COACH'S CORNER: SE FOOTBALL STARTS BETTER BUT RECEIVES ANOTHER LOSS

After an encouraging comeback against Eastern Kentucky two weeks ago, we felt that the Tennessee Tech game would be a key turning point in righting our season.

We came out entirely more focused to start the Tech game than we had against Eastern Kentucky and went into halftime with a 7-0 lead.

Our touchdown came on a 32-yard Bobby Brune to Leslie Weaver pass. Prior to that touchdown, we overthrew Leslie on a fourth down that, if caught, would have given us a 14-0 lead.

Later in the second quarter we squandered four scoring opportunities as we pinned Tech down on their own end of the field for the final 12 minutes of the half. Each of the four chances started inside the 50-yard line and resulted in no scores. Had we converted twice, the game was over. But not against a defense such at Tech.

Speaking of defense, the Indian defense held Tech to 74 first-half yards and our punt team pinned them inside the 20 on six occasions. We dismantled the Tech screen game and forced them to come out in the second half and run the ball, something they previously had not done.

Offensively in the first half, we moved the ball effectively against the fifth-ranked defense in the country, but again, we missed out on capitalizing on the great field position. Momentum is difficult to develop and even harder to maintain. We controlled the first-half momentum, but failed to seize it.

In the second half, Tech's defense turned up the burner and smothered us offensively. We did help their cause by several assignment and read miscues.

The Tech offense came out in the second half and surprisingly ran the ball more effectively than imagined. We knew that they had an excellent punt rush and it created a blocked punt for a touchdown on a protection breakdown.

In all, we helped the Golden Eagles too much and let four excellent opportunities to score go by the wayside. The end result was a disappointing 21-7 loss that dropped our record to 0-6 overall, 0-4 in the Ohio Valley Conference.

We didn't hold up our end of homecoming, but we want to congratulate all of the contest winners and thank those who withstood the soggy conditions to support our efforts.

This week we are on the road to face a tough Indiana State team that is 0-5 but has played a brutal schedule, facing two Division I-A teams and three nationally ranked Division I-AA teams.

Indiana State started out the season with losses at I-A Iowa State and Oklahoma. Then came three close losses against Eastern Kentucky, Youngstown State and Illinois State.

It will be a difficult game for us Saturday in Terre Haute, Ind., but we must strive for a consistent outing and bring back a win.

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