​Sep. 9—It was third-and-3 with a minute and 33 seconds left, and Eastern Washington needed one last first down to ice a victory over Northern Iowa.Redshirt junior quarterback Nate Bell took the snap on a designed run play and ran to his left, looking for space. He didn’t find it: UNI linebacker John Powers grabbed him by the waist and swung him around.Only, Bell didn’t go down. Breaking loose, Bell circled clockwise and, when he reached about 8 o’clock in his revolution, he lofted a pass 20 yards toward receiver Wes Garrett, who caught the ball and went down at the UNI 40-yard line.”I was just supposed to run it,” Bell said after the play that secured the 34-24 win Saturday at Roos Field in Cheney. “They got pressure, and he had my pants, but he wasn’t bringing me down. I saw Wes out of the corner of my eye — or actually, he was waving his hands. It ended up working out.”That was the last of Bell’s 24 completions against the Panthers, part of a performance that earned him Big Sky Offensive Player of the Week honors. It was the first of his career and the first by an Eagles offensive player since Kekoa Visperas earned it late in the 2024 season.But Bell’s game-sealing play also neatly encapsulated what has made him such an effective player during Eastern Washington’s first two football games — and just how far Bell has come since he made the last of his six starts during the 2025 season.”Kudos to him,” EWU offensive coordinator Marc Anderson said on Monday. “He’s done a phenomenal job growing as a passer.”Bell’s elusiveness has long been a part of his game, somewhat out of necessity. Listed at 5-foot-10, 194 pounds, Bell is the smallest of Eastern’s four quarterbacks and also the most proven rusher. Last year he led the Eagles with 663 rushing yards, and also with 118 rushing attempts.But when it came to throwing, Bell was one of the least accurate quarterbacks in the Big Sky last season, when he completed 94 of 175 passes, just 53.7%.So, Bell went about getting better at that. Throughout practices, Anderson said, Bell would force himself to sit back in the pocket and go through his progressions, even if it meant he got touch-sacked more often.Yet Anderson didn’t want to completely eliminate Bell’s talent for escaping the pocket. So, he went about helping Bell continue to look to throw the ball even when he was outside the tackles.”That’s when quarterbacks become really deadly: when they are looking to pass and they can still throw the ball when they get out of the pocket,” Anderson said.So far, that’s been a significant part of Eastern Washington’s offensive success.”Honestly, I always have to be ready for him to be anywhere back there,” said Garrett, the senior receiver who has 11 receptions for 126 yards this season. “I am getting really used to it now through all of our practices. It’s what makes him special, too: He can roll right, roll left, scramble and make throws on the run.”In the season opener at Northern Arizona, which the Eagles