Eastern Washington might not have had quite the year it was hoping for when five Division I players transferred in, but the 3-3, 3-4 Eagles seem like a team poised to make the leap to respectability.

"You'll see a markedly better team than in other years," Coach Dick Zornes tells Weber State observers.Eastern Washington is the Wildcats' homecoming opponent Saturday at 1 p.m. in Wildcat Stadium.

"They scare me for a lot of reasons," says Weber assistant head coach/defensive coordinator Bill Smith. "They're very well coached, and they do more with less than maybe anybody around."

The Eagles' record is misleading. They lost only 22-16 to Montana (5-1 in the Big Sky), 41-34 to Idaho (6-0) and 42-36 to nationally ranked Stephen F. Austin last week. They had chances to win those games.

They've beaten most of the teams they should have - Nevada-Reno, Northern Arizona and Idaho State.

They started well defensively and rank second in the league in interceptions with 14, five by Jason Elliott, but Zornes blames "poor play in the secondary and at linebacker" for the last two losses. "I'm still a bit mystified," he says of the defense.

Offensively, Eastern Washington seems to have gotten rolling now that freshman quarterback Mark Tenneson has started three games.

He replaced one of those Division I transfers who quit the team.

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In fact, says Zornes, that experiment "really hasn't worked out," and those transfers are backups, for the most part.

Tenneson has thrown for 768 yards and seven touchdowns in his three starts, including 335 yards and four TDs last week on SFA.

"Our offense showed a lot of improvement and played a good ballgame against, by far, the best defense we faced this year up to this point." Dominic Corr leads the Big Sky in rushing and all-purpose yards.

Wide receiver Jamie Buenzli, who had seven catches for 151 yards last time he played in Ogden, is expected back after a shoulder separation.

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