COACH'S CORNER: SEMO LOSS A TOUGH PILL TO SWALLOW

Having been through thick and thin over the past seven to eight years as Southeast Missouri State's head football coach, this is the most difficult article written to date.

Saturday night's 41-7 home loss to Illinois State amid the expectations simply boils down to too many missed scoring opportunities early in the game. Dropped passes, turnovers and bad punt snap are not good.

However, when the score is 7-7, 7-14, even 7-17 at the half, the game isn't over! Confidence, faith and execution should be enough to overcome a 10-point deficit at any point during the game.

The first half left our defense out of gas from 40-plus snaps and a loss of poise in our offense. We showed a degree of immaturity that never let us back into the game.

Credit goes to Illinois State for a job well done. They showed in their previous game against Buffalo, when they came back from a 21-7 deficit, that they kept their composure. They have an outstanding freshman quarterback and a lot of talent all over the field.

In the post-game locker room we spoke of keeping poise, intensity and faith in each other, learning from mistakes and putting Illinois State behind us as soon as possible.

We have nine opportunities left beginning with a tough Murray State team this Saturday night in Murray, Ky. The Racers have lost two last-minute games, to Western Kentucky in triple overtime and to Southern Illinois this past Saturday when SIU rallied from a 20-3 fourth-quarter deficit.

I'm sure that the Racers will be looking forward to league play as are we. Murray will feature a quick and aggressive defense along with a `my guy is better than yours' offense.

Murray has dominated the Ohio Valley Conference the past two years, going 16-0 and making the I-AA playoffs each season. They lost some talented players from last year's team but they look like the same Racers to me. They have a lot of talent and will have tremendous athletes all over the field.

Our players must practice with game-like focus all week to improve for Murray. We look forward to playing them and beginning OVC play.

The OVC looks like an extremely balanced league this year, particularly among the top five or six teams. Eastern Illinois is the only league team with a winning record right now at 2-1 but many of the conference squads have played some of the best teams in the country. I look for an exciting race that should go down to the wire.

I was asked by a local scribe on Monday if I was still as confident of this team as I was prior to the Illinois State game. The question enraged me inside. We have good people as coaches and players that work in a highly intense and emotional setting. Through working with these men I stand firm in my confidence in their ability. It's up to me as the head coach to bring it out of them, put it on the field and win.

Come see us "bounce back" against the Racers!

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