COACH'S CORNER: INDIANS BACK HOME AFTER 45-10 DEFEAT

Southeast Missouri State University's game Saturday at Southwest Missouri State was marred by 34 penalties, 18 against Southwest and 16 against us.

After a close and competitive first half, we ended up losing the game 45-10. It was Southwest's homecoming before a crowd of nearly 14,000. The atmosphere and conditions were that of a super afternoon for college football.

Our players came out very focused and excited for the game. We kept in the game in the first half through a big pass play from Bobby Brune to Corey Williams, a late drive that led to a Nick Reggio field goal and a couple of defensive stands that overcame poor field position.

In the second half, Southwest scored and set up scores via the long pass. They matched up their 6-foot-4 receivers with our shorter defensive backs and went to work on them. The Bears were able to score 21 points in the third quarter to pretty much break the game open and they added their final seven points in the fourth quarter.

As a whole, our team continues to play hard. Obviously, we must play much smarter and more disciplined. Lost yards through penalties and turnovers and giving up big plays limited our offensive opportunities and extended the play of our defense.

Our injury situation continues to worsen as some players played hurt and others were injured in Saturday's game. We're going to have to get healthy this week and some of our players are going to have to play through their injuries, which they have been doing a good job at.

We will regroup again and prepare for a very tough Middle Tennessee State team that will come to Houck Stadium for our homecoming game this Saturday. The Blue Raiders have played well this year to date.

Middle Tennessee is coming off an extremely tough loss to Eastern Illinois 35-32. The Blue Raiders had a 32-21 lead with 1:25 left but Eastern Illinois scored 14 points very late to pull out the victory.

This will be the last meeting between Southeast and Middle Tennessee as the Blue Raiders will make the move to Division I-A next year. The last time Middle Tennessee visited us, we won an exciting game in overtime.

Even though our football team has lost two games in a row after playing four straight pretty good games, we will continue to accentuate the positive and try to bounce back. Our players seem to be a resilient group and, even though they're disappointed about the loss, I think they'll continue to have a positive attitude.

We are now 3-5 overall and 2-3 in the Ohio Valley Conference, which puts us in a tie for fifth place. With two OVC games remaining, we still have a chance to finish in the top half of the conference standings. And with three games left overall, we can still finish with a winning record, which is our goal now.

Homecoming is always an exciting time and this will be an opportunity for us to pick up an OVC win. It should be a great afternoon on the Southeast campus.

John Mumford is the head football coach at Southeast Missouri State University