CHENEY, Wash – If you hear EWU head coach Aaron Best yelling “honorable mention” at practice: it’s probably because he just watched a defender come up without an interception.
“If we don’t come down with it, that’s ‘honorable mention’ right there,” said safety Drew Carter.
Coach Best says pass break-ups are great, but he wants his secondary to take advantage of those opportunities and turn them into interceptions. Logging just a PBU instead of INT, coach Best says, is the difference between a first-team defender and just ‘honorable mention’.
Of course, it’s not an official ranking. It’s more like a mindset.
Honorable mention is nice. First team is even nicer.
Pass break-ups are nice. Interceptions are even nicer.
That’s the message echoing through Eastern Washington’s secondary this season.
The emphasis on interceptions will hopefully improve the total takeaways for the Eagles this season, who brought down just six interceptions in 12 games last year. That number falls near the bottom of the pack in the Big-Sky conference.
“You can only emphasize something so much,” said Best. “You gotta go out there and make plays.”
The new mindset, Carter said, is helping create healthy competition in the safety room.
“Just picking on each other you know, like if you don’t go up and get [the ball], technically your honorable mention. We’re just nagging at each other… we just want what’s best for everyone.”
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