INDIANS END TWO-A-DAY WORKOUTS

With less than two weeks remaining until the season opener, Southeast Missouri State University's football Indians are now officially done with two-a-days.

Southeast's fall semester begins today, meaning the Indians will begin practicing just once daily. And that's fine with head coach John Mumford.

"We're pretty banged up right now. Mostly just minor dings, but we need to get healthy," said Mumford following Saturday's scrimmage at Houck Stadium. "We've worked them pretty hard during two-a-days and I think they're responded well.

"It'll be good for us to just have one practice a day now until we start the season."

The Indians' first game will be Sept. 3 -- a Thursday -- when Division II Truman State comes to Houck Stadium for a 7 p.m. kickoff.

Truman State -- formerly Northeast Missouri State -- went 6-4 last year and has been a consistently strong Division II program in the 1990s, with six consecutive winning seasons.

Although the Bulldogs lost 16 starters -- including 10 on offense -- from a year ago, Mumford knows they'll be solid and will provide the Division I-AA Indians a stern opening test.

"They've got a very good program in place, so even though they lost a lot of starters, they'll be a strong team," Mumford said.

Mumford was generally pleased with Saturday's scrimmage that lasted about 90 minutes. It was Southeast's second big scrimmage of the preseason and the Indians will have one more before playing their opener.

"I saw some good things, but we just need more consistency," he said.

The Indians have been hit by a variety of injuries, although most of them appear to be relatively minor.

Center Chris Kiefer, a preseason all-Ohio Valley Conference selection, has missed several days of workouts with a stinger-type injury but he was recently cleared and should return this week.