COACH'S CORNER: INDIANS PUT TOGETHER BIG PERFORMANCE VS. UT-MARTIN

Our football team was so proud to be a part of Southeast Missouri State's '98 Family Weekend in our 41-14 win over Tennessee-Martin Saturday night.

We are very appreciative of the big crowd of 9,138 which was the fifth-largest ever at Houck Stadium. Our student support, not only Saturday but in the previous three weeks, has been excellent. It was great to win the game and then enjoy the music of the legendary Temptations.

In our win against Martin, our offense rolled up 500 yards of total offense, 345 coming on the ground and the rest through the air.

Our line was led by Carlos DeJesus, who was dominating throughout the game. Our front five played very physical and allowed several running backs to run freely.

Corey Williams led our rushers with 131 yards and four touchdowns. We were trying to get a fifth touchdown late in the game for Corey, which would have tied our school record.

Unfortunately, Corey suffered a dislocated elbow. Dr. (William) Thorpe put the elbow back in place and it appears that Corey may return sooner than originally thought. He's a tough individual and I would expect his return sooner than later.

Several quarterbacks played. Kevin Seto played with courage as he still feels the effects of a hip pointer.

Bobby Brune and Jeff Shaw played well and then Mike Gross, who is a jack-of-all-trades on our football team, nearly scored on a 25-yard bootleg run. He later threw a short touchdown pass to Broderick Benson. Mike works very hard and we are proud for his performance.

Defensively, we held Martin to 139 total yards of offense. Poor field position from kicking miscues, which were entirely my trying to be aggressive and get the ball back, put our defense in a hole for Martin's two scores. In the second half, Martin gained only 17 yards, which is extremely impressive by our defense.

Kevin Meachem, Brad Richardson, Jason DeWolf and Leotis Belcher played well. Isaac Powell had another interception, his second of the season.

In all, our performance was solid. It was what we needed after the tough loss to Murray State the previous week and should propel our team toward two upcoming road contests against Eastern Illinois and Tennessee Tech.

Eastern Illinois, our opponent this Saturday afternoon in Charleston, Ill., is coming off a physical 13-6 win over Tennessee Tech. The Panthers are an excellent team and figure to be one of the major contenders in the Ohio Valley Conference.

However, the Indians have continually developed into a team to be reckoned with. Our players feel good about what they have done and will be ready to see if we can make some noise in the conference.

Saturday's game will be extremely physical and we will be ready and willing for the challenge.

Thanks for your support for a great Family Weekend and hopefully you can make the trip to Charleston, Ill., to root us on.

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