s not necessarily natural for the soft-spoken safety who spends much of his offseason time back in Texas, working with horses. It’s something he’s done since he was about 8 years old.

The story goes that Broussard was playing baseball with his best friend and hit a home run – which dented his friend’s family truck. His friend joked that he had to clean horse stalls to pay off the cost of damages, so he did.

But the passion stuck: Broussard has hauled horses across the country and still works with them wherever he gets a chance.

“They’re just majestic animals, and you need an outlet with football,” Broussard said. “You need something to release and relax.”

But right now the Eagles are far from being in relaxation mode. They recognize the importance of this season, and pending the arrival of transfers and true freshmen this summer, the group they have now is going to be relied on to lead what they intend is a reversal of course for a program that played in a national title game as recently as seven seasons ago – just a few months before Broussard graduated from high school.

“This team, they need someone that’s older who is from that 2019 era,” Broussard said. “I feel like I can do that for this team. I can provide an anchor. I’m not done. My body’s not done, so why should I quit? I just love the sport.”