Beau Baldwin

Beau Baldwin (born May 21, 1972) is an American football coach and former player. He is currently the head football coach at Eastern Washington, a position he has held since the 2008 season. Baldwin served as the head coach at Central Washington for one season in 2007.

Playing career

Baldwin graduated from Curtis Senior High School in University Place, Washington in 1990. He played at quarterback and earned three letters in football and three in baseball in his high school career. Baldwin helped lead Curtis to the 1989 Washington State 3A title in football.

Baldwin played in college at Central Washington from 1990-93. As a player, Baldwin was a two-time team captain and completed 121-of-197 passes for 1,655 yards and eight touchdowns. His career completion percentage of .614 is a school record. In a 38-35 win versus Simon Fraser in 1991, he set single-game school records for attempts (52), completions (32), yards (467), total plays (66) and total yards (550). He had a 6-yard touchdown pass with four seconds left to give the Wildcats the win.

In his last two seasons, Baldwin served as the backup to Jon Kitna, who would go on to spend 15 years in the National Football League with various teams.

After college, Baldwin spent a short time playing semi-pro football in Sweden. He played in a league that allowed only two American players per team, and they were also required to serve as assistant coaches, giving Baldwin a springboard into his coaching career back in the United States.

Assistant coaching career

Baldwin returned to Central Washington in 1994 as the quarterbacks coach for the Wildcats. He coached Kitna, whom he served as a backup to just a year earlier. In 1995, Kitna, under the tutelage of Baldwin, helped lead Central Washington to a 10-3-1 record and the NAIA Division II National Championship. Kitna would go on to receive All-American honors and would eventually go on to play 15 seasons in the National Football League.

Baldwin would serve as the quarterbacks coach at Central until 2002. In this time, Baldwin coached another All-American quarterback in Zak Hill, who led Central in 2002 to an 11-1 record and a top-five ranking at the NCAA Division II level. Hill would eventually serve under Baldwin as his quarterbacks coach when Baldwin took over as head coach at Eastern Washington.

In 2003, Baldwin went to Eastern Washington and spent four seasons with the Eagles as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. In this time, Eastern Washington made two FCS Playoff appearances in 2004 and 2005. Baldwin also coached quarterback Erik Meyer, who would go on to win the Walter Payton Award in 2005, the first player from Eastern Washington to win the award.

Head coaching career

Central Washington

In 2007, Baldwin returned to Central Washington as the head coach of the Wildcats. In his only season at Central as head coach, Baldwin led Central to a 10-3 record and an appearance in the 2007 NCAA Division II Playoffs, where they would lose in the quarterfinals to two-time defending Division II National Champion Grand Valley State.

Baldwin’s quarterback in 2007 was Mike Reilly, who was one of 24 national candidates for the Harlon Hill Trophy, given to the top player in Division II football. In 2007, Central Washington averaged 398.5 yards of total offense per game in 2007, including an average of 263.5 passing. Central averaged 31.4 points per game, including five games with at least 40 points.

Eastern Washington

Baldwin would return to Eastern Washington in 2008 as head coach, replacing Paul Wulff, whom Baldwin had served under as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. In Baldwin's first year, Eastern Washington finished 6-5 overall and 5-3 in the Big Sky Conference.

In 2009, Eastern finished with an 8-4 record and advanced to the FCS Playoffs for the fourth time in six seasons, losing in the first round to Stephen F. Austin, 44-33.

2010 would see Baldwin lead Eastern Washington to their best season in school history, leading the Eagles to a 13-2 record and the school's first national championship in football, winning the NCAA Division I Football Championship with a 20-19 come-from-behind victory over Delaware in the title game on January 7, 2011 in Frisco, Texas.

In 2011, the Eagles were ravaged by injuries en route to a 6-5 finish, missing the chance to defend their title in the FCS Playoffs. During this season, Eastern would receive its second Payton Award winner in quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell.

In the 2012 and 2013 seasons, Eastern would amass a 33-6 total record, winning two Big Sky Conference titles, including the school's first undisputed conference title in 2013. In these two seasons, Eastern would make consecutive trips to the FCS Playoffs, losing both times in the semifinal round. Baldwin would be named the Big Sky Conference Coach of the Year in both seasons.

In the 2013 season opening game, Baldwin would lead Eastern Washington to an upset win over FBS #25 Oregon State. Eastern's win is only the third time an FCS team has defeated a ranked FBS opponent in the history of college football. The win proved to be a milestone for Baldwin and the program, delivering a great deal of national media attention to the team and quarterback Vernon Adams, who passed for 411 yards and four touchdowns and ran for 107 yards with two more touchdowns in the victory.

In 2014, Baldwin will be entering his seventh season with Eastern Washington. His team will play the first college football game of the 2014 season at any division in the newly formed 'FCS Kickoff' game against Sam Houston State. The game will be nationally televised on ESPN, another milestone for the Eagle football program.

Head coaching record

References

External links

• Eastern Washington profile
• Beau Baldwin at the College Football Data Warehouse