Colfax's McNannay kicks 64 points on EWU title run

An extension of the football season will be available for Colfax football fans who have been following the career of Tyler McNannay, a 2011 Colfax graduates who is now a key part of the Eastern Washington Eagles team, winners of the Big Sky Conference Title again this year.

The Eagles have been seeded number four in the Football Championship division playoff.

McNannay, who served as a kicker on two Colfax state football teams, has been the kicker for the Eagles this fall in their campaign to the conference title. He and other members of the Eagles team are now on a one-week break with a bye, which goes to top finishers in the playoff conferences. The Eagles will be back in business next Saturday against the winner of the Montana-San Diego game in the first round of the playoffs this week.

The second round game will be Dec. 6 at Roos Field in Cheney.

McNannay started his career with the Eagles this year after sitting out the season last year following a transfer from Weber State at Ogden, Utah.

He joined the Eagles about two weeks into fall training camp.

“They called up some film of me kicking for Weber State, and I joined the team,” McNannay said.

He returned to football at full bore with the Eagles who have compiled a 10-2 overall record. They sustained just one loss, to Northern Arizona, in the Big Sky campaign. Their other loss at the start of the season was to the University of Washington, a Pac 12 team they came very close to upsetting.

Now a junior at Eastern, McNannay made his first-ever collegiate field goal with a 27-yarder that gave EWU the lead for good at 9-7 against the University of California-Davis Sept. 27. He also made 4-of-5 extra points and handled kickoff duties for EWU.

He was taking the place of Roldan Alcobendas, who suffered a potential season-ending knee injury at Montana State a week earlier.

In the EWU campaigns since McNannay has hit 8-of-8 kicking field goals with his longest score at 43 yards. He has also made 40-of-45 extra points for a total of 64 points scored to date.

McNannay has also kicked off 30 times for a 56.3 yard average and two touchbacks.

In last Friday’s league finale at Portland State, McNannay kicked eight for eight extra points for the Eagles in the 56-34 win.

After graduating from Colfax in 2011, McNannay made a stop at Washington State University that fall as a walk-on. He was a redshirt freshman for the Cougars that season and then opted to go to Weber State when Jody Sears was hired from the Cougar staff to lead the Wildcats.

At Ogden in 2012, he was an injury replacement when Tony Epperson also suffered a knee injury. McNannay finished fifth in the league in punting with a 43.0 average, and also handled kickoffs.

After the one season for the Wildcats, McNannay decided the distance from home and the outlook for Weber State football warranted a change, and he made tracks for Cheney where he had to sit out last season under the NCAA transfer rule.

He is now on the roster for the Eagles as a junior with one more year of eligibility left.

McNannay’s success at the college level doesn’t come as a surprise for Colfax fans who watched him perform with the Bulldogs, His ability to kick the football down the field was a consistent factor in the Colfax campaigns to state title games.

McNannay’s distance shots usually tagged 10 to 15 yards on the offensive assignment for opponents.

“He’s really always been a kicker,” his father, Rick McNannay commented. He can recall going to a junior league football game at the Kibbie Dome in Moscow and finding Tyler, then a fourth grader, kicking the ball with a shoe off. Tyler explained a that time he was trying to eliminate the effect shoe laces can have on the direction of the ball.

Tyler’s big brother, Ryan, now a member of the Pullman Police Department, was working with him at that time.

Tyler credits a lot of his early kick instruction to the late Jug Daubert of Colfax.

Tyler said when he was a seventh grader, he said sidelined with an arm injury. The coaches allowed him to wrap the arm and he spent the season learning how to kick the ball under the tutelage of Daubert.

“He just spent hours out there teaching me to kick,” Tyler noted.

Mr. Daubert, who died unexpectedly last week, had been following the Eagles and McNannay closely this season.

McNannay was part of the 2009 and 2010 Colfax teams which went all the way to the state final game at the Tacoma Dome. The Bulldogs’ 2009 title bid ended with a 24-32 loss to Adna after junior quarterback Alex Teade went down with and injury following a Colfax charge.

Colfax was stopped again in the 2010 title game by South Bend which stacked a 28-8 run. As a senior running back, McNannay shared the team’s MVP award with Teade.

McNannay said he really appreciates the support he gets from Colfax grads at Eastern. He lives with Kellen Morgan, also a member of the Bulldog teams and with his little brother Kellen, a 2013 graduate of Colfax. Teade, also studying at EWU, is another close friend on campus from Colfax days.

McNannay said a normal day on campus included classes until about 2:30 p.m. He noted most Eastern faculty members, knowing the hours required for team members, cooperate when class schedules and deadlines are required. On a normal day, football practices start at 3:50 and continue until about 5:45 p.m.

The Eagle team members are marking a light schedule during the holiday week and the playoff bye, but McNannay said they will be back at full steam next week as they practice for the Dec. 6 playoff round.