Brune leads comeback after injury to McDowell

NORMAL, Ill. -- Southeast Missouri State University football coach Tim Billings has said numerous times over the past year how fortunate the Indians are to have what he considers to be an abundance of depth and talent at the quarterback position.

Saturday afternoon, that depth and talent came in handy when starting signal caller Jeromy McDowell suffered a knee injury late in the first quarter against Illinois State and spent the rest of the game on crutches along the sidelines. The extent of the redshirt freshman's injured left knee will not be known until further tests are done in Cape Girardeau.

While McDowell has helped ignite Southeast's offense during the first three-plus games of his collegiate career -- he threw for 81 yards before being hurt Saturday to give him 1,016 yards already this season -- senior Bobby Brune is certainly not too shabby a backup.

Brune turned in a strong performance after replacing McDowell, passing for two touchdowns and running for another as the Indians pulled out a 38-33 victory.

Brune, who has been a starter for much of his Southeast career, entered the contest with 3,422 career passing yards. Saturday, he completed 18 of 30 attempts for 159 yards.

"I've said all along that I feel like we have three excellent quarterbacks with Jeromy, Bobby and Rashad (West)," said Billings. "Bobby is a quality guy. He's not first team, but he prepares like he is. He's never complained about not starting.

"Bobby is a heck of a player, but he's an even better person."

While Brune said he hated getting a chance to play a lot only because of the injury to McDowell, he admitted how good a feeling it was to help contribute to such a big victory.

"It feels great, and since Southeast had never won at Illinois State it makes it feel even better," Brune said. "Coach (offensive coordinator Russ) Martin prepares all the quarterbacks like we're starting. We train hard all week and we're all ready to go."

McDowell suffered the injury as he was hammered an instant after he released a pass that wound up as a 37-yard completion to Willie Ponder.

McDowell remained down for several minutes before being helped off the field. He spent the rest of the first half on a training table with ice on the knee and he spent the second half in street clothes.

"Jeromy said he heard the knee pop after getting hit on the knee," Billings said. "We won't know anything until we get back to Cape and have it checked out."

While there were plenty of heroes to go around in the comeback victory, Billings said a big key was the play of redshirt freshman wide receiver Mark McCluney, who entered the contest with no career receptions.

But McCluney caught three passes for 21 yards Saturday and he hauled in a two-point conversion toss from Brune.

"We needed a fourth receiver to come through to go along with Willie, Adrian (Sanders) and Tarik (Simpson)," said Billings. "Mark made some big plays."

Ponder led the receivers with seven catches for 175 yards while Sanders added six receptions for 83 yards.

Even though he missed the first two extra points of his college career -- one was blocked -- Southeast true freshman kicker Derek Kutz continued to shine.

Kutz booted a career-long 43 yard field goal, making him 4-for-5 on the season. And he was successful on one PAT, making him 8-for-10 in that department.

Southeast punter Kyle East also had another strong game as he averaged 47 yards on three attempts. East entered the contest with a 41.7-yard average.