Arizona football’s season-opening opponent is going to have a leg up on it, as NAU opened its season with a 34-27 comeback win over Eastern Washington on Saturday afternoon. The Lumberjacks were trailing 24-3 at one point before their comeback started.
The NAU defense struggled mightily in the first half allowing Eastern Washington to score on four of the seven first half drives. It also allowed many third down conversions, specifically third and very long. The Eagles had 267 total yards and were
6-9 on third downs.
After going up 24-3, NAU needed an extremely quick response and that’s when Lindsey Graves stepped in. A 100 yard kickoff return was the spark that NAU needed to start their comeback.
Then it was the defense’s turn to finally step up with an interception off of Eastern Washington quarterback Nate Bell. Right before the half, Quran Gossett ran it in from two yards out to cut the lead down to one possession.
Out of the half, the Lumberjacks were able to score and cut the deficit down to four with a field goal. NAU took its first lead of the game two drives later on a 30 yard touchdown pass from Ty Pennington to Jeter Purdy.
Eastern Washington drove down the field to tie the game and the Lumberjacks responded with an 11 play 75 yard drive to reclaim the lead. Pennington threw his second touchdown to Nassim Isaac.
The Eagles did have a chance to tie the game but NAU was able to get the stop at the eleven yard line to run out the rest of the clock and move to 1-0 heading into the in-state showdown against Arizona next Saturday.
NAU finished with 365 yards with a balanced attack but did give up 429 yards on the other side of the ball. Pennington finished with 164 yards and two touchdowns, while Gossett had 103 yards on 21 carries for a touchdown. Purdy had 105 receiving yards on seven catches.
The two schools have not played since Brent Brennan’s first season at the helm. NAU had a 10-6 lead at the half, but Arizona scored 12 consecutive points in the second half to win a very close 22-10 game.
Overall, Arizona is 17-2 against NAU and Brennan is 2-0 in season openers. Kickoff is set for 6:30 p.m. and will be streamed on ESPN+.
