Offensive line highlights downhill approach in Southeast Missouri State football's final spring scrimmage

With its spring game cancelled due to injuries and a lack of depth, the Southeast Missouri State football team went through its final scrimmage of the spring on Friday afternoon at Houck Stadium.

The decision was fairly easy for third-year coach Tom Matukewicz, who said there weren’t any serious injuries, but enough of them that it would’ve put more of a tax on the players available and risked more injuries.

“All of a sudden you get to the spring game and you don’t have the depth to take some of the other players out and so it just ended up the risk didn’t match what we felt like the reward would be for having a spring game,” Matukewicz said. “ … The only negative is just for this community.”

The Redhawks came out of Friday’s scrimmage without any additional injuries.

A handful of explosive plays by the running backs and the offense’s ability to convert on third down during situational drills impressed Matukewicz.

Southeast’s defense was able to slow down the running game for the most part, but couldn’t keep the offense from moving the chains.

Tremane McCullough, who is being put through the motions as a running back, receiver and returner this spring, caught a pass across the middle from No. 1 quarterback Dante Vandeven and ran it in for a touchdown.

Running back Cam Sanders, who broke off several long runs during the hour-and-a-half-long session, scored on a 1-yard run.

Sanders, who will be a sophomore next season, is optimistic about the offense’s progress throughout the spring in large part because of the offensive line.

“Their leadership, looking out for the younger guys, making sure everybody’s doing their job on the offense,” Sanders said. “It’s like a brotherhood.”

Ben Blake, the Redhawks’ new offensive line coach, is equally impressed with the veterans he’s coaching, like center Jake McCandless and guard Garret Baker.

“Really blessed to come into a group that’s got three seniors, especially guys like McCandless and Baker, and they bought in, so I’m really proud of them just buying in, accepting me,” Blake said, “because when they go, the group goes, and I think you saw that today with the performance we had.”

Blake filled the vacant spot left by Jon Wiemers when he was promoted to offensive coordinator, and has seen his group make great strides in adapting to his techniques and philosophy, which includes a focus on creating more lateral holes than vertical.

“When you’ve been doing the same thing for a few years it’s hard to break some habits," Blake said, "so to see them really take hold to it, believe in it and then see it be successful; they’re kind of making it their own right now and I think we’re starting to peak towards the end here.”

Blake has stressed the importance of being physical at the point of attack, and he saw it Friday.

“We want to be a downhill team and get after people and be able to push on defenses," Blake said, "so if we’re running the ball well downhill like we did today we’re going to have a lot of success, because that’s going to open up our pass game, it’s going to open up our outside game and just allow us to be multi-faceted. If we’re getting stopped on the downhill stuff then it could be a long day.”

Heading into the fifth and final week of practices, Southeast’s offensive line’s focus will be the minor details like hand placement, taking good steps and making sure they “get a body on a body,” according to Blake.

“Just smoothing things out. We’re still a little rigid,” Blake said. “I’d like to see us just smooth the rough edges out, to really hone in on those little things that’ll help us be more successful.”

Southeast will practice Monday and Wednesday next week; there won’t be any live hitting, but Matukewicz has a few more situations, including an overtime scenario, that he wants to squeeze in. The Redhawks’ spring game will be replaced with a kickball tournament with teams divided up by position. They’ll host a free youth clinic at 10 a.m. Saturday morning at Houck Stadium.

“I really feel like we’re resilient. We started well, we hit a bump in the road with some choices that were made off the field," Matukewicz said, referring to the dismissal of RB DeMichael Jackson and suspension of WR Tyler McClemore, "and then we rallied back and I think we really finished strong. I like this team and where they’re at. I really do.”