Coach Tuke (and his wife) are sleeping better after further review of Redhawks

Veteran Southeast Missouri State football coach Tom Matukewicz drank a gallon of truth serum before his postgame press conference on Saturday following the Redhawks’ 35-28 win over Eastern Illinois at Houck Field.

“That is not a championship team,” Matukewicz said afterward of his group. “We look like a talented team that is poorly coached.”

SEMO (2-4, 2-0 Big South/OVC Football Association) will visit Tennessee Tech (2-4, 0-1) at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday (ESPN+).

Matukewicz’s angst didn’t cease until his wife, Lenna, had decided SHE had had enough of it at on Sunday.

“She flipped on the light at 4 a.m. and ripped me,” Matukewicz explained.

Hell, hath no fury like a woman worn (out).

“You lost three straight games,” Lenna berated, “and now we won a game, and you can’t sleep. You are keeping me up. You’re tossing and turning.

“I ain’t standing for it.”

Alright then.

Matukewicz got himself “back in the right mindset,” watched the film of the win over the Panthers and determined that there has been growth within his team over this season.

“There was some uncharacteristic stuff,” Matukewicz said. “That is not the kind of team that I want. There is some stuff that we have to get straight right now.

“I think we will. People are trying really, really hard, and we just lost our way a bit. But we’ll get back on track.”

One of those areas of improvement has been the play of the offensive line, late penalties against Eastern Illinois, aside, as it relates to the struggling Redhawk run game.

Despite the fact that SEMO has a pair of preseason All-Americans in center Zack Gieg and running back Geno Hess, as well as experienced starting offensive lineman Kobe Sixkiller, it ranks seventh in its 10-team league in rushing.

“We have to skill build,” Matukewicz said of his team’s young offensive line maturing. “To skill-build takes reps and feedback. It just takes a while, playing with some young guys.”

That development showed against Eastern Illinois.

After gaining just 43 yards in a September loss at Eastern Kentucky, Hess has bounced back with games of 122 yards (against Central Arkansas) and 129 yards on Saturday.

Against the Panthers, he scored two touchdowns, caught four passes for 53 yards, and broke SEMO’s all-time career record in all-purpose yardage and the Ohio Valley Conference's all-time career record in rushing touchdowns.

He now has 4,962 all-purpose yards and 59 rushing touchdowns in his career.

“We made a couple of good scheme adjustments offensively,” Matukewicz said of Saturday’s production. “We got the run game going.”

Matukewicz praised the Eastern Illinois defense, which ranks fourth in the league in stopping the run.

“That is a good defense,” Matukewicz said. “To be able to do that, and even when they knew that we were going to run it. We didn’t trick them. They knew we were going to run it. We knew that we were going to run it. And we still ran it.

“That is a staple of a championship team if we can keep that going.”

Hess is averaging 84 yards per game rushing, which ranks him third in the conference.

“Progress,” Matukewicz explained, “is how you keep enthusiasm. When there is no progress, things get hard. You can’t just measure progress in wins and losses. You can measure progress in lots of ways.

“I know others don’t agree that things didn’t get better (against Eastern Illinois), but they have. I’ve watched the film and I feel like there are a lot of things getting better.”

With that, good night, Lenna. Sleep tight.