Eystin Salum will be walking onto the turf at Stocker Stadium for his last season opener as a Maverick. The senior quarterback is entering his final year at Colorado Mesa University and is looking to captivate what has already been an outstanding career.
The starting quarterback is coming into the year as the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC) Preseason Offensive Player of the Year. He is also the defending conference Offensive Player of the Year from the previous season.
Those awards don’t come without reason. Salum is dangerous. The Denver native threw for 2,465 yards and 20 touchdowns and ran for an additional 919 yards and 13 touchdowns last year. That adds up to 3,300 yards of total offense. He made the All-RMAC First Team as well as the D2CCA All-Region Team.
Despite the accolades, Salum remains humble and credits the offense around him for not just his success, the but all the success CMU has accumulated on the offensive side of the ball.
“I think its an award for our offense last year,” Salum said. “It is more of a team award, but I kind of got the spotlight because our offense was so explosive last year. I feel like it’s a great honor, but it’s really for our offense from last year.”
This season kicks off this weekend against South Dakota School of Mines (SDSM). In the 2017-18 season opener against Western State, Salum threw for five touchdowns and 290 yards. In the last contest against SDSM, the Mavericks put up 69 points. That spells out a good formula for this Saturday.
This year the Mavericks have six senior captains, Salum being one of them, despite a lot of new young talent. The landscape of the team is slightly different from there being a good amount of freshmen talent on the team.
“I think we are just trying to give all we can to the young guys,” Salum said. “I’m just out there having fun and just trying to get better any way we can so that involves talking and communicating and working on the field.”
Salum will be leading a new look Maverick offense that will feature three new offensive linemen, two of them being a freshman. CMU will be without Austin Fleer, who was considered the leader of the offensive line last year.
This year will hopefully be a redemption year for the Mavericks. After the crushing loss to Azusa Pacific to cap off last season, Salum and the rest of the CMU football team goal is aimed past the regular season.
“I think the goal for the team is to take it a day at a time, and keeping our end goals in mind which is the RMAC championship and a birth to the playoffs so we have a shot at the national championship,” Salum said. “Just taking each day at practice one at a time.”
After four hard years dedicated to his team, Salum is graduating this December and leaving Grand Junction behind, in which the remaining season will be a testament to hanging on to every last moment.
“I realize how temporary my time here is,” Salum said. “Really each day is one of my last days in Grand Junction and one of my last days playing football on this team I’ve been on for four years. I’ve been trying to enjoy every moment and dedicate myself to everything and give everything to it and not cheat the process.”
Salum will lead the Mavericks onto the field against SDSM on Saturday at 1 p.m.
