EIU challenge finally comes into focus

OK, Indians, now you can start thinking about Eastern Illinois.

All this past week, Southeast Missouri State University football coach Tim Billings stressed the importance of focusing on Tennessee-Martin and not looking ahead to EIU.

Well, the players evidently listened to their boss, even though it probably would have been easy not to, considering the sorry state of UTM's program. And maybe the Indians were looking ahead a bit, because they weren't all that sharp Saturday, but they still took care of business and held off the Skyhawks 50-35.

So now the Indians can squarely set their sights on perhaps their biggest game since the school moved up to NCAA Division I-AA and joined the Ohio Valley Conference in 1991.

Saturday, on homecoming no less, big, bad EIU will saunter into Houck Stadium looking for their 10th straight OVC victory. The defending league champion Panthers have not lost a conference game in almost two years.

Southeast's current 2-0 conference record -- the same as EIU's -- pales in comparison to the Panthers' overall streak. In fact, EIU's six OVC victories last year were as many as Southeast had compiled in the past four seasons combined.

But being undefeated in the OVC after two games is nothing to sneeze at if you're a Southeast football fan, considering how down the program has been in recent years. The Indians are certainly treading in uncharted waters because they had never started a season with two straight OVC victories.

So Saturday's game will be for sole possession of first place in the OVC. Sure, it's still early in the conference race. And even with a loss, the Indians -- who at 5-2 already have posted their most wins since 1995 -- still would be able to regroup and put together a breakthrough season.

But with the way the Indians have been playing during their current three-game winning streak, who's to say they can't pull off the upset that would no doubt send shock waves throughout the OVC?

In any event, this will be the biggest football game played by a Southeast team in a long time.

And it would be a crying shame if Houck Stadium isn't jam-packed for the contest.

While a host of Southeast players are having strong seasons, the performance of quarterback Jack Tomco so far has been nothing short of remarkable.

Tomco, although a highly touted junior-college transfer, came to Southeast with no guarantee of even getting on the field because of the presence of Jeromy McDowell, who had a record-setting redshirt freshman season last year.

But when McDowell was lost for the year with a knee injury after the first game, Tomco was given control of the offense. And he has been incredible, breaking several school records Saturday and apparently heading toward one of the finest seasons by a quarterback in the program's long history.

While Southeast's volleyball team will have home matches Friday and Saturday nights as part of homecoming weekend, the school's baseball squad also will contribute to the entertainment for Southeast sports fans.

Coach Mark Hogan's Indians will wrap up their fall workouts with an intrasquad game at 6 p.m. Friday at Capaha Field that is open to the pubic.

The Indians lost their top two pitchers from last year's team that posted the program's first NCAA Division I Tournament victory, but Hogan is high on a host of new hurlers who should be on display Friday.

Marty Mishow is a sports writer for the Southeast Missourian