Excitement surrounds program entering opener

I am really excited about the upcoming football season, in part because all of you seem to be excited. I can feel the excitement in the community and believe me that carries over to our team.

We are anxious to play somebody elseÉanybody else. We've been beating on ourselves since the start of fall camp and we are ready to play another team. We have a tough opener tonight in I-A Ohio University, but it will be a good measuring stick of just where we are as a football program.

After the fall practices I feel we are a better football team, but game action tells the story. I think Ohio will be the best team we will play this year with the possible exception of Arkansas State, but we are going to Athens, Ohio, to win a football game. Ohio has to be favored, but we will see how we stack up.

We have a very tough non-conference schedule with I-A Ohio and Arkansas State, and regional I-AA rivals Southern Illinois and Southwest Missouri. We want to win every game, but we have to remember that our goal is to win the Ohio Valley Conference and advance to the I-AA playoffs.

We plan to play a lot of players tonight because we feel we have quality depth this year and it is important for all our players to get game action. We're playing to win, but we are also preparing for the OVC schedule.

Everyone asks me about who will start at quarterback, and as I write this column, I really don't know who will start. We have three excellent quarterbacks and they will all play tonight. We shuffle our quarterbacks in and out during practice and the other players on the offensive unit don't seem to know or care who is in on a given play.

Our football team has worked very hard during the fall drills and we have been relatively injury free. I think that is due to the fact that so many of our players spent the summer in Cape Girardeau and worked out with strength coach Paul Helsel. Our players were physically ready to go on the opening day of fall camp.

We're getting excellent team leadership. The team elected six captains and in all my years coaching I don't remember a closer vote as a lot of players received votes. I think this shows we have excellent leadership throughout our team.

The offensive captains will be quarterback Jack Tomco, center Eugene Amano and kicker Derek Kutz. It is also the first time I have had a kicker elected captain, showing the respect the entire team has for Derek. The defensive captains will be end Ryan Roth, linebacker Ricky Farmer and cornerback Dimitri Patterson.

I know they will all do an excellent job. Captain is an important position on any football team. You have to have leadership from within.

Ohio has a veteran defensive unit that gives you a lot of different looks, and offensively the Bobcats use every formation imaginable. This means our coaches and players will have to make a lot of adjustments on the fly tonight. This will be a good learning experience that should help us later in the season.

I would like to thank everyone who attended or contributed to the Reverse Raffle Saturday night at the Arena Building. It was a great time and a lot of people won a lot of great prizes. It was a terrific way to get the football season started and it served as a good fund raiser for the football program.

The hype is over. It is time to play some football. I know a lot of people are making the long trip to Athens, Ohio, for the game, but if you can't be there you can hear the game on K-103 radio.

Tim Billings is the head football coach at Southeast Missouri State University.